Sharon McMahon was supposed to speak at Utah Valley University's graduation, the same university at which Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Upon learning this, a variety of Republican government officials and personalities went to work on her, claiming she was a terrible choice for a variety of reasons. Some went so far as to threaten the university's funding. The primary rationale for the outrage seemed to be that some people think she spoke inappropriately in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination. As a result, she is no longer going to be speaking at the graduation.
McMahon was a government teacher who got famous after the 2020 pandemic writing and hosting a podcast about government, history, and politics. Her whole brand has been to explain and remark on government and events based on facts and reason without regularly resorting to histrionics -- like how a good government teacher would act. Her audience seems to be those who are at least somewhat uninformed but genuinely curious.
Here is an example of how conservatives criticized McMahon.
From the criticisms, you would think McMahon celebrated Kirk's death. Instead, what she did was to criticize his actions and publicly stated beliefs. This was in the context of many conservatives' rush to essentially politically canonize Kirk. She also, on this occasion and many others, denounced political violence. As usual, the issue here is that many of those involved in criticizing McMahon and UVU selecting her to speak are unreasonable and blatant hypocrites, providing strong evidence that they are acting in bad faith and/or blinded by partisan tribal loyalties.
It is unreasonable to celebrate and highlight (or permit or encourage other people to do so) Kirk's statements and beliefs as good and worthy of support and emulation while seeking to silence those who make thoughtful and measured criticism of his statements and beliefs. Someone's death does not entitle their supporters to speak while gagging others. It's also hard to believe the people criticizing McMahon objected to Kirk's political organization immediately turning around and fundraising (for political activity) after and off of his death.
And then there's the various other hypocrisies. First, many of these conservatives, including elected officials, have celebrated or joked about the deaths of others or unabashedly support (without criticism) the President, who criticizes and needlessly insults people immediately after their tragic deaths and even celebrates the deaths of perceived political foes.
Second, many Kirk supporters, including his political organization, love to tout his near bottomless advocacy for free speech, particularly on college campuses. Yet, here they are advocating for the stifling of speech because the speaker said things they did not like at a time they did not like. It is difficult to believe Kirk and his supporters would have sat back and quietly accepted a decision by a public university to revoke an invitation to Kirk to speak at a graduation due to political pressure from the public and elected officials over his past speech.
This is all especially rich coming from conservatives who have complained for years about "cancel culture." Now that conservatives have significant national political power and cultural influence, it seems that they had a problem not with cancel culture, but with the fact they did not get to be the ones choosing whom to cancel.