…they’re usually saying one of three completely disparate things.
Either they’re like “Holy shit, I don’t want people to get told to kill themselves or starve or die, especially without a proper trial!” Which, fair.
Or, they’re like “lol, there’s nothing wrong with ____, I think ____ is the best for the job, what they did was not only not bad, it was actively awesome.” Which, ew.
Or, they don’t really care either way but just wanna scare the workers into voting for their bosses’ “rich-gets-richer” program.
It’s often easy to suss out which of the three is the case so we can react with some more nuance. Or, reframe the conversation appropriately.
Uh, not to imply that all calls for cancellation are inherently always correct. I can imagine some pretty wrong ones. The Gamergate crusade vs Anita for example, or the birthers’ attempt to cancel Obama’s presidency. It’s just that those usually aren’t described as “cancel culture” specifically, which is more of a right-wing talking point.