No one understands Cancel Culture’s wrath better than Roseanne Barr.
The woman who helped redefine the modern sitcom with her eponymous show is but a memory in La La Land today.
We all know why. Barr sent out one awful, racially charged Tweet, and her entire legacy got ripped out from under her. It didn’t matter that she gave female comics a valuable role model, or that co-worker Norm Macdonald hailed her willingness to hire people of color.
That one Tweet, for which Barr swiftly apologized, canceled both her show and career.
Bette Midler tells Barr to “hold her beer” on a weekly basis.
The Divine Ms. Me’s Twitter account is a veritable hate emporium. She rails against President Donald Trump first and foremost. It’s how she does it, though, that matters. Even Robert De Niro might blush at her venom.
In the past, she’s joked about someone “shiving” President Trump (she later deleted it), and wrote a poem about the Trump family getting hanged for their crimes.
She deleted that, too.
More importantly, her hate spills over into other public figures. She cheered on the death of Libertarian philanthropist David Koch for all to see.
When Texas got hammered by Mother Nature, Midler said the state didn’t deserve federal aid due to its cynicism over government spending.
She famously praised the man who broke five of Sen. Rand Paul’s ribs and left the Senator close to a life-threatening condition. Midler deleted the message later.
Sense a pattern? There’s another Midler pattern, too. She doesn’t apologize for her horrific statements.
This week, Midler sank to a new low. She turned her Twitter fire on conservative icon Rush Limbaugh, recently diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Some prominent liberals, like Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, put down their ideological hammers and wished Limbaugh a speedy recovery.
Not Midler. She shared this message regarding the radio talker mere days after he went public with his diagnosis:
#RushLimbaugh doesn’t have lung cancer any more than #MichaelJFox has Parkinson’s or #RBG had cancer! He said they were both faking. How abut it, Rush? You’re faking, right? Trying to gin up your press and media attention, right? Exactly like that #JackassTrump!
She also Tweeted this:
Poor Rush. Poor, fat, stupid, sick, hypocritical, drug addicted Rush. Back when he was using, he admitted to taking over 30,000 OxyContin. You know what that means? He’s not just a moron, he’s an Oxymoron!
Barr claimed she didn’t know that the target of her Tweet, former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, is black. She also blamed using the drug Ambien for the Tweet. Her mea culpa was swift and without any strings.
Midler makes no such claims about her targets. Nor does she apologize for the hate she spews on a regular basis.
And why should she?
The media, outside of conservative sites, mostly ignore her rage. Her Hollywood peers apparently don’t care, either. They keep hiring her. She co-stars in the Sundance Film Festival entry “The Glorias,” provided a voice for the recent “The Addams Family” animated film, and contributed to Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series “The Politician.”
Team Cancel Culture can’t be bothered to so much as acknowledge her hate, let alone sic the Outrage Mob on her.
Why?
Because Cancel Culture isn’t about being kind to one another. Nor does it genuinely protect people from nasty attacks.
Cancel Culture exists to promote progressive groupthink, smite conservatives whenever possible, and ensure debate is no longer part of the American equation.
None of those goals overlap with Midler’s theatrics, so she gets a pass.
Now, if Midler scorched a liberal icon with similar gusto, that could change things. For now, the Tony winner is free to Tweet to her heart’s content, knowing Cancel Culture will look the other way.