One of the more important parts of Chait's article is that when bullies dominate discourse, you no longer have discourse at all. You get enforced conformity and

One of the more important parts of Chait's article is that when bullies dominate discourse, you no longer have discourse at all. You get enforced conformity and running games of one-upsmanship. I'm not suggesting that bullies make ideas poisonous. I'm saying that bullies poison discourse and shut off conversations. They don't so much drive people to other ideas as they do drive people away from engaging entirely. Especially when they do things like staking out the position that there is no reasonable room for disagreeing with them.