During an interview with The Rubin Report's Dave Rubin, Fox Sports Radio's Clay Travis exposed the "cancel culture" and how the media allows a small minority of left-leaning social media fanatics to dictate politically correct hysteria. Rubin, who's been called a liberal with libertarian leanings, called the "cancel culture" "just endless nonsense," and said the nation is gripped by a fear that that the PC mob will silence you.
Travis, the author of the 2018 book Republicans Buy Sneakers Too, said the nation is being dominating by a social media "hate culture...There is a certain segment of the society that is titillated by being offended by things. The problem is we have allowed those people to be voices that we give way too much legitimacy to, because, one, it's a minority of voices, and, two, it's not actually reflective of life. There's a new study recently that came out that said people hate political correctness....and yet we've allowed that culture to predominate."
Rubin agreed and said we're ceding the debate to a hysterical eight percent.
"There's this rush to apologize anytime someone criticizes you," Travis continued. "And if we're artificially constraining what people feel comfortable talking about it I think it leads to a lot of angst in our country. ... Fear is always in the back of your mind because we live in this cancel culture and there's always someone who wants to cancel you out ... . Others are afraid to say what I'm saying even if they agree with it. ... This idea that you have to be at constant war with someone is an idea that I reject."
Rubin said the sports media is crumbling because it's gotten too political, and "Social media is a mirror that is "so out of whack with reality." Travis calls it a disruptive cycle and agreed that large institutions lack authenticity because they put their fingers up in the air and focus too much on social media, which he thinks is "insane." He said high-ranking sports network executives are basing decisions on a vocal 10 percent of Americans on left-leaning Twitter.
And so we see the following ridiculous stories dominating sports news cycles.
The NBA shuns the word "owner" because the vocal, politically correct crowd thinks it's racist. "It's crazy," Travis says. "And they replaced it with governors -- which doesn't even mean the same thing. And by the way, there have been a lot more racist governors you know in the last 30 or 40 years than there have been racist team owners." Travis then added, taking note of Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (who said the word owner relates back to the time of slavery):
It's all motivated by fear...NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is a white guy who runs the NBA, and ultimately he's afraid (of backlash) if he doesn't listen to a few loony tune black players. ... If you gave him truth serum he'd say that (erasing the word owner) is an utterly ludicrous idea. People in positions of power are so afraid that they're going to end up the target that they go as far Left as they can...I do not think that 95 percent of NBA fans believe the word owner is racist. But people like Adam Silver in positions of power are afraid that the platform of a guy like Draymond Green [.]:
Travis brought up a controversy surrounding a fan at a Chicago Cubs game standing behind African-American reporter Doug Glanville and who gave the A-OK hand gesture, causing hysteria about racism: "The Cubs are like oh, my God and they banned this guy. Theo Epstein was literally shivering when seeing it[.]"
The gesture was denounced as one used by white supremacist groups, and Travis blasted that argument: "Common things used by white supremacist groups somehow render them unusable is a so utterly absurd argument....The idea that you're going to identify a symbol with a particular group and ban it, to me, proves the hysteria that we're currently living in...."
It also reminded Travis of when Nike pulled its Betsy Ross shoes off the shelves because Colin Kaepernick was offended. "I think that reasonable people look at this and start to recognize the hysteria."
Travis urged people to boldly contend against ludicrous arguments. "Everybody is so afraid of being attacked. Be attacked. That's a good thing....In 24 hours there's going to be something new that they decide to get offended by, and it's not going to change the way I talk about my opinions...It's just basically a perpetual war," he said.
For those still unfamilar with Travis, he was the guest who triggered CNN Newsroom's Brooke Baldwin by uttering the word "boobs."
