Seaton: The Ellen Effect, And The Death Of Honest Conversations

Ellen DeGeneres is a talk show host, dance aficionado, and quite the funny comedienne. She’s been credited for making Middle America comfortable with lesbians by coming out on a network television show, heralded as an ally to the woke, and once courageously claimed Donald Trump would never be invited on her show.

So naturally, all hell broke loose on Twitter when a photo of Ellen surfaced at a Dallas Cowboys game. No, Ellen’s offense wasn’t enjoying a Cowboys game [Ed. Note: דַּיֵּנוּ]. It was sitting next to former President George W. Bush.

“How dare she sit next to a bigot who cost American/Iraqi lives in war!” yelled some. “Oh, that’s rich: a wealthy white lesbian is smiling and enjoying a Cowboys game with the guy who pushed for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as union between a man and a woman.”

A third hot taker nodded in agreement. “This is what the very definition of privilege looks like. She thinks she can just say ‘be kind to one another’ and get away with it. You have to choose sides! You can’t be nice to everyone!”

Ellen, for her part, took the criticisms in stride and responded admirably.

“Here’s the thing: I’m friends with George Bush. In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have,” DeGeneres continued. “We’re all different and I think that we’ve forgotten that that’s okay that we’re all different… but just because I don’t agree with someone on everything doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be friends with them.”…”When I say, ‘Be kind to one another,’ I don’t mean only the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone. Doesn’t matter.”

The hot takes that spawned from Ellen’s even-handed Monday monologue were some of the dumbest you’ll find on the Internet. The following is one of the dumbest quotes from a half-witted think piece on the subject of Ellen’s “problematic” friendship with W.

Ultimately, there’s a fundamental distinction between opinions — you know, those harmless things about whether pineapple belongs on pizza or if it’s acceptable to drink iced coffee when it’s like, the Arctic Pole out there — and maintaining a flawed system of oppression and exploitation. If your “opinions” are based on the subjugation of communities, especially minority communities that have remained, for a large part of history, voiceless, those aren’t opinions, they’re all those “isms”(racism, sexism, classism) that we don’t let affect profitable connections. And that’s privilege. That’s ignorance. That’s power.

Translation: We’re allowed to have our differences on minor issues, like whether a FitBit is worthy of being called a “watch,” but if we’re talking about serious issues, there can be no difference of opinion. The opinion of the woke is the only correct opinion, and if you disagree you’re on the wrong side of history facing the threat of cancellation.

And so we’ll never have those “honest conversations” about race, gender identity, trans people using certain bathrooms, or any other controversial topic the terminally woke keep telling us they so desperately want. We can’t have them because there’s a chance the discussion will hit an impasse. Once we hit that impasse, someone’s going to get labeled with an “ism,” and people would usually rather avoid the conversation than get hit with such a terrible designation.

Want to have a conversation about uncomfortable topics? Great, let’s have them. One of the best things about the days of Fault Lines was it forced readers to confront views so radically different from their own that they made you want to scream. As a former contributor to that publication, it used to be a running joke that Andrew King didn’t do his job if I didn’t want to throw my laptop after reading one of his posts.

But we can’t have those discussions because it’s so much easier to call people names or label them “privileged” or “racist.” That, inter alia, is why you have no more Fault Lines.

Ellen’s friendship with W is just another casualty in our divisive race to the bottom.

5 thoughts on “Seaton: The Ellen Effect, And The Death Of Honest Conversations

    1. CLS

      A valid point the wokescolds and cancel culture commandos overlook in their race to prove who is the intersectional coalition’s most valuable ally.

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