the mafia; You can get in and even claw your way into the top echelons–but you can never leave. If you later decide to “speak truth to power,” they will hound you and run you to ground.
What happens when someone dissents from the leftist establishment narrative in a way that is so compelling and convincing that the continued wide acceptance of that narrative is imperiled? What happens is that the leftist media establishment deploys its strongest rhetorical weapons against the offender, hoping to destroy or at least cripple the dissident before he or she is able to amass a significant following, or to dishearten and disperse that following if it already exists.