As a search of this blog would confirm, I used to like Scott Adams' newspaper strip, Dilbert and I remember defending it at some long ago party of the National Cartoonists Society. A member who drew much, much better than Adams — in fact, better than maybe half of the N.C.S. — was lambasting it as garbage.
None of this had anything to do with politics or race or anything controversial. I liked it then because I'd seen some strips that made me laugh. The lambasting gent didn't like it because the cartooning looked (to him) amateurish. Like any grouping of professionals in any field, there is some resentment of someone who comes out of seemingly nowhere, doesn't seem to have learned their craft but then is making oodles of cash, more than arguably more accomplished competitors.
And I defended Dilbert because, like I said, it had made me laugh. A lot of very well-drawn, classically-styled strips never have.
But about 1.8 decades ago, Dilbert somehow slipped off my radar. I more or less gave up newspapers for online sources and the online sources did not show me Dilbert. Outta my sight and outta my mind, it apparently became more right-wing political…or, of perhaps of more relevance to this discussion, its maker did. I've never met Scott Adams and that might be fine. I don't get along with real successful rich guys who are constantly playing the victim card, complaining how everyone conspires against them.
Because of some recent comments of his, newspapers left and right (but mostly left) are dropping Dilbert. He's lost more client papers than most syndicated strips ever have.
I don't see this as a Free Speech issue. Nothing in the First Amendment guarantees a Free Speaker an audience. An occasional annoyance to me is something too often done by comedians and other folks who express viewpoints to the public. It's when they claim that their rights under that amendment are being trampled if someone makes the individual choice not to hire them or the individual choice not to listen to them.
Without directly mentioning Scott Adams, the N.C.S. just issued a statement condemning racism. So has his syndicate though they mentioned him. So have a lot of newspapers that have given him a great platform and vast amounts of money over the years.
You wonder if he's stopped to wonder if maybe he's looking at things all wrong but probably not. He's probably too happy to have a whole new deck of those "I'm being discriminated against" cards to play with.