But now with the inward-lookingness of cancellation, you have people from group B who are cancelled by group B, and have no one to fall back on.
An example would be a teacher arguing for the support of gay marriage getting cancelled by a catholic school they work for. That person, in the past, could pick up their bags and move in with the liberals next door. Yes, they lost their job, and maybe half of their associates, but they still have the other half who would be more than welcoming of them for the plight they've been through.
But what happens when a group cancels their own? For example, the Peru N-word journo. By all appearances, he is a liberal-minded person, who worked for a liberal-minded newspaper, in one of the most liberal-minded cities in the nation. But now he got cancelled by his colleagues. What is he supposed to do - go hang out with white supremacists? Neither side would find that appealing. So instead he has to...not partake in society at all?
It's split into tolerant people and intolerant people.
Some people wear a thin veneer of tolerance to cover their intolerance. These are the people doing the canceling. These are the people you don't want to associate with anyway.
But there's still plenty of tolerant people around in society.
I would argue people that don't really care are in fact the majority.
Do you imply that the only groups in society are liberals and white-supremacists?
This is the problem liberals have...they have to get onboard with all the progressive stuff because they don't realize that everyone else is not a white supremacist as they are told by the NYT.
A lot of Trump support came from former Democrats who realized that they are no longer onboard with the ideals of the modern Democrat party pandering to the Progressives. These people didn't want a traditional religiously crusading Republican - they wanted opposition to identity politics and globalism.
There are good people in the center, and this Peru guy will be fine - but he should have realized a long time ago the NYT is not for people like him.
Of course most businesses would not oppose such a force, because otherwise they will be a target themselves, and enough of a public opinion would be against them, at least vaguely. They have everything to lose, and very little to win if they do not conform. This is why the "cancel culture" easily makes them cooperate.
Apparently, in the eyes of many, freedom is seriously less important than justice, and justice is often seen as the right to not be offended by anything. Not that it's impossible to achieve, but the resulting society would end up extremely homogeneous.
One thing that’s important to keep in mind is that most people of color largely don’t even read the NYT, or NPR. Fox News is a far more popular news source among people of color, even Democrats: https://www.journalism.org/2020/03/11/black-and-white-democr...
If the Republicans could find a candidate who better reached out to conservative minorities while not alienating their present constituencies they certainly would prove a strong contender, specially if the Democrats veer further to the Progressive agenda. Trump's problem was while he appealed to more minorities than most past Republicans he did not market it well and didn't put it front and center enough and also turned off the so called 'soccer moms' with his poor approach to the pandemic.
It’s not clear to me that you can make the coalition work. It depends on what issues you surface. Opposition to cancel culture is apparently something right wingers and my mom can both get behind—apropos nothing, she shared Bill Maher’s recent segment about McNeil on Facebook. I don’t think she’s ever watched Bill Maher in her life.
But of course, opposing cancel culture and winning back nervous Democrats like my mom is also a clear opening for... Democrats. Hint hint.
And what claim stands, exactly? Are you suggesting that because something bad has happened before, it shouldn't be opposed now?
I get your point, but if you tell me I did a bad thing, I can answer in one of two ways: “you did a bad thing too, so you have no right to criticise me”, or “you did a bad thing too, maybe we should have a frank conversation about why we both fell into the same trap”.
And I'd love to see a frank conversation about how we can avoid falling into that trap, but such a discussion has to start by acknowledging that it is a trap; that is to say, that cancel culture is wrong.
The "cancel culture" adds two news things to the picture. One is the ability for anyone to participate, not just the few on the TV screen or newspaper pages. Another is the attempts at totality: expel the victim from every social media platform, every internet hosting, every payment platform, every public venue. It's not yet as bad as it was during the fascist years in Italy, but the approach is pretty similar. There is also no formal totalitarian party to drive it; people just join the cause by reposting a tweet, and acting accordingly when in a position to ban, expel, deplatorm, etc.