Some in the media keep questioning why people focus on cancel culture. It's because there are two ways politics affect our lives: first, policy affects our lives; second, social ostracization on the basis of political preference affects our lives.

Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself), as well as cowardly corporations, have made the case that to dissent from the prevailing Leftist line is racist, sexist, and homophobic.

This has real ramifications for individual Americans -- in many cases, ramifications far more grave than tax policy. It forces silence at risk of loss of friends and family. It demands compliance with ever-changing woke standards on penalty of firing.

It's the social climate created by the woke Left and their allies of convenience in liberal circles that provides the basic framework for the complete collapse of social cohesion.

The only way it stops is if liberals recognize that the commitment to free speech and a free press -- supposedly their core principles -- ought to trump their commitment to utopian democratic socialist outcomes.

If they open the Overton Window enough to have conversations with those with whom they disagree, they preserve free speech and a free press, but at the cost of having to debate the road to utopia.

If they close the Overton Window on behalf of the woke Left, they undermine free speech and a free press, but come closer to their policy utopia. This is the choice at hand. It's pretty obvious which way mainstream liberals are moving. And that's disastrous for the country.