It is still within the realm of open debate to complain about someone coming to a campus to speak or having a show on the air or to call out anti-semitism. What has happened to the left is twice now a mass hysteria event has sent us spiraling into fear and panic. Out of that has come insanity - first with the Me Too movement and now with what is happening in the wake of George Floyd. In such cases, cooler heads must prevail - either we have a good leader who can calm us down and help us through it or we have Trump, who simply heightens the hysteria. COVID is also always there injecting yet more irrational fear and terror. Humans don't do well in such instances because we need leadership. Absent leadership we turn on each other.

The problem right now is exactly that, as your piece lays out so beautifully. It isn't actual racists receiving consequences. It is people who are good people, who are trying to do good - to contribute - to help. But they are persecuted because they are vulnerable, because they have shame and they care what others think of them.

Sooner or later the bubble will burst and we'll all be left surveying the wreckage. What is most important to take from all of it is this: people have a right to be heard. They should not use that right, or the temporary power they now have, to point their finger and cry witch because it gives them a momentary illusion of power. None of it can be sustained for very long. Mass hysteria events, witch hunts sooner or later turn into cautionary tales, and so too will this.