Twitter warriors are absolutely a small piece of the pie, but I think you could say they are the online face of the amorphous force that the authoritarian secret police are attacking.
Each unit of the force is trivial (rioters are a trivial part of the protests, campus activists are a trivial part of the student body, AOC is a trivial part of congress, moral clarity journalists a la Wesley Lowery are a trivial part of news mastheads, online "SJW" people are a trivial part of Twitter, etc). However, in aggregate it freaks out and motivates the authoritarians you are talking about. When they criticize any of the forces, they are simultaneously fearing the larger whole.
Listen, if people want to say that “cancel culture” is a real phenomenon and it has a chilling effect on speech that’s one thing: I’d even be sympathetic to that point of view (although, as I said, I think it’s vastly overblown by people like Graham who are simply experiencing criticism from a broader range of people due to social media).
What I think is ridiculous is to jump to the authoritarian/soviet comparisons, especially when the US is in the midst of a horrific authoritarian violent crackdown by a militarised police force. I think that emphasis reveals a real lack of perspective.
> What I think is ridiculous is to jump to the authoritarian/soviet comparisons, especially when the US is in the midst of a horrific authoritarian violent crackdown by a militarised police force.
I mean, this too warrants authoritarian/Soviet comparisons, does it not?
Besides, what happens when someone who is ideologically aligned with the angry Twitter mobs takes the reins of power and has the full force of the government behind them (including that militarized police force)? Can you not see why people might be concerned about systematic suppression of "bad" thoughts and ideas from the top-down (apropos the Soviet comparisons) in that scenario?
Sure - I get it. The violent crackdowns are big part of why I'm making authoritarian/soviet comparisons, in addition to the institutional battles in universities and media/tech companies.
Each unit of the force is trivial (rioters are a trivial part of the protests, campus activists are a trivial part of the student body, AOC is a trivial part of congress, moral clarity journalists a la Wesley Lowery are a trivial part of news mastheads, online "SJW" people are a trivial part of Twitter, etc). However, in aggregate it freaks out and motivates the authoritarians you are talking about. When they criticize any of the forces, they are simultaneously fearing the larger whole.