WATCH: Marco Rubio Says People Are Afraid To Donate To Politicians Lest They Get ‘Canceled’ (Data Doesn’t Support It)
Marco Rubio found an odd way to deflect from voting rights on Wednesday, but there’s another problem: his claim doesn’t seem to be supported by facts.
Who is the real victim of disenfranchisement in the United States? According to Rubio, if Congressional Democrats really wanted to protect democracy, instead of fighting to pass voting rights protections, they’d focus on “Americans who are afraid to donate to political campaigns, to put a bumper sticker on their car…because they don’t want to get canceled.”
Rubio: You want to talk about defending democracy? Let’s talk about the Americans who are afraid to donate to political campaigns, to put a bumper sticker on their car… they’re afraid because they don’t want to get canceled pic.twitter.com/GfcdHigF7g
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 12, 2022
So-called “cancel culture,” a mythical system in which conservatives are stripped of their employment, livelihood, and social status for having an unpopular opinion, is sometimes corrected to ‘consequence culture’ — a more apt phrase for people who end up fired for open bigotry, or lose sponsors over support of an insurrection, or even just get called out — not actually ‘canceled’ at all — for bad behavior.
There are surely, and always have been, some individuals who are afraid to put political stickers on their vehicle for fear of judgment or vandalism. WJBQ ran a story in 2016 about a vehicle vandalized in response to an anti-Trump sticker, for example. Then there was the woman who, according to NPR, was fired in 2004 for having a John Kerry bumper sticker.
Still, for the most part, there’s been no spate of firings for merely supporting a candidate, and as for political donations? According to the New York Times, political donations to Republicans, particularly those who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, surged. That’s even after a handful of major corporations promised to stop donating to pro-coup politicians (they reneged quickly).
The right not to be judged for your political choices or actions isn’t delineated in the U.S. Constitution — but the right to vote is, and yet it still seems to have Congress at an impasse.
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