Here is a slightly expanded version of a letter I submitted today to the Daily Hampshire Gazette:

Not that anyone asked for my predictions for 2021, but here goes: 2021 will finally be the year of massive pushback against the illiberal, thought-controlling, speech-suppressing, culture-dividing, country-destroying forces of wokeness. It will be the year in which conservatives, libertarians, old-fashioned liberals and all of those with a shred of dignity say “enough.” We will no longer be judged by the color of our skin, as Critical Race Theory demands, and will instead demand to be judged by the content of our character. We will not obey those who instruct us what to think, how to think it, and what will happen to us if we don’t think it. Those who want to live a woke lifestyle will remain free to do so. Those who insist that we live it too will be politely invited to get lost. We will not sit by in cringing silence as our co-workers, neighbors or even perfect strangers are “cancelled’ for standing up to the woke mob, or for some imagined microscopic offense against woke orthodoxy. If the woke try to cancel one of us, they will receive backlash from all of us. We will no longer be gaslit by our woker-than-we supposed betters in the media (“What laptop?”), academia (“The scientific method is white supremacy!”), entertainment (“How you say, in English, cucumber?”) and government (“Anti-lockdown protests bad! Black Lives Matter protests good!”), whose credibility stands at a new low after 2020. We will refuse to bend the knee, salute the banner, repeat the slogans, submit to Maoist struggle sessions of self-flagellation or otherwise debase ourselves in order to signal our false and unearned moral superiority to those who refuse get with the woke program (and enrich the grifters who instill this false guilt in us). We will deal with our differences civilly and with an open mind, but will no longer give in to those who seek to divide our country in order to gain power for themselves and their cohort. Wishful thinking? Maybe a little. But it can happen if we get over our fears and speak out loudly and publicly in favor of liberalism, free speech and free thought. Let’s do this, people!