Peak Woke

AP Photo/Fernando Antonio

All right, I have to admit that this may be the laziest post I have ever written, but that doesn't mean it is the least worth reading. 

It's lazy because others did most of the work; it's still important because it is all too easy to get so inured to the insanity that has gripped our culture since the Obama years that sometimes you need to be slapped in the face with the evidence all at once. 

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What inspired me was a post on X that asked people to share some of the most insane videos capturing the woke madness of our era. 

End Wokeness, who is a great follow, put the challenge out, although I would mildly dispute the characterization "Peak Woke." I don't think that we have reached "peak woke." The momentum of wokeness has hit a speed bump, but the energy behind it has not dissipated. We are in a retrenchment period, I think, not a retreat of woke. 

Socialism is still on the march, and the elimination of DEI is purely cosmetic—renaming DEI departments, not eliminating them. Antiracism is still a thing. It's all still a thing. 

Wokism may appear to be retreating to deeper Blue areas, but I have my doubts. The universities are still the same, the public schools remain totally corrupted, and the AWFLs are still awful. 

The woke still are at war with reality. So much so that cities like Seattle and New York City have moved LEFT from where they were. 

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Think of the ICE protests, of which you will be seeing more this summer, which I predict will be long, hot, and violent as the midterms approach. 

The political and cultural forces that brought us to this point are still plenty strong. Graham Platner is celebrated as an everyman, and Democrats up the rhetoric every time somebody takes a shot at Donald Trump. 

Our society is dividing into two camps, each living in a separate universe. We watch these videos and think "These people are insane," while others watch them while nodding their heads along, thinking we are fascists for not embracing the sentiments expressed. 

Woke is not a fad; it is an identity. It exists to divide the world between "us" and "them."

I sometimes get asked about why I don't try to have a rational conversation with people "on the other side?" I do talk to people with whom I have policy differences, as long as we can have a rational conversation. But woke is not about rational conversations or policy, except in the sense that the woke use rhetoric to get power to do things they want. 

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But you can't rationally convince somebody that the fundamental identity they have adopted is wrong. They may escape that on their own, as sometimes happens, but nothing you or I could possibly say will move them. Our attempts are simply seen as genocidal attempts to "erase" them. 

Either you are in the tribe, or you are not. 

You see this all the time with people like Billboard Chris. Merely wearing a sign that makes a simple, factual claim gets him assaulted regularly and even arrested in some places. He tries to talk to people, but the woke only want him gone or worse. 

Woke is a religion. It is a coherent belief system, but not a rational one. You can't reason with such people, and even attempting to do so is seen as an offense. 

Woke will survive and thrive as long as we allow our schools and universities to indoctrinate students. They are cultural incubators. 

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Reforming the education system—if such a thing is even possible—will not kill woke. But it will cut off the supply of new indoctrinees. 

I don't think we are necessarily doomed. The Cultural Revolution in China subsided, although it only happened when the people at the top were removed, and not in a nice way, and not until the economy collapsed. 

Perhaps we can stop the madness before things get that bad. I certainly think we can in Red states. 

But in places like California? I'm not at all sure. 

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