The 5 types of people who abandon you when you get canceled

In 2018, I gave a talk, and members of the men’s club I started, the Proud Boys, got into a small fight with Antifa. It wasn’t a big deal, but the Democrats and their media lackeys decided to use the incident as a counter to all the left-wing violence going on at the time. The midterms were coming, and they needed bad guys to tar Donald Trump’s side. What followed was a smear campaign that turned my family and me into pariahs and landed two Proud Boys in prison.

Some stood by us. Of those who did, I couldn’t help but notice every single one of them had been through some kind of trauma. They were betrayed by friends during their divorces. They lost a loved one to illness. They dug themselves out of abject poverty. They had a handicapped son.

(Full disclosure: My cancellation included being fired by Blaze Media on my first day there, but it was under a different board back then, so I forgive them.)

I also noticed (and Louis C.K. concurs) that the people who stuck by us were disproportionately black. I think the reason is they don’t read garbage lefty blogs and generally see the whole “war on racism” as a white-on-white thing.

But I don’t want to talk about those who stood by us. As the saying goes, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” So I want to talk about the “weak men” who will abandon you. They include friends, family, and strangers and fit into the following five categories.

1) The Sheep

These people don’t feel passionate about politics. They might even be on your side, politically. They just don’t want to stick their necks out.

Sheep are your neighbors, coworkers, strangers, and even some extended family. The dumbest thing you can do is try to reason with them. They don’t care how innocent you are; they just want to avoid trouble.

I think the sheep are the most vile of the five. In the event of a war, these people would be the first to turn you in. These are the women whose heads they shaved in France in 1944 for sleeping with the enemy or “collaboration horizontale.” At least the people who hate you have the courage of their convictions. Not the sheep. As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

2) The Shockers

Within the category of cancelers you know, this group is the strangest. About 5% of the people who cut you out of their lives are people you once trusted deeply. These are friends and family who knew the “real you” and yet decided to take the word of some recent college grad at the Daily Beast over yours. This might be the baby sister you taught how to ride a bike or even your mother. They tend to have really low IQs, but besides that, I can’t figure this group out. It’s like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

I don’t think the non-canceled understand how over the top the cancelers are.

I can think of four people who truly stupefied me. My wife’s best friend of 35 years said, “I need to take a break from our friendship for a while,” to which my wife responded, “What do you want me to do, divorce him?”

My old bandmate, a man I’ve known since I was 14, stopped taking my calls. So did an old babysitter for my kids and a former neighbor. The strange thing about the last two is they used to tell incredibly racist jokes and were some of the least politically correct people I knew. I responded to one of them by saying, “Was it the part where I said all blacks need to go back to Africa, or was it denying the Holocaust?” She didn’t laugh.

3) The Activists

This group is almost always female, disproportionately Jewish (secular), and either childless or in a disastrous marriage. In my case, they were all obsessed with the Proud Boys, and some of them have built entire careers investigating the club.

This group includes “Hate Watch” journalists who have dedicated their lives to catching a straight, white, conservative male saying something “inappropriate.” Imagine choosing journalism as a career and focusing on such an irrelevant part of American life. Our borders are wide open, 30 black people are killed by other black people every day, and half a dozen Americans overdose every hour! But, yeah, some NASCAR driver’s dad said the “N-word” in the 1980s, so let’s ruin his life.

Amy Siskind is a local activist who threatened to hold a vigil near my home following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018 to show my family that “hate has no home here.” We went to Siskind’s house and explained to her that wasn’t happening. Siskind is an out-and-proud lesbian with two kids whose same-sex affair destroyed her marriage.

Farah Kathwari is another local activist. She put a sign on my lawn that said, “Hate Has No Home Here.” (They think in the same clichés.) Kathwari’s brother dropped out of medical school to become a jihadist and died for Allah in Afghanistan. I’m told her marriage was destroyed when her husband drunkenly groped another woman at a party.

These bitter interventionists have shattered their own lives and seem determined to ensure we share their pain. They are particularly obsessed with getting me deported. That wouldn’t kill my ideas, of course. I can do my show anywhere. But it would upend my family and hurt my children. That’s the goal. The left hates families.

4) The Agree-to-Disagrees

There are some people you can’t even be mad at. They might even ride out a controversy or two.

When I was fired for saying, “Trans people are just mentally ill gays,” many in this category stood by. But when the Proud Boys s**t hit the fan, they had to cut me loose.

Because Hollywood is so alarmingly woke, my actor and comedian friends didn’t really have a choice. Being seen with me would have ended their careers, and I have no interest in costing anyone his livelihood.

We had one couple who held an epic Christmas party every year, and every single one of their friends said they wouldn’t come to the party any more if my wife and I attended. I told him to choose the Christmas party.

I don’t think the non-canceled understand how over the top the cancelers are. My brother’s wedding was canceled because the catering staff boycotted it after discovering he was my brother. He also had his career as an app developer destroyed. He works in construction now.

Now, I realize some of you might say, “Why do you give the agree-to-disagrees a pass when you’re so tough on the sheep?” Because the sheep have nothing to lose. They wouldn’t be fired for not putting a sign on their lawn or letting their kids play with mine. They’re participating in cancel culture out of sheer cowardice. That’s despicable.

5) The Shrugs

This group is kind of a combination of the agree-to-disagrees and the sheep. They do whatever their team tells them to. If the DNC says dump your GOP friends, they obey.

I had a good friend in the comedy world, and our families took vacations together because we had kids of similar ages. Our favorite thing was complaining to each other about the way our wives stacked the dishwasher. I’d send him a picture of a bowl upright on the top rack with the caption, “Please explain to me how she thought this wasn’t just going to fill with hot water.”

After five years, he ended our friendship with a text that read: “Opened an annoying dishwasher the other day. But didn’t text you about it because I felt that day may have come that we both knew was probably coming.” I thought he was kidding. Then he clarified: “Trump might be a dealbreaker.” This happened at the very beginning of my cancellation but before things really went nuts. Leftist media had instructed their followers to choose sides, and everyone got in line.

This last group may be the most boring and the most interesting of the five. Their departure is mundane, but the dynamic behind it is fascinating. We have gone through a national divorce. Like a regular divorce, there can be no turning back. Ask someone who’s been divorced for a couple of years what the odds are of them reconciling with their ex. They usually dry-heave.

Also, as with divorce, you’re forced to choose sides. Nobody remains Switzerland for very long. You can’t invite Mike and his new girlfriend to dinner and expect his ex-wife to join you. It would be like an MMA weigh-in.

So, to the shrugs, I shrug back. We’re done. It isn’t polarizing to turn your back on half the country when half the country has lost its mind.

Ideally, the side we chose will win the next election, and Donald Trump will put all these spoiled brats in their place. Because if the sheep, the shockers, the activists, the agree-to-disagrees, and the shrugs get their way, we are headed for some very hard times.