The fake and the real in American cancel culture

Alexi McCammond is supposedly the latest victim of cancel culture. At least, that is what many Americans in elite spaces believe. McCammond recently resigned from her position as editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue just days before she was to begin running the magazine.

Her use of racist anti-Asian and homophobic language on Twitter when she was 17 years old resurfaced. “She was only 17,” any number of big-named folks in elite circles like Cenk Uygur and Glenn Greenwald have said. To her credit, in 2019 McCammond provided a standard if-I-offended-you-style public...