I feel the same way, but it’s also something about a stubborn unwillingness to accept the fate that we can’t ever have meaningful political discourse without un

I feel the same way, but it’s also something about a stubborn unwillingness to accept the fate that we can’t ever have meaningful political discourse without unreasonable consequences for mildly unpopular stances. That’s not to say I think anyone should be able to say anything without consequences, but the fact is right now people are using intimidation and guilt by association tactics to try to push out all sorts of opinions, gradually making any opposition more extreme and grouping unrelated sects of thought together to increase divisiveness, and not just for opinions that were always universally believed to be deserving of scorn. I am keeping intentionally vague because this is an issue bigger than any individual controversial opinion. I am sure I have many opinions that are controversial to somebody, even as a pretty liberal person, although in all honesty I probably could not identify all of them on my own. Maybe some of them will change, maybe not. Should someone be “cancelled” forever for holding such an opinion? Are people allowed to change, or, god forbid, just simply not agree on something clearly divisive? I believe the answer should be yes so as long as they are not trying to infringe or invalidate someone else’s rights or existence. And certainly, perhaps above all, the right response to ignorance is education and not vitriol. Unfortunately, escalations only seem to get more toxic by the year, with a heavier emphasis on appeals to emotion and not reason. It’d be remiss to not mention bad actors who intentionally try to abuse good faith, too... but I feel that nowadays, the pendulum has swung far into the other direction.