On Sept. 24 my local newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator, published an article by Henry Giroux entitled “Trump criminalizes free speech.” The Spectator is owned by Torstar whose major platform is the Toronto Star, a newspaper of a decidedly Leftist bias. Described as an American/Canadian cultural critic, Giroux, not surprisingly, is similarly inclined. One of his major influences is Michel Foucault whose fundamental idea was the intimate relationship between Power and Knowledge. It is the ludicrous hypothesis that informs the charge of Systemic Racism, the notion that White Westerners who insist on the legitimacy of Science and Reason are in fact “oppressing” those who do not share their values. Yes, Foucault is one of the many “intellectuals” responsible for Post-Modern Relativism, the idiotic theory that there is no such thing as The Truth. Giroux’s article on Trump predictably manifest’s the Left’s utter lack of respect for the actual Truth!
Giroux’s opening sentence is: “The irony is unbearable.” What he clearly means to indict is the Irony of a self-righteous Republican Party which celebrates Free Speech while supporting an authoritarian jerk such as Donald Trump. Yet what his article reveals is his own typically Leftist tendency to engage in hateful generalizations while never actually validating them with Facts! I would never deny that Trump is capable of some truly ignorant comments and perhaps unconstitutional maneuvers, yet Giroux’s article is rife with gross simplifications and outright lies. Yes, the Irony is unbearable!
Trump, we are told, hates new immigrants. But this is a gross misrepresentation of a President whose outrage is basically with the open borders tolerated by the Biden administration which allowed over 10 million to enter the U.S. with only marginal documentation. Such open borders quite literally spell the end of the rational Concept of the Nation State while inevitably exacerbating problems in the realms of economics, housing, crime, electoral integrity, etc.. No one is suggesting the majority of those seeking to escape the horrors of their homelands to be criminals, but it is a verifiable fact that drug cartels and human smugglers profited enormously from the idiotic border policy of the Biden government.
In the same opening paragraph following Giroux’s cryptic 4 word sentence on Irony, he also vilifies Trump for attempting to use Charlie Kirk’s assassination to his own political advantage. That Kirk’s death was the result of “leftist extremism” is apparently a brazen lie. So too, I suppose, is the notion that Leftist rhetoric had anything to do with the attempted assassination of Trump. But the Left’s favorite weapon in demonizing “conservatism” is the reckless attribution of Hatred as the motivation behind every one of its policies, policies which it cannot discredit on a rational basis. Yes, it is the Left that makes everything about Hate, as is manifest in Giroux’s very own article. And yes, the Irony is unbearable!
Upon introducing the topic of Charlie Kirk, Giroux proceeds to indict Trump for inciting the dismissal of Jimmy Kimmel whose scornful Sept. 15 monologue attempted to derive humor from the apparently absurd effort of Republicans to suggest that Kirk’s murder had anything to do with the narrative of the Left. While I found both Kimmel’s thesis as well as his obvious lack of empathy for Kirk disgusting, it is clearly up to ABC to decide his future. Knowing Trump’s temperament, of course, it is hardly surprising that he called for his termination. Kimmel, briefly suspended, was back on the air a few days later. But Giroux’s extended rant about Trump representing a tyrannical assault on Free Speech is truly absurd in that for years now we have lived in a Cancel Culture almost exclusively championed by the Left! It has indeed become commonplace for people expressing Politically Incorrect views [i.e., “conservative” views] to be fired, deprived of their platform and even imprisoned. I have friends working in the educational arena who dare not speak their minds on issues such as DEI mandates, Immigration, Residential Schools, etc., for fear of losing their jobs. This is not some ignorant, extremist statement but a well known fact both here in Canada and the many Democrat dominated States in the U.S..
So Giroux, whose entire article is rooted in the idiotic assumption that anyone who disagrees with his views is obviously motivated by Hatred, has the audacity to argue that it is they who are the chief contemporary threats to free and open political dialogue. Once again, yes, the Irony is unbearable! Even more unbearable is the fact that I read multiple articles such as his every week!