Taking a stand is too costly, say people who have nothing to lose

2026 has been a year of capitulation dressed as principle. My timeline has been littered with an inordinate number of people abandoning apparently principled positions for the path of least resistance. What follows is far too many words explaining their revised ‘position’ and a scrambling defence mixed with victimhood when people disagree. Taking a stand should be costly. It should mean something. But those who can trade their ‘principles’ for a cost-benefit analysis had nothing to lose in the first place.