Earlier today, my good friend Yascha Mounk, who is one of the most thoughtful people I know, got rather vigorously attacked for this tweet:

The dunks came all too easy. Even though Yascha clearly stated that he didn’t want to see cancelers themselves “canceled,” the response was all too predictable. As one Twitter respondent said (with characteristic Twitter snark): “LOL. Cancellations for thee, but not for me.”

But let’s take a step back for a minute and discuss the way in which the debate over cancel culture has devolved. On the one hand, there are those who deny that “cancel culture” either exists as a meaningful concept or represents any meaningful threat to America’s culture of free speech.