Deep Dive: The Problematic Rise of the Woke Right

When Unbridled Populism Corrupts the Right

How did the left develop such a serious woke problem…how did they get to be morally bankrupt?

A lot of cowardice by a lot of people who knew better, but didn’t speak out…until it was too late, that is.

As Ernest Hemingway famously said:

Intro

This piece was (and still is) meant to be a constructive criticism of some elements on the right from the point of view of a conservative that believes in many, if not most, of the same things that the people I’m going to criticize also believe in.

Still, it’s becoming more obvious that there is an element within our ranks that are losing touch with reality…though some of you will be surprised that this isn’t an article about MAGA (more on this in a bit). We’re not talking about a difference of opinions here…I can live with that. Rather we’re talking about an inability to agree on facts or on basic principles of objective morality.

Before I go further, because the first thing everyone asks is “what’s woke right?”, this is from one of my threads on X:

I call em “Woke Right” because they’ve awoken to the real truth that the rest of us just don’t get. They’re obnoxious/condescending like the woke left… Not averse to doxxing/mob tactics… Communicate en masse by repeating talking points… And dissent gets you excommunicated

They are the “Real Patriots” So if we disagree, we’re disloyal…we’re traitors Politics is performative…policy wins are for the RINO scum…anything short of “draining the swamp” is insufficiently woke And anybody that doesn’t embrace isolationism is a warmongering WW3 neocon

But they actually hate America…for different reasons than the woke left…yet in the end they reach the same conclusion The US is actually the source of all that’s bad in the world. Unsee-able forces have made America evil So we must tear it all down and rebuild in their image

Yet they share a common fatal flaw w/ the woke left. Common sense…truth…reality And some of us on the right aren’t afraid to point out the obvious It’s not about disagreements on ideology/policy It’s a pattern of behavior That’s what wokeness is…indulgent self-righteousness

It’s hard to really nail down what exactly they believe in because there’s no underlying philosophy or real leader. And surprisingly, for some of you, this is not a piece about MAGA or Trump because it’s not the same phenomenon. Most people who vote Trump or consider themselves MAGA aren’t part of this New Right that I speak of. They are still politically conservative, even if they like his more populist rhetoric.

How do I know this? Because the woke right is a phenomenon that’s largely grown to be a thing on social media and you don’t really see it very much in real life. Second, the percentages of support that Trump enjoys among Republicans is far larger than this smaller fringe right-wing populist movement that is over-represented online. And third is that Trump is a populist in rhetoric only and much of what the woke right currently believes is way beyond even that. Despite the big talk he’s actually governed as a conservative which is why he still enjoys such strong Republican support.

Anyways, I started writing this deep dive in November of 2021 when I first started noticing certain troubling patterns of behavior and other related phenomenon on the right.

Since then I’ve stopped and started rewriting it a number of times for basically three reasons:

1. I’ve struggled with the idea of being overly critical of my side, when there is so much more to be critical of on the left. The mid-terms were coming up, and then other political issues kept popping up…I could never find the right moment to finish it and put it out there.

2. It’s a deep dive and I didn’t want to be vague. And it’s been really difficult for me to put my finger on exactly what it is that’s been bothering me. I wanted to make sure that when I did write this piece that I would be able to perfectly articulate what I see as the issues.

3. I also wanted to find a moment where what I was describing was starting to make sense to people. In other words that it had been around long enough for people to have come across it on their own and could recognize what I’m talking about, because for a long time people didn’t understand it. Now I think they’re getting it.

The First Signs

So why did this journey start for me in November 2021? Republican Glenn Youngkin surprised everybody when he won the Virginia’s Governor race a year after Trump had lost Virginia by 10 points.

For me this was a sign that people were looking for normalcy…that when presented with the realities of what the progressive left was doing on things of importance to them like children’s education, most people would do the rational thing.

This was an epiphany for me. I realized that people weren’t necessarily agreeing with the progressive left, they were just holding their nose and voting for the least worst option as they saw things. For the most part people wanted a return to normality and if you can eliminate a lot of the unnecessary noise from the conversation, people would reject radical progressiveness and side with the more rational position.

I was actually quite hopeful about things moving forward, but when I tried to communicate these points over Twitter, I was surprised to see people turn on me for this message…probably the first time I’d ever felt that.

Anybody that has followed me for a while will know that I feel strongly about and have fought/pushed back on a wide range of issues championed by conservatives because I saw them as being rooted in facts and rationalism:

• Covid-19 Tyranny

• Vaccine Coercion and Mandates

• Access to repurposed drugs for Covid

• Free-Speech infringment

• Big Tech Censorship

• The Great Reset/Globalist Movement

• Neo-Marxist trends on the left in all their forms:

  • Post-Modernism,

  • Anti-Racism,

  • BLM,

  • CRT/Systemic Racism,

  • Cancel Culture,

  • Calls for Outright Socialism

  • Radical Gender Ideology

• The Downfall of American Universities because of Radical Progressivism

• Anti-Americanism

• The Flawed Science of Climate Change

• The Climate Cult - Climate Change Hysteria

Yet all of this did not earn me the benefit of the doubt with a surprising amount of people when it came to arguing positions that were outside of a newly emerging orthodoxy…many were just not interested in a more nuanced point of view.

And I remember thinking: “This is weird…where have I seen this before?”

What is the Problem?

So what is the actual problem? I’m going to try to define what it is I am seeing.

I started calling this the “Woke Right” problem because it felt very similar in behavior to the woke phenomenon on that left that I’ve been so opposed to for many years. Only this time it was much harder to pin down what “it” was because unlike the woke left, which has a clearly identifiable ideology, the woke right really doesn’t…more on why this is in a bit.

So what are some of the characteristics that I began seeing on this woke right:

• Contrarianism: Whatever the other side says, they believe in the opposite

• Outrage Culture: Everything is outrage all of the time

• Purity Tests: Unless you can pass the purity test then you are out…you’re a Globalist or a RINO.

• Cult-like obsession with political figures: For the Left it was Obama…for the Right it’s Trump…they can do no wrong…they walk on water. For example, it’s possible to support Trump without having to swear a loyalty oath…it’s okay to criticize him when he gets things wrong.

• Cynicism: Nothing can be believed, all facts that contradict the narrative must have been fabricated. On the left this comes in the form of theories about colonialism and oppression. On the right this manifests itself as an obsession with conspiracies.

• Conspiracy Theories: I can hardly blame people after so many legitimate conspiracy theories have been proven right, but that doesn’t mean you start believing things to be true because they fit your narrative, instead of verifying whether or not they actually are. All conspiracy theories do is de-legitimize the “real conspiracies” that are taking place.

• Loss of Intellectual Integrity: Simply put, we’ve been reduced to bumper sticker sloganeering on some issues. A lot of the time it’s the same type of simpleminded single-variable analysis that we are so critical of the left for. We reference non-credible sources. We embrace the loudest voices representative of our views even if they are the dumbest people. And worst of all, there’s no intellectual introspection…we can never admit when we are wrong…or when we don’t actually know.

• Demagoguery: Appealing to people’s emotions and prejudices rather than reason is just cheap manipulation. And it never leads anywhere good because without a foundation of objective truth and reason, it all eventually either falls apart or devolves into authoritarianism. The types of people that use demagoguery are either grifters looking to manipulate for personal gain or true believers who think that the ends justify the means. These are not people who stand on values or principles, but rather the pursuit of ideological purity and naked power.

I’m writing this knowing that many don’t want to hear this…they think the left is so bad that it’s pointless to do introspection around a few rough points that they don’t consider that big of an issue. I see it differently. I write this because I think the cowardice of people who knew better on the left to stand up against the worst elements in their woke movement is what has brought us here.

So again, how did the left get to be morally bankrupt?

Gradually, then suddenly…that’s how it happens.

So what are the actual issues they believe in? That’s harder to say because it’s not really an ideological movement. It’s populism so it’s mostly a rejection of elitism, which I would actually agree with. The problem is that because they lack an ideological mooring, the policies they advocate for are largely driven by the mob…or in today’s social media landscape: the loudest influencers farming for engagement.

Some people take offense when I criticize populism because they see it as a righteous movement against the tyranny of the elite. I totally get it because the entire Covid experience was one big campaign for the necessity of a populist back-lash. Covid tyranny was so obvious and visceral, and spread out over such a large period of time, that it changed us…it made us very cynical of authority on the one hand, while simultaeously making us more tribal and thus susceptible to our own team’s narratives. By necessity, we were drawn into a new way of thinking and processing the world around us. And the populist narrative was by far the most dominant one that resonated with us.

Let’s Talk About Populism

Since we’re talking about populism, let’s first define it so that we’re clear about what we are talking about:

Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group with "the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment (source: Wikipedia)

Populism can lead to both positive and negative externalities.

The positives are more evident initially as it begins with a righteous fight to protect the liberty and freedom of the masses versus an overbearing or corrupt ruling class.

On the other hand, over time, it becomes clear that a number of significant problems begin to arise:

• There’s no underpinning ideology: Why is this bad? Because then you are beholden to the whims of the new leadership class who are not moored to any basic principles that were agreed upon. The best example is the difference between the American Revolution which sought to create a firm ideological basis for their independence movement and compare that to the French Revolution which was dominated by a populist movement against the monarchy. Unbound by any principles, the revolution became a struggle for power that devolved into chaos and and a reign of terror.

• It’s essentially a form of identity politics: two groups are pitted against each other. I think most people reading this already understand the problems inherent to identity politics. The difference is that “the elite” class is not at all defined so eventually it becomes a movement where anybody that disagrees with you is cast out as an “other”.

Populist movements start with good intentions but eventually devolve into a struggle for power. And that power comes via a form of mob rule with leaders telling the people what they want to hear, while denouncing anybody calling for rational discourse as a traitor.

Look, populism isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it needs to be channeled towards something constructive lest it devolve into a naked fight for power. Normally we adhere to values to restrain the worst instincts of men by mooring them to a set of principles. But populism has no such constraints.

It can't be left to the whim of the mob which reflexively migrates towards “the next thing”.

There was a time when I supported the populist backlash which I saw as a righteous reaction to the complete over-reach of the left during Russiagate, Covid-19 and the summer of George Floyd. It was a perfect storm of betrayal by the left and our most important institutions which they had come to dominate. It reminded me in many ways of the types of tactics described by Orwell and which I knew of, from being born in communist Eastern Europe.

But what tends to happen with populist movements is that they get taken over by grifters who are willing to shout the loudest in order to exploit peoples’ legitimate grievances. Couple this with social media’s incentive structure to tap into people’s outrage for clicks and engagement and you’ll quickly understand how we went from righteous populist ire to stupid populism in no time at all.

How did we get here?

I’ve thought about this quite a bit and I think it was a series of phenomenon and events that brought us here.

1. Trump Derangement Syndrome: TDS is real and was on full display for 4 years of Trump’s presidency. The amount of lying and gaslighting that we were exposed to about Trump during this period created and supported the notion that the left had completely lost it’s mind and become unhinged to the point where they saw the means justifying the ends in all things Trump…an obviously dangerous and immoral way to behave in a Democracy.

2. Russiagate: This was so egregious and it so dominated the public discourse for years that it became a daily reminder of the corruption and overreach of Democrats in their attempts to get Trump by any means possible.

3. Covid-19: This was not supposed to be political. We were all in it together, but it also devolved into partisanship. I’m not going to go too deep into this, because I’ve written many articles on this and could write many more, but suffice it to say that this was the largest betrayal of public trust of my lifetime. Covid-19 tyranny absolutely smashed the social contract which is the underpinning of the governments legitimacy to rule.

   

   I really can’t emphasize enough how important the social contract is and how dangerous and irresponsible it was for our governments to trample on it for years on end.

4. The Summer of George Floyd: We were subject to months of “mostly peaceful protests” which were actually riots and force-fed copious amounts of critical race theory meant to convince us of just how evil and racist our country was. It was probably peak-gaslighting.

5. Election 2020: Between the changing of voting rules and media collusion to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, there are legitimate gripes by Republicans for how the scales were tipped in Biden’s favor. Beyond this, there are many other reasons why Republicans felt the election was “stolen”…yet none of these concerns were ever really addressed in real-time or very widely thereafter. Instead people were told to just accept the results which was a bitter pill to swallow on the heels of Covid and the BLM riots. Instead of explaining to people what they were getting wrong, they were instead called crazy and told to shut up.

6. Trump Kicked off Social Media: This is was the culminating moment for the rise of the woke right because up until this moment the right had a leader and a voice in Trump. And for all his faults, Trump is not a stupid man. He preached a sort of rhetoric that unified both conservatives and the populists. He said what the populists wanted to hear but gave conservatives rational policies that they wanted. With Trump’s bans from social media he essentially exited the scene of political discourse.

In the absence of Trump as the voice of the right, a new type of populist movement emerged on social media. A movement that spoke in the name of Trump and the MAGA movement, but which also sought to find their own voice in the aftermath of the previous four years of crazy political conflicts and culture wars. And thus the era of the New Right was born…this is what I initially called them…but then quickly turned into the Woke Right. Influencers of all levels of intellect, scruples and motivations could now suddenly fill the void left by Trump’s exit.

And fill it they did.

Then Elon Musk purchased Twitter.

And with the influx of previously banned accounts as well as maximum free speech, everything just got really loud, really fast.

This is not a criticism of Elon or X or free speech. I’ve been an outspoken advocate for the necessity of free speech over censorship at all costs:

In fact, free speech is how people are getting to see this reality sooner rather than later. Instead of festering under the surface we get to see what people are really thinking in real-time.

Still, free speech also requires that influential people with big followings stand up and speak out against bad speech in all it’s forms even when that makes them unpopular with their own followers. The whole idea of good speech trumps bad speech only works if people are willing to recognize the bad speech and say something about it.

And I have to say that I’ve not seen many of the credible thought leaders on the right actually speak out against this stuff. Audience capture is something that every public intellectual should be extremely careful about because it will warp their sense of reality.

Is it really a big deal?

As it turns out there are real world consequences which are reflected in the world view that many on the right are now choosing to embrace as a result of the woke right narratives:

• Isolationism: Driven by the failure of America’s wars on terror, they have become extremely cynical about US involvement abroad. I think that’s reasonable, but their solution isn’t to learn from those mistakes…it’s to disengage completely from world affairs. We’re talking about dramatically changing a foreign policy that has ushered in the greatest 80 year period of human prosperity in history…yet the people who are calling for this have zero understanding about the complexities of that system, second and third order consequences or even how that system might actually benefit America. Instead, we get bumpersticker slogans like: “no more endless wars”, “it’s not in our interest”, “why do you join and fight” and “we need to get our house in order first”. And my problem isn’t so much that they’re pushing for isolationism but rather that they can’t argument their point of view beyond repeating certain narratives. And there’s nobody with whom to have an actual debate on the topic because there’s no understanding of it beyond the idea that it sounds right. It is absurd simple minded thinking, yet this is the stuff being peddled by the woke right.

• Anti-Americanism: They believe the US is responsible for many evils in the world. Unlike the woke left which see the west as evil because they are colonizers and oppressors, the woke right believes in globalist/elitist conspiracy theories. It’s all about the military industrial complex, shadowy intelligence agencies or The World Economic Forum. Not that there isn’t reason to be critical of all of those, but it always goes too far. The issue is that in the end the woke left and woke right both agree that America is the problem and as such this frequently leads to them sympathizing with foreign entities that are, objectively speaking, enemies of the US. Look, criticizing your own government is an important part of the democratic process because it’s how we course-correct for bad policy. But that doesn’t mean you should ever conflate these criticisms with the propaganda put forth by foreign adversaries who would seek to divide us internally. One should be able to simultaneously criticize our government and still hold the opinion that America is a great country in comparison to the rest of the world, and has been a global force for good in the last century, despite its shortcomings.

• “Tear it Down” Revolutionary Radicalism: This one drives me crazy because it’s the farthest thing from conservatism. Conservatives try to conserve things and oppose radical change, but the woke right seems to think the revolutionary approach is better. The funniest example of this was when the same people that were screaming about the absurdity of the “defund the police” movement all of a sudden wanted to “defund the FBI”. I really couldn’t believe it when I heard people starting to say this because it’s just as absurd an approach and non-conservative notion. While I agree there are problems with the FBI’s behavior in recent years, and I also share in the anger (even rage) towards them, we’re supposed to skip straight to tearing it down? Without any suggestion of what replaces it? We’re talking about federal law enforcement after-all…we’re talking about losing institutional competencies built up over decades. It’s radical and irrational thinking, yet this was the issue for which I received the worst ratio ever since I’ve been on X. Again, maybe the solution is to close down the FBI and start over, but nobody saying that has made a well documented and logical case for why that is the best policy…just bumpersticker sloganeering to get the mob on their side.

• Performative Politics: There is a small but very loud, highly visible and influential politicians on the right whose entire purpose is virtue signaling to build social capital, rather than engaging on policy in a realistic way. The incentive structure within politics, especially in Congress, is for this type of activism as it brings fame, acclaim and helps with fundraising. But…

• Political Gridlock: But the problem is that all this does is lead to nothing getting done. If there is no compromise, then there is no governance. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing with the current Republican congress which has become an absolute joke. The counter to this is that unless they hold the line, they’ll never gather enough support to push their agenda. Mmm, yeah…I’ve seen the same thing from the squad on the left. Political activism and politics are not the same thing. They may strive towards similar political objectives, but it’s ultimately the job of the politician to negotiate the best possible deal for their constituents. Blocking things, like the Just Stop Oil activists, without an actual plan to change policy doesn’t move your agenda forward…it just annoys people trying to get on with their lives.

• Lost Opportunity Cost: There are consequences to losing elections. The woke right isn’t winning many elections nationwide and if Trump wins, it will be in spite of his woke right wing. There is a political price to be paid for performative politics that accomplishes nothing. The same way most people can’t stand AOC and the squad, people also can’t stand people like Margery Taylor Green (the GOP AOC) or Matt Gaetz. Maybe you like them, but the swing voters that decide elections certainly don’t. You don’t get policy changes if you don’t win elections and this small, yet loud minority has already hit a wall in terms of support on the right.

• Antisemitism: While not everybody on the woke right is antisemitic, it seems like all the right-wing anti-semites are woke right. And yet they try and call themselves conservatives or MAGA/America First!?

  

  They are anything but that. Trump is the most pro-Israel American president ever, yet this woke-rightster would invoke America First in the name of his ignorance fueled antisemitism. Or look at Nick Fuentes who is now a main stream figure for these people because “he makes a lot of sense”…this despite being an unabashed white supremacist.

  

  While Candace Owens publicly distances herself from Fuentes, look at the responses to her tweets. It’s a veritable All-Star cast of X’s biggest antisemitic accounts who pretend like they aren’t because they’ve rebranded themselves “anti-zionists". Whether it’s ignorance or actual hate it doesn’t really matter…it’s disgraceful and a black eye for the right. Yet again, I repeat that the Woke-Right is not antisemitic per se. But they do very little to push back against this element which has burrowed their way into their coalition.

• Free Pass to the Radical Progressives: The woke right serves to deflect attention from the left’s own radicalism. We should be able to call out radical woke progressives, who wield actual power in our institutions, and contrast them with a reasonable and rational right position. Instead, conservatives are criticized for the behavior of the woke right and in the mind of moderates and independents we’re viewed as just as bad as the radical left…it’s all a wash in their minds. The problem is that the woke right yields no significant power, while the woke left does. So basically the woke right is just providing cover for the radical left to continue their march through our institutions while serious people on the right are marginalized as radicals.

I could go on and on. Everyday there are more examples of this. The only thing that is clear is that they will adopt any position that is contrary to “the establishment” even if it means weaving conspiracy theories to explain every new political development or world event. The problem is that lately, being a conservative or being educated and knowledgeable will disqualify you because it means you’re part of the establishment.

Now add to this the problem of bots and foreign manipulation of social media. Just like the woke left, the woke right is the darling of countries like Russia and China which seek to promote the most radical points of views on both sides in an effort to divide us and sow chaos.

Where does Trump fit?

Is Trump woke right? You might think that from his rhetoric at times, but his policy has always been conservatism mixed with a streak of populism and outside the box thinking. No, it’s not 5D chess but there was enough common sense to challenge some long held bipartisan beliefs to be a welcome change from the old stale conservative perspective.

The issue with Trump is two fold. First, he does nothing to push back against the woke right because so long as you’re nice to him, he will not criticize you. Not even sure how aware he is with this whole phenomenon because he’s no longer on X. Second, is that he’s surrounded himself with a lot of people that I would categorize as woke right, or thereabouts. So it’s definitely problematic seeing him publicly associating himself with these folks. I think we’ll know a lot more of where Trump is when he selects his VP candidate because the wokeness is strong in many of the rumored candidates.

Final Thoughts

This is a serious problem for right and for the country as a whole. Instead of moderation being the solution…an obvious alternative to a radical turn by the left…the woke right now makes the right look similarly radical. So if you’re in the majority of people that lie closer to the political center you just throw your hands in the air and look for the least worst option…even if it’s not the politics or policies you want.

The other problem is that these people (woke on both sides) are not persuading anybody. They behave as if they will eventually get everybody onboard because the rest of the people will awaken to their truth…people just haven’t figured it all out yet like they have. That’s never happening because they are pushing a whole lot of crazy. But they are influential with the larger activist base so they do very well in primaries even if they are nominating garbage candidates. So we’re all sort of hostage to them because of what is now a broken primary system.

Ultimately it all comes down to facts, logic and strong principles. Unless you stand on a foundation built on these, it eventually crumbles under the weight of all the bullshit.

So I leave you with this final thought in the form of a political cartoon which so aptly sums up the underlying problem. I won’t say much beyond this: always challenge what you believe to be true and hold the people you depend on for information and analysis accountable. I can assure you that too many of them on the right have been letting you down.