“Gregory Angelo is the President of the New Tolerance Campaign. He is the former President of the Log Cabin Republicans.
Federal Newswire: What is the New Tolerance Campaign?
Gregory Angelo: The New Tolerance Campaign…is a relatively nascent nonprofit. It was founded to push back on wokeism and cancel culture, but wokeism and cancel culture are really symptoms of the greater problem. It’s a problem that the New Tolerance Campaign seeks to address. That specifically is the institutions whose double standards and hypocrisy have gotten us into this mess.
When I say institutions, I am talking about these woke corporations, their boards, their CEOs, executive directors, and trustees of activist nonprofits that, at least on paper, have noble missions, but have completely lost their way and are basically now just carrying water for the Left. I’m looking at you, ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center, among others. Then, of course, what I call the OGs when it comes to the hypocritical cancel culture institutions. That is the colleges and universities around the country that continue their ever leftward drift, canceling speech and doing the exact opposite of promoting civil discourse.
Now, what makes us unique at the New Tolerance Campaign is that we represent the grassroots movement pushing back on all of that. I think for far too long, our side has not engaged in the same type of aggressive grassroots pressure campaigns and activism that the other side has. Incidentally, that’s another reason these institutions have been corrupted. We have taken the “call your Senator, email your congressman” model and repurposed it and turned the turrets onto those institutions.
We allow everyday Americans to send messages directly to the CEO and board of directors of Walmart when they mandate critical race theory principle training among their employees. You can send messages directly to the deans of colleges and universities when they de-platform and de-charter student organizations; like the Turning Point USA chapter at Emerson, and then in one case like the Emory University Free Speech Forum, which we did help get rechartered at that school.
We have a couple of victories under our belt right now. I am under no illusions that this is going to happen overnight. But I also don’t want to see the culture war hill to the left. I think it’s something that is still salvageable. That’s what we’re working to do at New Tolerance.
Federal Newswire: How does a community in which its citizens can’t talk to each other solve problems?
Gregory Angelo: I think we’re already there. We’re already at a point where people aren’t talking. It’s not just that people aren’t engaging with others that share different views. What we’re seeing is a trend that has been emerging called self-silencing, where people make a point of not saying anything in public to colleagues or friends for fear that whatever they say is something that could get them in trouble or canceled. They might even lose their job as a result, so people are lying.
Actually, there’s been polling about this, where people are saying things that they don’t believe, just because they want the approval of their peers, friends, and colleagues. But when they go home, they don’t believe this. When they’re in the voting booth…they don’t engage in that kind of self-silencing.
There’s a disconnect between what we’re actually hearing in the public square and what people support and oppose. In that case, we’re not going to get anywhere. There’s actually no way to make any progress in our society because there’s no way to actually discuss and reach consensus on issues. We’re at a stalemate.
Federal Newswire: When you say silencing, are you referring to mob activities and intimidation?
Gregory Angelo: Yeah. That’s where the mob mentality is taking us. At this point, it’s not enough to not agree with the mob and to not say anything that might earn their ire. You are actually compelled to say things that you might not believe, that you don’t agree with, in order to just continue living your life in quiet dignity.
Federal Newswire: Do you recall when Vice President Mike Pence went to see Hamilton on Broadway and the cast lectured him from the stage? Is there no longer a separation between politics and entertainment where we can just go out and enjoy ourselves?
Gregory Angelo: It’s not even the fact that he was being lectured to by the cast of Hamilton after the show. It’s that there’s no escape from politics anymore. I mean, going to see a Broadway show, that was something that united people. It doesn’t matter what your politics are. You can talk about seeing a fantastic performance, leaving the theater humming the songs from Phantom of the Opera or Les Misérables or even Hamilton.
I think we’re seeing this right now also in the case of Bud Light, where you usually crack a beer open to unwind and get away from the politics and the intensity of the day. But more and more…, we are seeing politics at every turn infesting every part of our lives. Coupled with the self-silencing, there’s a degree of exhaustion, with all of this but also a degree of frustration that the public has.
I think that the silent majority is a real thing. It’s something that I’m seeing at the New Tolerance Campaign because when we’re rallying voices together, we actually see that there are tens of thousands of people around the country that are happy to lend their voice to a cause as long as they know other people are there to join them.
Federal Newswire: Are corporations getting bad advice from GenZ public relations advisors who have adopted this wokeism approach?
Gregory Angelo: It’s interesting. There was a survey that came out in November of last year…where 63% of CEOs felt it was their duty to weigh in on social issues.
