On top of everything else written here in this excellent essay, there's another element:

The complete cowardice and lack of integrity of our professional (former) peers.

Specifically, people who support privately but shun publicly; people who never have and never will stick their necks out, who watch the witchburnings on the sidelines from the comfort of their careers.

They "agree" with you, but won't associate with you.

They want you to take the arrows for them.

They see the madness and the damage done to people's lives and to the industry as a whole, but they do nothing.

They say nothing. They risk nothing. They lose nothing.

Because at their core they ARE nothing.