"This, then, is the truly awful thing about cancellation — not just that it’s unpleasant, but that it is expensive, often ruinously so."

Wut?

I don't know the specifics of this case any more than you do (since all the original communication seems to have been edited) but some people deserve to face consequences for their actions, cost be damned. Justice is more important than economics, just as injustice can be very, very expensive. The absence of consequences and the ready evidence that there are two systems of justice and economics in this country are why we have so much political polarization.

Reasonable people can debate whether the consequences are appropriate in this case but are you trying to claim that consequences should never be levied because they're costly to society? Seriously?