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Pundits Divided Over Former Home Depot Employee’s Fate After Comments Supporting Trump’s Assassination

While some argue that the employee’s loss of work is ‘cancel culture,’ others claim the consequences are fair

Published: July 17, 2024
  |   By Chris Karr
Pundits Divided Over Former Home Depot Employee’s Fate After Comments Supporting Trump’s Assassination

Pundits are divided over whether a now-unemployed woman should have been targeted for lamenting on social media that Donald Trump’s would-be assassin was not a better shooter.


On Sunday, Libs of TikTok posted a viral video from a man who confronted an employee at Home Depot over comments she made on Facebook.

Though the employee, Darcy Waldron Pinckney, appears to have either locked or deleted her social media account, screenshots of the exchange that ignited the confrontation were shared widely.

In response to a Facebook user who alleged Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump narrowly dodged a shooter’s bullet, “is corrupt,” Pinckney replied, “To [sic] bad they weren’t a better shooter!!!!!”

When another user said the reply was “corrupt…and evil,” Pinckney said that Trump “is the definition of corrupt and evil.”

In the video Libs of TikTok shared with its over 3 million followers, the man filming, Greg Sunderland, confronts Pinckney while working at a Home Depot in Auburn, New York.

After she confirms her identity, Sunderland calls her Facebook comments “pretty messed up. Pretty anti-American, if you ask me.”

Pinckney repeats she is at work twice and declines to interact with Sunderland, who ends the video by explaining he’s a veteran and saying, “I’m making you famous.”

The video currently has over 14.5 million views on X.


Home Depot’s X account responded to the video, and subsequent reposts, on Tuesday afternoon.

“Hi, this individual’s comments don’t reflect The Home Depot or our values,” the company stated. “We can confirm she no longer works at The Home Depot.”

An employee at the chain store’s Auburn location confirmed to SCNR News that Pinckney was no longer employed but would not say whether she was fired or quit voluntarily.


Now, pundits are divided about whether Pinckney’s resulting unemployment represents justice or a right-leaning version of “cancel culture.”

“Trying to get random working class people fired for wrong speech is bad. Textbook example of cancel culture,” said Reason senior editor Robby Soave.

Author and director Ashley St. Clair shared a similar view.

“It is not a good thing to celebrate getting minimum wage customer service workers fired for saying mean things online. I hope you stop this,” she replied to Libs of TikTok’s post announcing the employee’s departure.

Another user accused Libs of TikTok, which is run by Chaya Raichik, of going “on an evil cancel culture power trip and it needs to stop.”

“Conservatives support working class people,” the user continued. “Ruining their livelihoods won’t endear them to our side. It serves no purpose to get them fired except to excite your sense of revenge.”


“If you’re trying to get some nobody fired, you’re almost always the bad guy,” said another user.

Other commentators praised Pinckney’s sudden unemployment as a necessary last resort.

“We’re betraying our own powerless people if we don’t use the power we have to protect them by making the side that imposed these new rules feel the costs,” wrote author and columnist Kurt Schlichter.

“We have tried reason. We have tried appeals to simple justice. They have failed. Now we need to apply punishment,” he continued. “They need to know there is a cost to this. If we fail to impose a cost on them for doing this because doing so is unpleasant, we have betrayed our own people and left them exposed. The left will not stop unless it has reason to. This is reason to.”

Schlichter added: “Sometimes you have to be stern.”

Though journalist Julie Kelly replied, “Well said,” St. Claire remarked, “Ah yes, wield your ‘power’ (so cringe) to get the minimum wage cashier and fry cook fired. That’ll show ‘em!”


BlazeTV broadcaster Steve Deace shared a Norman Rockwell Freedom of Speech meme captioned: “There should be social consequences for wanting Trump’s head to explode on live television.”

“10,000%, especially because Trump is seen as a proxy for us,” Deace said. “Hence, they're fine with us being shot.”


Author Scott Greer said the appropriate response to the employee’s loss of work is “I don’t care.”

“Libs got electricians fired for doing the ok hand sign and other workers terminated just for criticizing BLM. This isn't some great victory, but you shouldn't cry over it,” he said.

Lomez, the founder of Passage Press who was doxxed in May, said the subject had consumed a half-dozen chats in which he was participating.

“I'm an unreconstructed lib when it comes to free-speech, so this one cuts against my intuitions, but I do appreciate the argument for this as a deterrent effect, and it's nice to see the flex of (albeit very limited) power,” he wrote.

Lomez added, however, that

the goal has to be an equilibrium where private speech norms are much … more expansive, because we haven't won yet even though we're in something of a grace period after the assassination attempt, and if the equilibrium result is a narrowing of speech across board, it will get worse for us even if a few of our enemies suffer as well (and don't say it's already as bad as it can get, because it can ALWAYS get worse).

Mike Cernovich drew a distinction between the cancellation of Tenacious D’s tour following similar comments wishing for Trump’s execution and comments made by Pinckney.

“Jack Black is a regime propogandist, not a civilian,” he said. “Home Depot lady shouldn’t be fired but active hostiles are subject to the Bronze Rule. ‘Do undo thee as they would to me.’”

Other users weighed in with a spectrum of opinions.
















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