The “tolerance” movement of the 90’s that told everyone “you don’t have to like or accept or respect everyone, just tolerate their existence” was a total failure, and will always be a total failure, because it did not address any base problems or issues.
Just because a man doesn’t call me a faggot to my face anymore doesn’t mean he still isn’t a homophobe that privately thinks I should be stoned to death. You’re not addressing the problem, you’re literally ignoring it. It doesn’t even mean that, privately, I still won’t get beaten or called slurs because hey it’s out of the public eye. As long as it looks like I’m being tolerated then it’s all cool right?
All it did was just move it to the shadows. Let people continue their bigotry behind closed doors so that when there wasn’t societal pressure to keep it hidden, like, say when a President is openly bigoted and shouts at rallies that “PC has gone mad and we can’t say what we think,” suddenly it’s all back in the open again. Hate crimes go up, violence and slurs and open hatred start becoming a norm again. Nazis might say lead torch lit rallies to synagogues, mosques, and black churches.
All the tolerance movement was, was a way for White cishet liberals to not have to think difficult thoughts on race, gender, sexuality, or religion. But once that veil of “tolerance” came off, suddenly they are aghast at all these bigotted people around them. Just because you didn’t want to see it or think about doesn’t make it go away. Address the real problems and maybe, in time, it finally will. You don’t heal by ignoring the disease.