Looking Back on the 90s: Political Correctness, an argument about it

Overt, aggressive political correctness* seems to have faded from the scene over time. This is not, however, due to its expiration--we did not simply tire of it, like we did with grunge; rather, political correctness was assimilated completely into our culture, a massive argument-ending victory.
[My mother probably remembers the horrible diarrhea faces I made when she described a friend as "Oriental". That was probably 1996. Today she speaks polite, proper English, which means she does not make those kinds of mistakes anymore.]
It would be interesting to know more about how one goes about installing an entirely set of mores into a recalcitrant society like ours. It would be beneficial if we could install a similar set of injunctions against wasteful consumption**.

Anyhow, Americans nowdays collectively know not to do this kind of thing:


*I'm thinking of stuff like debating new gender-neutral pronouns, that kind of garbage.
**The only other successful campaign to install these kinds of mores that comes to mind is the "Don't Mess With Texas" campaign, which was apparently successful in reducing littering by appealing to Texans' weird chauvanism about our state.