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Ruy Teixeira asks whether America has reached “peak woke”

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Ruy Teixeira asks whether America has reached “peak woke”​

The political demographer says institutions, not politicians, cling most tightly to the orthodoxy​

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Oct 19th 2022
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The question of whether the pervasive push for wokeness in America has reached its apogee has different answers depending on where you look. My approach to answering it draws on the decades I have spent analysing American politics. Socially speaking, the peak was clearly attained during the summer of 2020, when no one outside of right-wing circles dared to dissent from the Black Lives Matter (blm) orthodoxy that quickly consumed the country’s discourse. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of police was the catalyst, but served as just one example of how black people were killed and oppressed every day, the victims of structural racism. America was a white-supremacist society, the narrative went; every white person was complicit in maintaining and benefiting from the system, and every American’s moral duty was to endorse this view. Knees were duly taken on sports pitches, black squares and other indications of blm support appeared in social-media profiles, and copies of Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” and Ibram X. Kendi’s “How To Be an Anti-Racist” were dutifully purchased.

This was a moral panic. Progressive elites and their institutions rushed to embrace radical race essentialism—the idea that race is the primary driver of social inequality and that all whites should be viewed as privileged and all “people of colour” as oppressed—supported by millions of protesters who skewed educated, liberal and young. The violence that attended some of these protests was defended as the unavoidable cost of a righteous uprising. That it was mostly directed against property accumulated under white supremacy provided a ready-made moral justification.
At the same time, the slogan “defund the police” became popular in protest circles, linking the two messages in the nation’s consciousness. The woke view soon expanded far beyond opposing structural racism to envelop the entirety of identity politics—targeting ableism, sexism, transphobia and other forms of “intersectional” oppression that were presumed to be everywhere in America. Language policing, and self-policing, was rampant.
But as summer moved into autumn, that fervour faded. Many realised that much of what was being done in the name of wokeness didn’t make sense. “Defund the police” collided with the reality of rising crime. The shambolic “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”—an anarchic occupation in the centre of Seattle, Washington—and 100 straight days of clashes with police in Portland, Oregon, struck even many blm sympathisers as counter-productive.

More seriously, it became increasingly obvious that the people supposed to benefit from wokeness were not actually on board with some of its related initiatives. “Defund the police” was not popular with black voters, especially those in crime-ridden communities, who simply wanted better policing. Hispanic voters rejected woke cultural radicalism. To an overwhelmingly working-class, upwardly mobile and patriotic population with kitchen-table concerns, the idea of America as a racist hellhole was absurd.

It soon became plausible in moderate-to-liberal circles to voice sentiments that fell short of blanket endorsement of blm ideology and woke orthodoxy. The space for heterodox liberal and moderate writers to express themselves, on platforms such as Substack, began and continues to increase. Socially, then, “peak woke” now seems in the past.
The political sphere is different. Leading Democrats eventually distanced themselves from “defund the police”. Eric Adams, a black politician and former police captain who was elected as New York’s mayor in 2021, was rewarded at the ballot box—particularly by working-class and non-white voters—for rejecting the idea and putting public safety first.
Other Democrat-stronghold cities have seen similar shifts, and San Francisco is an instructive example. The city’s school board voted unanimously in 2021 to reverse a plan to rename 44 schools named after people with connections to historical injustices. In February three school-board members were recalled after they, in the name of wokeness, replaced a rigorous entrance test to the famed Lowell High School with a lottery. And in June voters recalled Chesa Boudin, an ostentatiously woke district attorney. He had become the poster child for a perceived wave of progressive public prosecutors in Democrat-run cities who were reluctant to keep criminals off the street, even amid a national spike in violent crime.

Is that to say politics has passed “peak woke”? Perhaps. Democratic politicians have been loth to draw sharp lines within their party. Therefore woke stances on crime, immigration, race essentialism, gender ideology and school curriculums that are still alive and well in the party’s left could easily re-emerge. All it might take is another viral video or incident involving race (or perhaps gender) to touch that off.
It is in America’s institutions where the wokeness curve seems still to be on the rise. In academia, the arts, mainstream media, advocacy groups, ngos, foundations, school administrations, professional organisations and corporate human-resources departments, it is hard to detect an ebbing of the tide. In the past two years, there has been a proliferation of bureaucracies imbued with “diversity, equity and inclusion” principles, alongside ideological training, rules and strictures intended to compel conduct that is deemed sensitive to the marginalised. Even venerable science journals such as Nature are repenting for their past racism and pledging to “decolonise” scientific research.

Wokeness is stubbornly entrenched in these institutions, and it is there that it will make its stand. Millions of people have jobs, money, positions and influence that are now bound up with wokeness, and they will not give it up easily. The world they inhabit is more insulated from the views of ordinary people than those of social discourse and political competition. We may not yet have seen “peak woke” in that world—which means many of us, unfortunately, may yet face being called out, cancelled or targeted in some other way.■
Ruy Teixeira is a political scientist and demographer, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank. He is the author of several books, including, with John Judis, the forthcoming “Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes”
 
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At it's core, being "woke" is literally nothing more than putting the Biblical adage "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" into action.

The reason the word is "woke" stems directly from the history of spiritual and moral "awakenings" throughout our history -- to be aware of and cognizant and sympathetic of the plight and problems of others. To not go through life "asleep" and unaware but instead to work to treat others well.

The fact American Republicans have managed to turn that wonderful sentiment into something to be disdained, hated and feared tells you everything you need to know about the moral rot at the heart of their party.

It's a sickness.
 
At it's core, "woke" is literally nothing more than putting the Biblical adage "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" into action.

The fact American Republicans have managed to turn that wonderful sentiment into something to be disdained, hated and feared tells you everything you need to know about the moral rot at the heart of their party.

It's a sickness.

No. It's not a sickness. It's what happens to all kinds of language.

What happened is that "woke" effectively came to represent all the unreason being produced in by people with interests in identity politics and social movements. (or something like that)

The attacks are almost always on unreason -- not the caring itself, right? So that seems to be what wokeness has come to mean. (since wokeness as pejorative term seems to dominate right now)

I don't like arguing much about semantics though, more interested in what people are talking about when they say "woke." When I say woke I'm speaking of the unreason.

If you want to talk about the evolution of the word, though, I think it went something like that:

1) Used by Black community, something along the lines of "enlightenment where structural social issues affecting black community are concerned"
2) Young white lefties find this cool... adopt the word too.
3) Word starts circulating more widely amongst left sorts, believe it lost its very specific ties to black community.
4) Mid 10s, everything is starting to get a little crazy... everybody is using social media. The crowd that calls themselves woke develop an outsized presence online are known to be a bit extreme.
5) Trump is elected; identity politics fever ensues. General political insanity ensues. Conservatives discover the word woke and attach it to something like what was known as a social justice warrior.
6) The conservative take on woke wins out; becomes almost ubiquitously understood to be associated with the social just warrior left. Left seems to mostly drop it.
 
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Anyway, the main thing I thought was interesting in this article is that "wokeness" has subsided politically and exists moreso in certain institutions than in the democratic party specifically anymore. Which seems to be correct.
 
No. It's not a sickness. It's what happens to all kinds of language.

What happened is that "woke" effectively came to represent all the unreason being produced in association with political content being produced within the domain of identity interests or social movements.

The attacks are almost always on unreason -- not the caring itself, right? So that seems to be what wokeness has come to mean. (since wokeness as pejorative term seems to dominate right now)

I don't like arguing much about semantics though, more interested in what people are talking about when they say "woke." When I say woke I'm speaking of the unreason.

If you want to talk about the evolution of the word, though, I think it went something like that:

1) Used by Black community, something along the lines of "enlightenment where structural social issues affecting black community are concerned"
2) Young white lefties find this cool... adopt the word too.
3) Word starts circulating more widely amongst left sorts, believe it lost its very specific ties to black community.
4) Mid 10s, everything is starting to get a little crazy... everybody is using social media. The crowd that calls themselves woke develop an outsized presence online are known to be a bit extreme.
5) Trump is elected; identity politics fever ensues. General political insanity ensues. Conservatives discover the word woke and attach it to something like what was known as a social justice warrior.
6) The conservative take on woke wins out; becomes almost ubiquitously understood to be associated with the social just warrior left. Left seems to mostly drop it.
Like I said, moral rot.

In their fervor to discount anything that might help others, the GOP worked overtime to destroy the word's actual and intended meaning.

They did the same thing with the word "liberal."
 
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Like I said, moral rot.

In their fervor to discount anything that might help others, the GOP worked overtime to destroy the word's actual and intended meaning.

They did the same thing with the word "liberal."

That reads as total partisan BS. You're misrepresenting intent massively so you get to make the argument you want. I don't buy it for a second.

The left produced lots of unreason where "woke" topics were concerned. The right, naturally, capitalized on that. It also didn't help that the left weaponized this content politically -- what do you think was going to happen?

As far as the language though... I'm thinking this was more of a natural evolution than, say, the CRT thing.

This is just how language works, generally. The word went through a bunch of permutations and ended up here. Cons happened to win.

(or maybe it'll mutate yet)
 
Agree 100% that conservatives and normies weaponized the word woke.

So, is

- replacing "women" with "people with periods", or
- "mothers" with "birthing people", or
- using LatinX when actual regular Latinos keep rejecting it

Are those things woke, or are they called something else?
 
But anyway, I don't know anything about this guy, but I do think his premise is generally correct. I don't think that being stuck with some of the wildly unpopular ideas that don't actually reflect most democratic voters, elected officials, etc is unsustainable. It only hurts Democrats, and the return is negligible.

They're going to get more aggressive about marginalizing this part of the party. I think. There's actually almost no voting constituency for most of this stuff.
 
Agree 100% that conservatives and normies weaponized the word woke.

So, is

- replacing "women" with "people with periods", or
- "mothers" with "birthing people", or
- using LatinX when actual regular Latinos keep rejecting it

Are those things woke, or are they called something else?
I guess I don't see it as weaponizing so much as winning the battle of popular usage where a particular word is concerned. I think this happens all the time with language.

Of course their concept of woke as a political tool? Of course. And waxing hyperbolic where "wokeness" is concerned? Of course. It becomes like anything else then. I'm not saying they have some perfectly reasonable, judicious use of the word. It'll be used the way they use any other language.

(again, I find the language end of this discussion pretty uninteresting, ultimately)

 
That reads as total partisan BS. You're misrepresenting intent massively so you get to make the argument you want. I don't buy it for a second.

The left produced lots of unreason where "woke" topics were concerned. The right, naturally, capitalized on that. It also didn't help that the left weaponized this content politically -- what do you think was going to happen?

As far as the language though... I'm thinking this was more of a natural evolution than, say, the CRT thing.

This is just how language works, generally. The word went through a bunch of permutations and ended up here. Cons happened to win.

(or maybe it'll mutate yet)
I get why your screen name is what it is, all you do is talk out your ass.
 
Agree 100% that conservatives and normies weaponized the word woke.

So, is

- replacing "women" with "people with periods", or
- "mothers" with "birthing people", or
- using LatinX when actual regular Latinos keep rejecting it

Are those things woke, or are they called something else?
Perfect example. No one but a tiny, tiny lunatic fringe uses those phrases. They aren't in popular media. They aren't in political speeches. They exist primarily in the warped minds of hyper conservatives --- the same morons that think kids are shitting in litter boxes in public elementary schools.

It's nothing more than creating imaginary boogeymen to scare the shit out of dumb people --- something the Republicans have perfected as they made a conscious choice to lean into culture war issues in an effort to garner votes from low information yokels.

Congrats, it worked.
 
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Perfect example. No one but a tiny, tiny lunatic fringe uses those phrases. They aren't in popular media. They aren't in political speeches. They exist primarily in the warped minds of hyper conservatives --- the same morons that think kids are shitting in litter boxes in public elementary schools.

It's nothing more than creating imaginary boogeymen to scare the shit out of dumb people --- something the Republicans have perfected as they made a conscious choice to lean into culture war issues in an effort to garner votes from low information yokels.

Congrats, it worked.

Those phrases have been all over popular left media -- at least they were for a while.

The New Yorker, CNN, Huff Post, NYT, etc... I don't know if they're winning out, or sticking around. Maybe they're fading. But I remembered encountering plenty of them.

Anyway, those people have way more sway in institutional matters than the average American. These are the people Ruy was pointing at when he talked about the woke stronghold that remains in certain institutions. People that use that language.

Hence the potential public tension (you alluded to most not using this language, and that's true) and republicans being able to market those people, with their societal power, as out of touch. Maybe that play will go away -- we'll see.
 
Perfect example. No one but a tiny, tiny lunatic fringe uses those phrases. They aren't in popular media. They aren't in political speeches. They exist primarily in the warped minds of hyper conservatives --- the same morons that think kids are shitting in litter boxes in public elementary schools.

It's nothing more than creating imaginary boogeymen to scare the shit out of dumb people --- something the Republicans have perfected as they made a conscious choice to lean into culture war issues in an effort to garner votes from low information yokels.

Congrats, it worked.

So that's lunacy, not wokeness?

Biden uses LatinX all the time.

Gretchen Whitmer used "people with periods".

Corrie Bush uses "birthing people".

The Biden budget changed "mothers" to "birthing people."


All lunatics?
 
That said...I think, in line with this column...that this stuff is going to start to recede because it just doesn't play.
 
At it's core, being "woke" is literally nothing more than putting the Biblical adage "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" into action.

The reason the word is "woke" stems directly from the history of spiritual and moral "awakenings" throughout our history -- to be aware of and cognizant and sympathetic of the plight and problems of others. To not go through life "asleep" and unaware but instead to work to treat others well.

The fact American Republicans have managed to turn that wonderful sentiment into something to be disdained, hated and feared tells you everything you need to know about the moral rot at the heart of their party.

It's a sickness.
Don't tell that to Kim Reynolds, who insists while Iowans get up early, they aren't woke, and that we still know right from wrong, girls from boys, and liberty from tyranny.

 
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Don't tell that to Kim Reynolds, who insists while Iowan's get up early, they aren't woke, and that we still know right from wrong, girls from boys, and liberty from tyranny.

She is gross and morally reprehensible.
 
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