If this is correct, then complaining, even abstractly, about political correctness, is already a big achievement.

It has been said that even having a phrase for it, has reduced its power greatly because now people can talk about it, even if they are still punished for doing so.

Of course, people recognize what is happening, and they may not like it. But would still be difficult to have someone e.g. fired from university only for saying, abstractly, that political correctness exists.

True. However a professor complaining about political correctness abstractly still has no tools to prevent its spread to the topic of say optimal gardening techniques. Also if he has a long history of complaining about political correctness abstractly, he is branded controversial.

I think it was Sailer who said he is old enough to remember when being called controversial was a good thing, signalling something of intellectual interest, while today it means "move along nothing to see here".