But in some ways, progressive cancel culture has a much broader reach. It does not simply retaliate against speech by ideological opponents; it also quite often targets progressives or neutrals for sometimes accidental transgressions against the new norms of identity-based social justice. It does not simply punish opposition but demands allegiance, including repentance by transgressors. In that sense, the analogies to Stalinism and Maoism, much derided by the “anti-anti-cancel culture” crowd, have some validity. This is especially true since, in the last few years, social justice or “wokeism” really has become something of a party line not only in progressive activism and academia but in most of the established media, a wide range of cultural institutions, and large corporations: Witness, for instance, the rapid spread and embrace of the unpronounceable “Latinx,” which is used as a self-description by only 3 percent of Hispanics in the United States and seems like a blatant example of linguistic imperialism, but is considered woke because it signals not only gender neutrality but gender-inclusiveness beyond male and female. “Cancel culture” is, as Bari Weiss points out in Commentary, only the “justice system” of a larger revolution that seeks to overhaul personal attitudes and behavior through messages in the media, schools and universities, and corporate diversity programs…

Overall, the total number of “cancellations” may be, as Gurri asserts, small—certainly in proportion to the population. But they add up to a social climate of intimidation, particularly when most mainstream media coverage takes the side of the bullies. (When Sacco received some sympathetic coverage from journalist Jon Ronson more than a year after her mobbing, one progressive commentator chided Ronson in the Washington Post for not focusing on worthier victims, such as feminists who get harassed online, and downplayed Sacco’s ordeal by pointing out that she was employed again.)

It is true that “cancel culture” does not rely on government coercion, and in that sense comparisons to the Soviet purges or China’s Cultural Revolution are certainly over the top. But the fact that its victims issue apologies and even express gratitude to their tormentors in a tone that can sound uncannily similar to both is still true and still creepy.