I live in a country where political affiliation has become so central to personal identity, and so bound up in our perception of "good" vs. "bad" morality, that

I live in a country where political affiliation has become so central to personal identity, and so bound up in our perception of "good" vs. "bad" morality, that you can't take a dissenting position on anything - not even for fear of government censure, at this point, but for fear of social censure. It's not even fear of current social censure - it's become clear with people willing to dig up old transgressions that you have to protect not only against currently popular ideology, but anything that might become ideology in the future.[1] I happen to agree with you. I'm just responding to the subtext in your post that seems to imply that we still have freedom to dissent.[2] [1] This is my reminder that I'm running late on my regular purging of social media accounts. To try to at least vaguely preserve my sense of anonymity, which I'm sure is much more illusory than real. [2] I have to point out, given that this current strain of criticism is also politically polarized, that I am a liberal. I just happen to be of the generation of liberals for whom phrases like "free speech extremist" are a betrayal of so much of what we stood/stand for.