#Mitch McConnell quotes Salman Rushdie in speech ripping ‘cancel culture’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday cited “The Satanic Verses” novelist Salman Rushdie in a condemnation of what he called “the grievance-industrial complex,” which he said was stifling free speech.

The Kentucky Republican linked a “cycle on nonsense” against unpopular opinions and “eroded” rule of law following unrest in cities as threats to US freedom.

“The author Salman Rushdie, who was himself threatened with death for controversial speech, once said this: ‘Two things form the bedrock of any open society — freedom of expression and the rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country,’” McConnell said on the Senate floor.

“Free expression and the rule of law. Exactly the two things we’ve seen eroded in recent months.”

Rushdie this month joined an open letter from academics, including political leftists, against censorship of political debate. Rushdie faced Islamist death threats, including a fatwa by Iran’s then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, over his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” which was seen by some as portraying the Prophet Muhammad in an irreverent manner.

“Rushdie recently signed an open letter with other intellectuals, many liberals, sounding the alarm on this cultural poison,” McConnell said. “‘Editors are fired,’ they wrote, ‘books are withdrawn … journalists are barred from writing on certain topics … professors are investigated … steadily narrow[ing] the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal.’

“You can guess what happened next. The grievance-industrial complex came after the letter itself. The authors were accused of advancing bigotry. And the cycle of nonsense started all over again.”

At least two letter signers — historian Kerri Greenidge and author Jennifer Finney Boylan — later repudiated it.

Letter signer and Harry Potter author JK Rowling shamed recantations, writing to Boylan on Twitter: “Be sure to publicly repent of your association with Goody Rowling before unfollowing and volunteer to operate the ducking stool next time, as penance.”

McConnell cited the recent resignation letter of Bari Weiss from the New York Times opinion section protesting alleged orthodoxy in acceptable viewpoints, and attacks on Princeton University professor Joshua Katz over an op-ed.

McConnell said, “The United States of America needs free speech. We need free expression. And all of us, from all perspectives, need the courage to speak up and defend it.”

Supporting free speech is politically popular, according to poll results released Wednesday by Politico. Only 27 percent of voters said “cancel culture” had a positive impact on society, while 49 percent said it had a negative impact.

The Senate majority leader spoke as Congress negotiates a new coronavirus pandemic relief package. He did not directly address developments in the talks.