Another person suspended from his job put it this way: “Someone who knows me, but maybe doesn’t know my soul or character, may be saying to themselves that prudence would dictate they keep their distance, lest they become collateral damage.”
Putting people beyond the pale creates a social contagion of sorts. It would be interesting to look at these cases from the perspective of public health and view these as disease. What information falls out of doing this? How does this model change?
From Applebaum's perspective that these cases may help sow the seeds of authoritarianism, could they be viewed as something like an initial case of untreated syphilis and authoritarianism becomes a version of festered stage three syphilis.
What other things may stem from these effects as second and third order problems from a complexity theory perspective?