Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conjured up the the nearly two-decade old renaming of french fries to “freedom fries” on Thursday to mock the concept of “cancel culture.”
“The party of ‘Freedom Fries’ would like you to know that ‘cancel culture’ is a very serious problem,” Clinton tweeted.
Clinton’s tweet had the subject trending on Twitter. Other users over the past couple of weeks have made similar comparisons as Clinton did.
The notion of “freedom fries” to replace the name french fries was adopted when France expressed opposition to the U.S. invading Iraq after 9/11.
In 2003, Rep. Bob Ney (Ohio), then the Republican chairman of the Committee House Administration, and the late Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), led an effort to change french fries to “freedom fries” on cafeteria menus in three House buildings after a restaurant in Jones’s district in North Carolina did the same.
The renewed conversation around “freedom fries” comes as conservatives decry “cancel culture,” a term they use to define censorship against others that a person or company may disagree with.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday sent a letter House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) calling on him to hold a hearing on “cancel culture.”
“Cancel culture’s long-term consequences to our democracy and our constitutional framework are serious and substantial,” Jordan wrote in the letter.