I’d never have stuck my neck out for a quixotic endeavor like The Ivy Exile if I didn’t still hold out some hope for change. But things are bad out there, and particularly for those well under 30. Yglesias himself, a more senior millennial, was famously defenestrated a few years back from the progressive outlet he’d cofounded, Vox, for signing an anodyne statement in Harper’s Weekly in support of freedom of expression.

It ended up working out great for him, but only because he’d already been able to build his brand and cred for many years. In this day and age, with journalism and academia supersaturated way beyond the dwindling pool of job opportunities, aspiring talent is forced to be more cutthroat than many might really wish to be, while there are certainly plenty who don’t mind. …

True, most workaday folks can skip pronouns in their emails, or kvetch about open borders or affirmative action. The vast majority of those living relatively quiet lives will not be targeted by a cancel mob or called before some tribunal to answer for their wrongthink. And even most professionals have little to fear, for now.

But among today’s ambitious climbers in prestigious places, whether of law or academia or media or business or politics, the types who hope to filter into the leadership class, it’s a dramatically different picture. The competition is such that few, and especially not those lacking favored demographic traits, can afford the slightest ding to their reputations—so much debt, so many years invested, that even for freer thinkers failure is not an option. Social death would mean professional death, and vice versa.