It seems like the whole year Americans have been forced to confront the issues with our healthcare system, our policing system, racism, and plenty of other socioeconomic problems riddled in our country’s foundation that persecuting someone over Dr. Seuss books can seem almost comforting. The conservative media has gotten very good at providing this comfort to their base.

Reactionary politics have been a key component of Republican politics for decades and from that sparked culture wars.

It makes the job of professional Republicans easier, if they can convince you that they also despise the wildly inappropriate Lil Nas X music video instead of convincing you on policy, they can pretty much get away with anything. It’s important to not get caught up in these pointless, mostly Online, battles. Everyday, policies that affects you are going through our local and federal government. Instead of arguing with Lil Nas X fans on Twitter you could be advocating for real change.

Pundits, like Tucker Carlson, are infamous for this type of news coverage. During the height of the second stimulus bill that was being pulled apart by the Senate, Carlson thought it was a great time to focus on The Dr. Seuss Foundation’s decision to recall and stop the production of six of their books due to racist imagery.

To most, it’s not surprising that books written in the 1950s included some problematic images, most of the books that were recalled weren’t well-known and this was a decision that the company made on it’s violation.

Carlson however, took this information and did what pundits do best, manufacture outrage. He took news that would have lasted a day on Twitter and blew it up to his base of millions, while a bill that affected those in his audience was at the hands of the Senate.

Republicans claim to be starkly against cancel culture, unless a celebrity goes against their conservative values. Lil Nas X has fallen victim to this conservative canceling due to the music video for his new song “Montero (Call me by your name).”

In the video, Nas makes allusions to Satan among other biblical references, like the Garden of Eden, at the end of Nas’ meeting with Satan he snaps his neck and takes his horns for himself, he fully accepts the title of sin.
The symbolism is purposefully very heavy-handed and representative of something a lot of queer kids deal with.

From the moment you realize you’re gay you’re consumed by others perception of you. People will openly tell you that they don’t agree with your choices and that you’re going to hell from a very young age.

It doesn’t take a genius to see why someone would want to reclaim that title, especially since it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Either conservatives need to change the way they to talk to and about LGBTQ+ youth or they need to learn how be okay with people sharing their own opinion and experience when it comes to the church.

Republicans need to realize there are more important things happening than music videos and Dr. Suess books.

If Republicans really do care about finding the truth and doing research, they should cut down on the highly sensationalized stories published in the media and focus on real issues that affect their audience and as a viewer, it’s important to take a step back and see not even Dr. Seuss himself would care that much about the books.