And this is the reason things have changed so much:
Step 1: first, identify truly evil people (like self-avowed white supremacists)
Step 2: find a unfalsifable or weak method to associate non-evil people with the evil ones.
Step 3: once this method becomes part of the zeitguist, infer the association implies agreement.
Step 4: once agreement is assumed when stating the association, imply the person's agreement is in the realm of intolerance or hatred.
Step 5: once a person is assumed to have hateful or intolerant beliefs due to the association, 'intolerance of intolerance' kicks in and it's no longer considered ethical to do anything other than push that person out of the public sphere, or, as this comment does, claim they are not free to hold their beliefs quietly. (despite the fact, of course, that these beliefs aren't the ones they have, but the ones projected onto them via the tactics of the previous steps.)
Through this mechanism you can pull anyone you want into the realm of being cancellable or ostricized, once you find a suitable associative vector. The vectors being used today are quite weak, such as being seen in a photograph with someone, sharing news from a website of a particular political slant, or even using a specific phrase.
Step 1: first, identify truly evil people (like self-avowed white supremacists)
Step 2: find a unfalsifable or weak method to associate non-evil people with the evil ones.
Step 3: once this method becomes part of the zeitguist, infer the association implies agreement.
Step 4: once agreement is assumed when stating the association, imply the person's agreement is in the realm of intolerance or hatred.
Step 5: once a person is assumed to have hateful or intolerant beliefs due to the association, 'intolerance of intolerance' kicks in and it's no longer considered ethical to do anything other than push that person out of the public sphere, or, as this comment does, claim they are not free to hold their beliefs quietly. (despite the fact, of course, that these beliefs aren't the ones they have, but the ones projected onto them via the tactics of the previous steps.)
Through this mechanism you can pull anyone you want into the realm of being cancellable or ostricized, once you find a suitable associative vector. The vectors being used today are quite weak, such as being seen in a photograph with someone, sharing news from a website of a particular political slant, or even using a specific phrase.