The main findings include:

— A majority of Americans oppose cancel culture, but a significant minority—about a third— support it, backing decisions to fire employees for legal speech that they regard as unacceptable. Cancel culture is thus not only about people being afraid to stand up for their rights; it is rooted in genuine philosophical differences in the population between cultural socialism and cultural liberalism.

— The problem of cancel culture is going to get worse, not better. Younger people are substantially more likely to support cultural socialism than older Americans, even when controlling for ideology and party identification. As today’s college graduates enter large organizations, they will mount an increasing challenge to freedom of expression.

Consider the chart below, drawn from the Qualtrics survey: two-thirds of those aged 18–25 agreed with Google’s decision to fire James Damore for questioning whether discrimination explains the underrepresentation of women in computer programming. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of those over 50 opposed the decision.