On Being Canceled

WARNING: The reflected danger you see is closer than it may appear

“Ut est rerum omnium magister usus”
Julius Caesar in Di Bello Civilli

As the famous Roman emperor reminds us, experience teaches us everything. Without actually experiencing something, one can’t fully understand it. I recently learned that lesson when it comes to the idea of cancel culture. In short, I was canceled. Here is my experience.

For nearly the past eight years, I have been an elected official in my town. It’s just a volunteer gig, but it was an honor to have my fellow community members vote for me in four straight elections to represent our district in our small New England town. During that time, I along with my colleagues accomplished many things I am proud of. We made improvements to our town charter, we have instituted policies to make our town a more welcoming town to all, and we have restored a sense of bipartisanship and cooperation on a town council that was politically combative and somewhat vitriolic at the time.

The commitment took up a lot of time and required doing one’s homework. As chair of the finance committee, I oversaw hearings on an annual budget of over $200 million. It takes a lot of work to make sure that all the town’s responsibilities are met while attempting to prevent people’s taxes from going up any more than is absolutely necessary. Being in that position puts a weight on one’s shoulders that cannot be denied or easily explained to those without experience. You never really forget that there are thousands of people counting on you to make the right decisions in their best interests.

I really enjoyed my time serving on the town council. It felt like we were doing something important. It is a rewarding feeling to have someone in the community come to you with a problem or concern and know that you actually have some ability to really help them. Plus, I must admit that there is a feeling of respect you get from your fellow community members that feels really good.

Although I loved being a councilmember, I was finishing my fourth term, and I had decided that it would be my last. I am a big believer in term limits when it comes to elected positions in government. I believe it should be considered a public service and not necessarily a career. I am wary of the concentration of power in a democracy, and term limits seems one way to limit that potential danger. Therefore, I decided to impose term limits on myself. Now, I just had to serve out my remaining 6 months or so until the next council was sworn in.

Or so I thought.

Everyone in public office is warned about and understands the dangers of social media. I am no exception to that. Over the years, I have learned to be exceedingly careful regarding public posts and comments. After some early missteps, I also learned who some of the people I needed to watch out for were. I knew they were watching me and would pounce if I said or did the wrong thing. They made a few attempts throughout the years to disparage me and make attempts at character assassination, but nothing really stuck other than in their own limited circles.

Most of these people were people I knew as members of the opposing political party. They had a history of viciously coming after people that they perceived as a threat or an enemy. Others were known simply for their vitriolic posts and comments on some of the town-focused social media pages. I had never seen any of their comments on my own personal social media page, which perhaps led to a false sense of security.

Then came my now infamous post. I won’t repeat the details here, because they really aren’t the focus of this article, but for those interested, you can refer to my previous article titled A Tale of Two Posts. Suffice it to say that the reaction was not what I expected. I purposefully leave my personal social media pages open to all, as I want to reach as large an audience as possible for most of what I write. The down side to this is that it also leaves me open to those that might want to attack me.

Initially, it seemed tame enough with several of my friends and followers liking the post. Then came a flurry of very angry comments from people I didn’t personally know. Some of their names were familiar from the vitriolic posts I mentioned earlier. What is notable is that they coincided in time with a post by the local opposing political town committee. They had made an official post criticizing not only my post, but also suggested that I had a history of hate-filled speech towards our community. It was a classic attempt at character assassination, and it grossly misrepresented everything that I actually stand for.

One local partisan even contacted my boss through email. He asked if this was the kind of company that would employ such a hateful person. This is one of the cancel culture tactics called deplatforming where they attempt to force you out of any position that you might hold whether it be political, religious, or occupational. Fortunately, my boss is my good friend Rich who simply replied to the inquiry with five words. “Yes, we believe in equality.” He got it.

Next came the inevitable phone call. “Can you get on a quick Zoom?” Of course I knew what this was about. I was visiting my mother in her nursing home, so I excused myself to the garden. I was told of the flood of calls and emails coming in to the First Selectman’s office. I was reminded this is an election year. I was given a choice. Retract or resign.

Retraction was not even anywhere near the realm of reality. If I was to retract the comment, it would be an immediate admission of guilt of being hateful, which I adamantly do not believe. That means it would be dishonest. It would be a betrayal to myself. It would also deny the opportunity to have the important and difficult discussion that the post was originally written to provoke. I didn’t have to even think before I said I couldn’t do that.

This left me only one alternative. “I could resign,” I heard myself say, after which I heard that maybe that is what I should do, and I should do it sooner rather than later. So I did, vocally. To make it official, I was asked to send it also by email for the public record, which I did. At the time, I was thinking that I was doing the right thing for the town by ensuring that the current leadership did not have to deal with this in the next election. I was actually thinking about the needs of the party while I was, in effect, being excommunicated.

On a personal note, it was a serendipitous coincidence that all of this happened while I was visiting my parents and my brother and his family in Oregon. To be in the most supportive and loving environment for me that exists in this world was probably the saving grace for my state of mind. My parents, brother and sister-in-law are all highly educated people who were able to give me great counsel and provide a constant sounding board for me to process everything that was going on. Fortunately, they are great listeners (because I’m a great talker).

Side note:

I can’t imagine how difficult this kind of experience might be if I didn’t have that support. There are so many people who have been victims of cancel culture that did not have that support. I can now understand what that actually means and how difficult that could be. I can even see how it could lead to a despondency that could be hard to recover from.

Julius Caesar was right. There is knowledge in this life that only experience can teach you. When something like this happens to you, it takes time for it to process. You can be the most brilliant person in the world, but your psychology is basically the same as anyone’s. First, it takes time for your own brain to catch up to the current reality, because it has changed significantly from the previous one. Second, it takes time to realize all of the ramifications of this change. Third, it takes time to decide how to respond and react to these changes particularly when it involves interacting with other people about these changes.

There are several things that happen along the way. You continue to see the vitriol and anti-messaging. Personally, I have always employed the method of “steering into the skid” which is a way of saying I go right at the problem. I engage. When the opposing political party put out their big post, I offered myself up. I commented on their post that I was open to discussing what I meant with anyone interested.

Obviously, I wasn’t able to win over everyone. I was, however, able to have some reasonable discussions with people, and I even learned a few things. I came away educated from the experience, and for that I am grateful. This just shows that even in the den of people who are supposed to hate you, you can find friends. Even the person that wrote this official post (and I know who it is, because I recognize “their” style of writing) is someone that I have to believe at some level I could find something to talk about without resorting to violence.

I have to believe that, or we’re all doomed.