The thought police are real, and they’re coming for Kanye West and Shania Twain

Liberals experienced a collective freak out over the weekend when two of their most prized A-list celebrities had the nerve to speak positively about conservatives—namely, President Trump and Candace Owens of Turning Point USA.

While I remain firmly in the camp of not caring what pop culture says or tweets about politics, it’s still satisfying to see celebrities with the hubris to break the narrative, especially when those celebrities represent two of the Democrats’ most-valued voter demographics: women and African-Americans.

The first major blow came Saturday morning in the form of a series of tweets from Kanye West, who apparently can’t even with the thought police, and officially outed himself as a free-thinking, conservative-loving megastar, refusing to be clothed in the presumptive swaddling of progressivism.

Kanye must be literally questioning everything (or maybe we’re just questioning everything we thought we knew about Kanye) because he actually tweeted favorably about one of conservatism’s emerging black millennial truth-sayers, Candace Owens, by simply tweeting this:

Dropping the Kanye card in Cards Against Humanity just got that much more epic.

The leftist Twitter mob was swift to respond with anger, confusion, and judgment, no doubt feeling betrayed that one of their own would dare to openly endorse a woman who says things like, “I believe the black community can do it without hand-outs. I believe the Democrats have strapped us to our past to prevent us from our futures. And I won’t stop fighting until all black Americans see that. I’m not far right—I’m free.”

Then came Shania Twain. Sunday afternoon, The Guardian released a published interview that detailed her storied past, almost nonchalantly inserting this straightforward opinion from Twain:

Again, the angry, smartphone-wielding Twitter mob descended ruthlessly upon Twain, who was forced to tweet a lame, four-part apology tour to “anybody I have offended” to survive in her star-studded universe of leftists that won’t let her have her own opinion.

What’s remarkably transparent about both these instances is that the progressive Left genuinely can’t tolerate viewpoints other than the rank-and-file party-line platform. They claim tolerance and co-existing and diversity. But take one step outside their narrow agenda, and they will shut you down so fast you won’t even see the Twitter mob’s horde of savage condescension coming.

They tout their Hollywood celebs as gifted political mouthpieces (Oprah, anyone?) and generate elaborate ad campaigns designed to reinforce the ridiculous idea that all African-Americans and women especially must embrace liberal values because victim culture is the only way to achieve anything in a white male patriarchy-dominated world. Also part of the narrative is the Hillary mantra that no woman would actually vote for Trump of her own free will, but certainly must have been forced by her husband or male family members. (I wonder who Hillary will blame for Shania’s opinion?)

But we know the progressive movement isn’t actually about tolerance or diversity. It’s about total domination and cultural transformation. Saul Alinsky’s 1971 manual Rules for Radicals has provided the playbook and the hidden force behind progressive leftist politics, media, and celebrity for nearly 50 years.

Alinsky wrote, “If people don’t think they have the power to solve their problems, they won’t even think about how to solve them.”

Because progressives oppose independent, free-thinking, morally strong, educated people who self-determine and don’t rely on victim culture and government entitlements, the Left cannot tolerate people like Trump and Candace Owens who say otherwise and encourage Americans to make America (and themselves) great again through hard work and victory, rather than freebies and defeat.

Indeed. And once megastars like Kanye and Shania Twain start breaking the ranks and poking holes in the party-line platform, the Left shows their hand by angrily fearing the dam will burst and their contingent of blind loyalty will start to see that yes, you really can think for yourself, solve your own problems, and have the freedom to think and understand and pursue truth.

Isn’t that exactly what our Founding Fathers meant by life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Welcome to conservatism.

Jenna Ellis (@jennaellisorg) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is an attorney, a fellow at the Centennial Institute, a radio show host in Denver, Colo., and the author of The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution.