[throwawaysea]

It’s because it is less about the size of the mob and more about the institutions where they have infiltrated or have sympathizers. MIT could have just ignored the loud minority of voices here but they didn’t because some decision maker happens to be on their political side. It’s the “long march through the institutions”, where professional positions of power are subverted slowly to support an ideological cause (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_insti...).