DISPATCHES FROM THE COLD CIVIL WAR: Getting a Home Depot Employee Fired for Calling for Trump’s Assassination Is Still Cancel Culture.
Chaya Raichik, the woman behind the popular Libs of TikTok social media accounts, has complained in the past about the efforts to “cancel and silence” her. It appears she is taking a page from the playbook she supposedly hates.
Raichik’s online operation reposts TikTok videos of left-leaning content creators saying things that often border on the absurd. She has recently upped the ante, amplifying Facebook posts from random people making crass comments about the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, blasting them to her 3.2 million followers on X, and tagging their employers in hopes they are rendered jobless.
In some cases, it has paid off. “To [sic] bad they weren’t a better shooter!!!!!” Darcy Waldron Pinckney posted on Facebook. You probably don’t recognize her name because she is not a public figure. She is not a lawmaker or a bureaucrat or someone in any position of power. She worked at Home Depot.
The past tense here is key. On Sunday, Raichik posted a screenshot of Pinckney’s comment, along with a video of someone confronting her at the store and an admonition to her employer: “Hi @HomeDepot!” Raichik wrote. “Are you aware that you employ people who call for political violence and the ass*ss*nat*on of Presidents? Any comment?” The company promptly terminated her.
Whatever your feelings on the former president, cheering on his assassination attempt is, in fact, wrong. It is also wrong to weaponize your millions of followers to turn a random woman into a national pariah, siccing a mob on her and rendering her unable to support herself—and possibly her family—because she made a tasteless comment on social media. These two things are true at the same time.
Okay, granted. But what if the person wants to be fired from Home Depot…?