Don’t cancel Tenacious D

You don’t have to be woke to be a snowflake. In fact, the right has its fair share of thin-skinned, hypersensitive types, who also tend to view off-colour remarks and offensive jokes as equivalent to acts of violence.

Don’t believe me? Just look at the unhinged reaction to a joke about Donald Trump made by Kyle Gass of Tenacious D.

NEW: Comedian Jack Black’s bandmate makes a “birthday wish” during a performance in Sydney, says he wishes they “don’t miss Trump next time.”

Black was videoed giving Tenacious D band member Kyle Gass a birthday cake.

“Make a wish,” Black said.

Gass then responded: “Don’t… pic.twitter.com/jSyqrKISOl

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 15, 2024

Gass was on stage in Sydney on Sunday, the day after the world learned about the shocking attempt to assassinate the former US president. During the show, bandmate Jack Black presented Gass with a birthday cake and asked him to make a wish. ‘Don’t miss Trump next time’, came the reply.

The reaction has been swift and brutal. Tenacious D’s tour was promptly cancelled. Gass was dropped by his agent. He has been widely accused of ‘inciting violence’.

Australian senator Ralph Babet raised the stakes even further yesterday, by calling for Gass to be ‘deported’. ‘I condemn in the strongest possible way the call to political violence by Tenacious D in Sydney on Sunday. To advocate and or wish for the assassination of a president is egregious, disgusting, filthy, evil and not acceptable in any way, shape or form’, he wrote.

This is stretching it, no? Did Gass make his joke ‘too soon’? Perhaps. Was it in bad taste? Certainly. But there is no denying that this was indeed a joke – not a serious attempt to gin up a crowd to carry out an act of political violence. Indeed, Tenacious D are known for mixing music and comedy. Gass’s bandmate, Jack Black, is a world-famous comedy actor. The audience understood all this, which is why some of them laughed. Tensions are undoubtedly running high in the wake of the attempted assassination of a president, but that is no reason to lose all sense of perspective, especially if that means abandoning free speech or embracing cancel culture.

Sadly, the Tenacious D case is not an isolated one. Libs of TikTok, a hugely popular X account that usually loves to rage against woke snowflakery, has spent much of the past week demanding the cancellations of anti-Trumpers, most of them just ordinary Americans. A teacher, a fireman and a cashier at Home Depot have all lost their jobs for making distasteful comments about the Trump shooting on social media. Lives are being ruined over off-colour remarks.

No one wins from this tit-for-tat culture warring. When the anti-woke try to beat the woke at their own censorious game, all that we end up with is the further corrosion of free speech. And there is nothing funny about that.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.