WALSH: The Laura Ingraham Situation Proves Why You Should Never Apologize To The Outraged Mob

Laura Ingraham is taking a “vacation” amid the advertiser boycott and the overblown outrage stemming from a dumb and innocuous tweet about David Hogg. Expedia, Trip Advisor, Hulu, Office Depot and several other companies have pulled their ads. Ingraham quickly apologized, but the Left, and Hogg, still aren’t satisfied. Hogg is now demanding that she issue apologies to all of the other people she allegedly wronged, including Lebron James. ​After that apology has been issued, she will need to put on a dunce hat and write 100 sentences on the blackboard. Maybe then he, in his wisdom and mercy, will consider granting her plea for forgiveness.

This is how it goes. Ingraham bowed to the outraged mob but they have not relented. Why? Because the outrage mob isn’t really outraged. This is all an elaborate charade. Ingraham’s petty little tweet about David Hogg didn’t hurt, offend, upset, or otherwise cause any sort of damage to anyone. Least of all to David Hogg himself, who, as he’s since made exceedingly clear, is grateful for the chance it afforded him to do some damage to a woman he despises.

The Left is just playing the game, and this is the way the game works. Somebody says something offensive or “offensive,” and the opportunists who reside on the opposite end of the political spectrum immediately grab ahold of it and squeeze it dry like a sponge. They make sure to get every last drop of advantage they can out of the dumb, irrelevant thing that nobody in the country actually cares about. It doesn’t matter if you apologize because apologies only matter to honest people who are honestly aggrieved. But nobody in the outrage mob is honest and none of them are honestly aggrieved. And that is why you should never apologize to them or in front of them.

If you have committed an offense that is actually very bad, and may really have hurt or scandalized a large number of people in some way, then maybe the public apology is necessary. But if you are guilty of getting slightly carried away in your speech, or making some rude but harmless comment, and the pitchforks are coming after you as if you had been caught drop-kicking dolphins, then the public apology is unwise and counterproductive. And cowardly. Repent to God if your conscience is truly stricken, but do not apologize to the mob. They do not deserve it. They are not hurt. They are making these demands because they want you to submit to them. Nothing is gained by offering them your submission. All you have done is vindicated their tactics and cooperated with their dishonesty.

In Laura Ingraham’s specific case, she should have deleted the tweet and said nothing else about it. The worst thing she could have done is bow before the throng and pay homage to their theatrical anger. You may say it’s “the right thing to do,” but a disingenuous apology to disingenuous people over something that nobody in the world is authentically upset about, is most certainly the wrong thing to do. It’s the thing people do because they are cowed by the backlash, not because they are truly remorseful. According to the Left, Ingraham only apologized in order to stop the advertiser boycott. They’re right. It was an act of self-flagellation designed solely to appease the rabble. But the rabble was not appeased, is never appeased, and should not ever be appeased. Let them stew in their fake indignation. They obviously enjoy it. It is the only thing in life that brings them joy. Why take it away?

Outrage is nothing more than a game in our culture. It’s a game you cannot win. Don’t play it.