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Cancel culture started out as low hum that at first was easy to ignore. The first few celebrities to be canceled were people I didn’t care that much about. There was that lady I had never heard of who had a cooking show. Paula something. A C-list actor here and a former sitcom star there would get canceled but life went on for me. But then they came for Whirr.
Whirr were one of the most exciting new shoegaze bands to come out in a while and they had just released their second album Sway which has gone on to be considered a landmark of the genre, inspiring countless soundalikes. Then in 2014, Whirr’s social media guy made some off-color jokes about transgenders on Twitter (it was still Twitter back then) and by the next day, the band had been dropped from their label. I was furious. Because a bunch of SJW busybodies didn’t like their jokes, that meant I would now be deprived of the enjoyment of their music.
Eventually the mob came for someone I loved. It was then that my hopes of being able to ignore the political madness by just keeping my head down were dashed. I realized the mob would eventually come for me and my hobbies too.
The same thing that happened with cancel culture is now happening with political violence. The first assassination was a health care executive that I had never heard of. The next was Charlie Kirk, who seemed like a decent fellow and his death is a tragedy, but I can’t say I loved the guy. But recently, my personal hero and spiritual guru Morrissey has started receiving death threats. OK, now they are going after someone that I really love. The matter suddenly feels more urgent than before.
On June 4, 20-year-old Noah Castellano wrote on Bluesky:
Steven Patrick Morrissey when you perform at TD Place here in Ottawa next week on the evening of September 12th, 2025 at about 9pm, I will be present at the venue in the audience and I will attempt to shoot you many times and kill you with a very large gun that I own illegally.
In response, Morrissey cancelled two shows on his current U.S. tour, his May 19 show in Connecticut and the May 20 show in Boston.
There will no doubt be scoffing Morrissey cynics that will point to Morrissey’s long and legendary history of cancelling shows and appearances (occasionally even entire tours!) often at short notice. This has been the case going as far back as his days in The Smiths. Morrissey’s habit of pulling out of shows at the last minute, sometimes for no other reason than because he just wasn’t feelin’ it, was reportedly a source of tension between himself and Johnny Marr. One of the legends around The Smiths’ breakup is that it was Morrissey’s failure to turn up for a video shoot because he wasn’t in the mood that day was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Marr.
Eh. What can you do? If you want genius talent, you’ve gotta put up with some eccentricity. They’re either a genius and a perfectionist, a genius but they’ve got a substance abuse issue, a genius but crazy, or whatever. There’s always some quirk. Morrissey’s quirk is that he has to feel that he is in his artistic “zone” to perform. Morrissey doesn’t do insincerity. He can’t put on the plastic smile if he ain’t feeling it.
I have seen some people online claim that Morrissey is just looking for any excuse to do what he always does: cancel shows. These people point out that Morrissey performed the gig in Ottawa—where the threat came from—although it is unclear if Morrissey has received additional threats since then.
I would say that given the current climate, Morrissey is right to be cautious.
Everyone knows it is in poor taste to celebrate the murder of someone but beyond that, celebrating high profile murderers will encourage copycats. “Look at all these people celebrating this killer. Wouldn’t it be great if all those people were celebrating me?”
On March 15, 2019 , Brenton Tarrant rampaged through two mosques in New Zealand killing 51 people and injuring 40 others. Brenton’s murder spree was celebrated in some of the more ghoulish corners of right-wing internet and by the end of the year, even some normie conservatives were delighted to see the Muslims get a taste of their own medicine for a change. Tarrant’s massacre inspired three copycats gunning for their own 15 minutes of 4chan glory: the Poway Synagogue shooting in April, the El Paso Walmart shooting in August, and October’s failed Synagogue shooting in Halle, Germany. Both Poway shooter John Earnest and El Paso shooter Patrick Crusius cited Brenton Tarrant as an inspiration. Earnest, as well as Halle shooter Stephen Ballier, attempted to livestream their murders in imitation of their hero.
However, white nationalist mass shootings began to yield diminishing returns for glory hunters. First, the shootings were always used to justify another wave of censorship and more state repression. They confirmed all the biases of our enemies and put people who might otherwise defend us on free speech grounds in a very awkward position. By the end of the year, news of another white nationalist killer conjured nothing more than groans of “Oh, God. Not again.” and prepared our move to Gab. Remember that the Halle shooting is why Mr. Bond is in jail right now. The right learned the hard way that violence is nothing to laugh at. Even if you believe it is justified in theory, the cold hard reality is that it achieves nothing, and you always end up worse off than you started. After the Halle shooting, there would not be another white nationalist shooting until 2022, in part because no one saw these shooters as heroes anymore.
The left will also come to learn that lesson once their orgs start getting their funding pulled, getting audited, and being dragged into court while their favorite influencers get banned and demonetized. Until they receive such a wakeup call, the chances for copycat assassins is going to be high. Indeed, Tyler Robinson may himself be a copycat of earlier assassin Luigi Mangione.
While it is unfortunate for the fans, I think Morrissey is correct to err on the side of caution. I would be surprised if we did not see one or two more copycat assassinations over the next year and Morrissey would be an ideal target for a left-wing glory hunting assassin. Beyond being a famous musician, Morrissey has also come to acquire a great deal of symbolic value. He has come to be seen as an avatar for the right and a version of old England that liberals are keen to memoryhole. While he is not a political figure, Morrissey’s assassination would be seen as a political act. The killer would become a household name and it would send a message to any other celebrities thinking about stepping out of line.
On top of this, as an artist, he can’t perform at his best if he is in genuine fear of his life while onstage, and Morrissey is someone for whom being in the right headspace is important.
On a more selfish note, I don’t want to see Morrissey assassinated as I fear I might wind up in prison for avenging his death. I could only imagine the radicalization his murder would trigger. There were supposedly several reported suicides after The Smiths broke up. If Morrissey were assassinated, it might very well result in a wave of suicide bombers.
24 comments
Freshman year in college (1985), was my introduction to The Smiths. The sweetest young man developed a crush on me and much of it involved Smiths songs that expressed how he felt. Great music, but all of it was heartbreak and longing. I was never sure if I made him feel incredibly sad, or if I was more of a character in a beautiful and tragic story in his mind.
In 500 Days of Summer, the character Tom is listening to The Smiths in the elevator that Summer notices and they meet.
I’m never quite sure what Morrissey did or said to anger the American Left, although it doesn’t take much. In England, he never recovered in the music press after he said, while in The Smiths, that “reggae music is vile”. Then there was the entirely misunderstood song The National Front Disco, but he’s hardly the band Skrewdriver. I guess every even slightly Right-leaning artist has to worry now whether tonight’s performance will be their last.
I think he has been outspoken against the blessings of multiculturalism in the UK
I guess so. There is Bengali in Platforms off Viva Hate.
Morrissey is the lead singer of The Ultimate Fantasy Racist Rock n’ Roll band. He will live on and be remembered while hopefully, lennon and the overrated ones of the 27 club will be dust long forgotten in urns. Same with Jason David Frank, the White Power Ranger. And as we all know, WP will never die.
On May 13, 2019, Morrissey performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. He wore a pin that represented a conservative political party in Great Brittan. I don’t know the name of that party, but Morrissey received a lot of criticism from various leftists and celebrities. It seemed to take a lot of them by surprise.
I will attempt to shoot you many times and kill you with a very large gun that I own illegally.
Great article! It seems Castellano had two objectives—kill Morrissey, and promote gun control. 🙃
I noticed that too; these people are so pedantic.
His “very large gun that [he owns] illegally” might as well refer to his genitals. With such people, you can never be sure.
In 1987, I bought Strangeways Here We Come on cassette. The apex new-wave girl in my pre-algebra class, who would eventually become a dear friend, informed me that my new-found musical love had just disbanded. Thirty-eight years later, I still love them and still love Moz.
An attempt on Morrissey’s life at a Morrissey concert would be a foolhardy move; I believe the shooter would, at least, be beaten to near death.
I thought Brenton Tarrant was a maoist
I think the first of the modern political assassinations was the killing of Aaron “Jay” Danielson by an Antifa type in Portland during the 2020 BLM riots who ambushed and killed him because of the Patriot Prayer brand on his clothes. (He was just walking down the street with a friend.) The killer was almost immediately given a friendly interview in the media. (Was it in Vox?)
Then there was that 18-year-old boy, Cayler Ellingson, who was run over and killed in 2022 by somebody who thought he was an “extremist Republican” – though he was just a regular Republican, not that it should matter.
I’m probably being excessively pedantic, but the claim that violence in general – even if justified in theory – achieves nothing and always leaves you worse off than you started seems absurd to me. Violence is probably the one indispensable ingredient for any form of government. Violence is required for law enforcement and thus the very existence, in practice, of law. Violence deployed to defend your self, family, community, or nation is also necessary. Otherwise, those things will only exist as long as nobody wants to take them away. The reconquest of the Iberian peninsula after centuries of Muslim domination surely required illegal violence. That violence did achieve something and it left the Spanish and all of Europe better off. And the modern reconquista – mass deportations – cannot happen without violence.
Sure, one Brenton Tarrant may be counterproductive, but enough of them organized could free Europe from the Islamic invasion (though there is probably a better way than shooting up random Muslims).
What I would say about violence is to be sure you’re right, be sure it’s the best approach, be pretty sure you can win (or that the consequences of losing aren’t too severe), and then go ahead. But to be clear, that’s a high standard to meet.
I am a reformist.
The difference here is that (according to one Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbvry, writing often in both Latin and English), the State (or what is called the Sovereign) has the duty to monopolize violence. You don’t get to go on a blood feud between the Clampetts and McCoys; you have to leave it to the Law.
The citizen gives up the right to inflict violence to enjoy the protection of that Authority on behalf of the community instead ─ and this is the basis for all civilization, and ultimately all governments.
This does not conflict with the 2nd Amendment because you always retain the right to self-defense, even involving deadly violence.
Most regimes do accord a right to self-defense, although some of them like Jolly Old England are pretty squirrelly about it with gun control. And the People’s Republic of Canada wants you to have your “gun club” registered guns locked up so that you can’t use them against bad guys and Grizzly bears.
Nevertheless, if you are not poaching the royal game in places like Sherwood Forest, English Common Law theoretically treats citizens the same when they kill the Highwayman, regardless of being a Lord or Commoner.
Even with the 2A, and the courts supporting it, some states are vastly better than others. The “White Hispanic” George Zimmerman was actually acquitted by a mixed-race jury in Florida for killing President Obama’s “son” when Trayvon Martin violently attacked him in 2012.
🙂
I agree that this is how things should be in a well-run Western society under normal conditions, but it raises some questions (and also, our societies seem neither normal nor well-run).
What grants states this special moral status? I assume it’s not inherent to politicians and governors, but rather something that comes, at least in theory, from a rough agreement among most people to forfeit certain powers in exchange for fairer and more consistent justice meted out by professionals. (In practice, rulers probably just assert their special status and back it up with the most force until their competitors acquiesce.)
But more importantly, where the state does not fulfill its duty to protect the public, out of malice, incompetence, or short-sightedness, does the right to use violence revert back to the people in some measure, or are they bound to suffer? Are they justified in using violence against the state, e.g. against corrupt officials, to effect the creation of a better, less corrupt state? Or must they use only legal, state-approved channels even if those would never be effective (perhaps by design)?
If an anarcho-tyrannical government grants carte blanche to criminals, does it forfeit its monopoly on violence against criminals? What if it throws the gates open to hostile foreign invaders? Presumably there is a line that, when crossed, breaks the compact between the ruler and the ruled. No?
Sometimes people step outside the Hobbesian paradigm, and sometimes the reasons and results are moral and sometimes they’re immoral (though not everyone will agree which is which). In Muslim-dominated areas of proto-Spain, the government was the centuries-long rule of the Islamic invaders, and the Reconquista surely infringed illegally on their monopoly on violence, but I still hold that it was good in both intent and effect… at least from my European standpoint.
There is not necessarily a bourgeois social contract going on here, although there could be something providing legal framework and support, because what we are talking about is the basis of civilization itself and not an academic construct.
The Hobbesian State is merely intelligent men adapting to the state of Nature itself, which means that life is otherwise “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
If a State or Sovereign cannot conquer chaos ─ a war of all against all ─ then yes, it is morally or otherwise justified for the regime to be overthrown.
Of course, if you plan to overthrow the king, you had better win. Political cowards in bunkers with bombs in briefcases do not revolutions make.
Many states respond to their weakness by oppression of their citizens and subjects, and with the harsh supression of dissent. All regimes will by necessity regard treason and insurrection as existential threats and act accordingly.
And for some regimes, that is all that they can do. These are typical of the proverbial “banana republic.” Such unstable Nation-States are never going to land men on the Moon nor discover a way to navigate the treacherous waters around the Cape.
Sovereignty is the glue that holds the State together and elevates it above chaos ─ but I think it is important to realize something very important also: that Citizens are as organically vital to the Nation-State as anything else.
This is why Hitler despised Marxist class-warfare. There is no way that this could conceivably lead to justice or progress of any kind.
In a sense, for me, the Right is more Progressive than the Left, but they are not necessarily going to throw out the baby with the bathwater ─ as the Left will certainly do as it is their fundamental creed.
Then they are wont to go too far, and the parasitic vampire kills its host, as Hitler put it.
The ignorant minions of the pathological Left think (and are incessantly told) that they are being good people and are really just expressing the desire to be fair to all; they internalize this and zealously virtue-signal about it until they cannot believe otherwise.
But they are in fact part of the systemic problem itself, and heavily contribute to the national and cultural sickness. This is more of a process of “managed decay” than authentic creativity, progress, and enlightenment.
🙂
Morrissey made the LOL America You Are Not the World song.
Comrade Lefty should love that one, oh they have never heard any of his music?
Typical.
Morrissey has some good music, and he has some political stances that many on the right can agree with. One thing that I disagree with him on is his arrogance when it comes to vegetarianism. I don’t have anything against vegetarians, by the way. In some ways, he tries to impose vegetarianism on everyone else. An example of this are some of the stipulations that he requires for the venues that he is scheduled to perform at. Quite often he demands that they not sell any meat products during his concert. In other words, they can’t sell hamburgers or hotdogs at the concession stand during his performance.
Makes me want to sit front and center at a concert eating a smuggled-in rack of ribs. 😛 But if what Travis LeBlanc says is true, that might be enough to make him cancel the show…
Does anyone know when or why became based? Did just have a come Enoch moment?
That is unclear. There are some who say the signs were always there. There have been rumors that he was low-key racist even before he was famous. Some suspect that maybe Morrissey got redpilled online more recently and there is some speculation that his nephew with whom he is close may have been an influence.
You can find “based” Morrissey quotes sprinkled throughout his career along with a lot of cringe ones but Moz more or less declared himself a man of the Right in 2019.
Morrissey was/is an equal opportunity offender which the left never like – it’s always a one-way street for them. Particularly, the left probably took offense to many of his songs which were in its eyes a bit too harsh on the girls, whether they be overweight (“You’re the one for me, Fatty” and “Some Girls are bigger than others”), crippled (“One November spawned a monster”), homosexual (“All the Lazy Dykes”), political (“Margaret on the Guillotine” and “The Queen is dead”), or just too self-absorbed (“Lifeguard sleeping, Girl drowning”). Regardless, it’s been his fearlessness to tackle such topics (and I know I’m only scratching the surface on those topics) that have endeared him to millions of fans of which I’m most assuredly one.
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