Chuck Schumer Faces Cancel Culture
It Turns Out Freedom of Expression Is Only For the "Oppressed"
This week, cancel culture abruptly arrived at Senator Chuck Schumer’s doorstep.
After a year of planning with his publisher the Hachette Book Group to release “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” the Senate’s leading Democrat was forced to suspend his multi-city national book tour.
His team learned that the idea of “freedom of speech,” which the Left has recently upheld to defend a pro-Hamas activist, was just a convenient political illusion.
Regretfully, at one time the Left once embraced the “Free Speech Movement.” But for now, it has completely abandoned the principle.
Progressive activists will only show their love for the most extreme elements in our society who are always “oppressed.”
But to an aging political figure in the U.S. Senate who also happens to be the highest ranking Jewish elected political figure in our country? Not so much.
The planned disruptive protests were largely being organized by anti-Israel and progressive activists who decided to do to Schumer what they did to Joe Biden – and to other people and movements with which they disagreed.
And in an instant, they inconveniently exposed their hypocrisy of embracing the genuine idea of “freedom of speech.” This concept is a mirage, only to be invoked for certain select people who conform to progressive ideas.
The rest of us: not so much.
It was pretty shocking to learn that Schumer – a long time Democrat from liberal New York -- was forced to cancel appearances in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco due to “security concerns.” Security concerns usually refer to the prospects of violence.
Hachette itself is no newcomer to the publishing world. It’s one of the “Big Five” publishing companies in the United States and includes such legendary publishing houses as MacMillan, Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Simon and Shuster, the Time Warner Book Club and Little Brown & Co.
I understand the authoritarian streak within the Left. As I’ve said before in these pages, I myself was a New Left activist in the 1970’s and for several years was a roommate of Rennie Davis, a defendant in the Chicago 7 trial. I was personal friends with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. I understand protests and demonstrations.
But once-upon-a-time, the New Left also embraced something called the “Free Speech Movement.” This vibrant early New Left movement was lost somewhere between Berkely, California where it was hatched, and over the decades morphed into ugly authoritarianism.
The latest cancel culture casualty now is Chuck Schumer.
On Monday, Schumer was set to launch his national book tour of at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland. But it was abruptly canceled when the pro-Palestinian group, Jewish Voice for Peace threatened protest actions. The library stated on its web site, “Senator Schumer’s book tour events during the week of March 17 are being postponed for security reasons.”
Another speech, scheduled for Tuesday at New York’s Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, was removed from the center’s events calendar over the weekend. When one enters the site to register for the event, the visitor is informed “We Can’t Find That Page.” There is no explanation for the cancellation.
An event at Washington, D.C.’s Historic Sixth and I Synagogue on Wednesday was also canceled. “Sen. Schumer’s book tour events during the week of March 17 are being postponed for security reasons,” the Jewish synagogue’s webpage states.
A spokesman for the Democratic Senate Leader acknowledged on Monday that his entire tour was currently postponed. As on several of the websites, he also cited “security concerns,” according to the Jewish Insider.
Most of the threats appeared to be from progressives who were enraged over the Senator’s decision to pass the continuing budget resolution that Republicans support. His progressive wing was enraged.
Other planned demonstrations appeared to be by anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian groups.
One protest also was scheduled by Jewish groups who went bonkers over the Senator’s repeated refusal to bring to the Senate floor an act opposing antisemitism. This rally also underscored the mainstream Democratic Party’s surrender to its progressive wing.
Schumer repeatedly failed as the party’s leader to seek final passage of the potentially historic “Antisemitism Awareness Act.” The act passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming 320 to 91 vote. But Schumer blocked bringing the legislation to the Senate floor.
As the Jewish Insider sadly reported, “Schumer had been reluctant to bring the antisemitism legislation up for a standalone Senate floor vote out of concern that such a move might expose a significant divide among Senate Democrats over the legislation, according to two sources familiar with the legislation.”
Tellingly, Schumer’s surrender to his leftwing caucus is another example of how out-of-touch and indifferent Democrats are about discrimination against Jews.
The Schumer cancellations only underscore the crisis besetting the overall Democratic Party. On Monday’s NBC News released a national public opinion poll that concluded, “The Democratic Party has reached an all-time low in popularity in the latest national NBC News poll.
The news organization reported that “Just over a quarter of registered voters (27%) say they have positive views of the party, which is the party’s lowest positive rating in NBC News polling dating back to 1990. Just 7% say those views are “very” positive.”
Most importantly, the broad cancellation of Schumer’s book tour underscores the rising antipathy progressives have for tolerance of opposing views.
For the past year, Columbia’s activists, led by Columbia University Master’s candidate Mahmoud Khalil, have silenced and instilled fear in Jewish students. He graduated from Columbia last December and still lives in university housing.
Khalil is a radical pro-Palestinian Columbia University activist who was a leader in the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) organization. He served as the representative and negotiator for pro-Palestinian students, especially those who set up an encampment that was overtly threatening to the university’s Jewish students.
Khalil was an unrepentant Palestinian activist. Columbia briefly suspended him after pro-Palestinian activists took over the university’s Hamilton Hall. Columbia ultimately requested police assistance to remove the protesters and more than 280 people were arrested, according to the NYPD.
Columbia is now facing an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a civil rights arm of the federal government that includes workplace civil rights violations. The case concerns a complaint by two university janitors that they were attacked and trapped in the hall by an anti-Israeli “mob” during the takeover. Both janitors say they suffered lifelong injuries and have not been able to return to work.
A Columbia University faculty task force on antisemitism found last August that “Jews and Israelis at Columbia University were ostracized from student groups, humiliated in classrooms and subjected to verbal abuse as pro-Palestinian demonstrations shook the campus last year, and their complaints were often downplayed or ignored by school officials and faculty.”
They cited “serious and pervasive” problems uncovered through nearly 500 student testimonials.”
The Jerusalem Post aptly described Khalil’s CUAD group as an authoritarian organization that has openly embraced Hamas.
They report that CUAD “perceives itself as a revolutionary force working toward the destruction of the United States and Israel.
“The means to achieve this are not just through vandalism and civil unrest, which CUAD directly employs, as the group also supports terrorism at home and in the Middle East, praising the October 7 massacre as the pinnacle of revolutionary action.”
I don’t want to dwell on the arrest and detention of Khalil and the issues as they pertain to national security law. For now, I’ll leave it for another Substack.
But today I want to highlight the ugly intolerance and authoritarianism of today’s progressive community, the anti-Israel movement and its angry enablers within the Democratic Party.