In my 2015 book Scarlet letters, I wrote about Harvard President Larry Summers, “Summers made the same mistake as virtually every brand new letter carrier. He apologized.” If a Harvard president can make a mistake of this magnitude, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass deserves not our scorn, but our sympathy. A supporter of the awakened mob will always be, in baseball terms, a “difficult opportunity.”
A former Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, in January 2005 Summers was asked to address a National Bureau of Economic Research conference on the underrepresentation of women in STEM programs. Among the possible explanations that Summers cited was the “different hypothesis availability of skills at the high end.” Stating the obvious caused at least one “studious” woman to flee the room in tears.
Summers, now branded with a Scarlet S for sexism, initially refused to back down. Under pressure, he caved. The apology took the form that so many such apologies have taken before and since. “I was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unwanted signal of discouragement for talented girls and women,” she wrote in an open letter to the Harvard community. Smelling weakness, the wake kept the pressure on Summers for a year earlier.he resigned.In the age of social media, that year would have been reduced to a week.
Bass can attest to the speed of the media-driven fury. On May 29, he shared an Instagram post titled “The Biblical Reason Christians Should Boycott Target” by @dudewithgoodnews, Ryan Miller. By May 30, the Blue Jays had coerced Bass an apology. “I acknowledge that yesterday I made a post that hurt the Pride community, which includes my friends and close family. I am deeply sorry,” Bass said.
In 2015, when Scarlet letters was published, I thought the Puritans of the 17th century were a useful point of comparison with today’s witch hunters. At the time, I thought our Neo-Puritans had gone as far as they could go. I also thought the “trans” move was too absurd to win transactions. I was wrong on all counts
The proud awakening has gone far beyond Cotton Mather and his God-fearing crew. Waving their rainbow flags – now with a pink twist – the awakened proudly follow Mao’s model in their long march through our institutions. In a godless world without mercy or redemption, they only promise revenge, and revenge has no end point.
As in the Summers case, and in most such cases, an apology is not enough. In any case, it is another provocation. Canadian LGBT activists wanted more. To help them ring in Pride Month, a big deal in Toronto, they wanted to drag. To that end, Bass had met with Pride Toronto executive director Sherwin Modeste on Tuesday and was scheduled to take the opening pitch Friday to kick off the Pride weekend festivities. That should have been humiliation enough.
But Bass put a curveball on them all. When asked by the media on Thursday if the video he shared was “hateful,” he refused to oblige. “Not me. That’s why I posted it originally,” he said. “When I look back, I can see how people would see it that way, and that’s why I apologized.”
This failure to capitulate only enraged the Canadian Maoists. They had hoped that Bass would reject his Christian beliefs, or at least renounce them out of convenience, but Bass’s faithfulness rescued him from any degradation.
How Nick Ashbourne of Yahoo News reported, “GM Ross Atkins … may have been surprised by the degree to which Bass stuck to his guns.” Ashbourne adds without an iota of self-awareness: “The team seemed to be trying to rehabilitate the pitcher’s image.”
“Rehabilitate”, correct. Next stop, re-education camp! On Friday, Atkins, the Pontius Pilate of history, chose to wash his hands of the matter by designating the 35-year-old Bass for the job, a euphemism for crossing him off the list. “Performance was a big part of that decision,” he lied. “Distraction was a small part, but it was factored in.”
American-style Maoism makes liars and/or toadies out of everyone involved. Yahoo’s Ashbourne falls into the latter category. He commended Atkins for “removing from his list an individual who clearly held hateful views” with the caveat that Atkins “kept him up for days” after sharing the video in question. Ashbourne’s take on the matter was the media norm. In survival mode, reporters will insult their audience before antagonizing the political commissars in the newsroom.
As for Anthony Bass, his career is over. He is able to return with his pregnant wife and two young daughters and thank God he escaped the People’s Republic of Canada with his soul intact.
by Jack Cashill Unsustainable: The True Story of White Ethnic Flight from American Cities will be published on July 4. Book today.
Image: AlainAudet via PixabayPixabay license.
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