A Misunderstood Anti-Woke Liberal Rant
Plus, Why Anti-Woke Liberals are the True Heirs of the Conservative Tradition
As an 'anti-woke liberal', I feel misunderstood and unfairly attacked, like, all the time. I have been accused of hijacking the word 'woke' from black people, trying to use an 'academic liberal against woke' angle to become a right-wing grifter, and more. All this, of course, is not true. So in the interest of clarifying where I stand, once and for all, I am making this explainer post.
Firstly, I need to make this clear: I am certainly not part of the Republican school of using 'woke' to score political points. I am sincere and honest about my use of the word 'woke'. I only use it to describe activists who adhere to a postmodern critical theory-inspired worldview, and use it to justify an illiberal form of political activism.
Secondly, we didn't hijack the term 'woke' from black people. Actually, the people now called 'woke' did that themselves.
Thirdly, trust me, I don't really want to use the word 'woke' anymore, especially after how people like Ron DeSantis misused it in the service of their own agenda. But the problem is, we can't use any other term to replace it either
Finally, we are not reactionary culture warriors. As I see it, woke and non-woke are two different ways to social progress. The non-woke way to social progress is simply the old-school liberal way
Why Anti-Woke Liberals are the True Heirs of the Conservative Tradition
One major characteristic of the authoritarian right is its frequent use of moral panics, and the embedding of these moral panics in a wider populist politics. The use of moral panics itself is disturbing enough, because of the risk of irrational thinking and bad policy making. However, its linkage with populism is even more dangerous, because of the inherent anti-intellectualism, anti-individualism and unprincipledness of populist politics. Taken together, there is a very real risk of long-standing safeguards against authoritarian abuses of state power being compromised or even removed altogether. This outcome would indeed be very scary for genuine conservatives.
Now is the Time for the Left to Recognize that Reformism is The Only Way
Like many times in history, the defeated and now impotent left has turned to two things: blame and therapy. They blame the 'mainstream liberals' for getting nothing done, and for not being able to do anything about everything from Dobbs to drag bans (as if they could actually magically do anything about these things). Talking bad about President Biden is, like, very 'cool' on the left right now. Still sour about events from four years ago, they seemingly don't understand that Biden, rather than Bernie, is President right now because they lost in March 2020, fair and square. Them blaming Biden-supporting mainstream liberals for almost everything just reflects their refusal to face up to what was arguably one of their biggest failures of all time. Besides blame, therapy, which includes endlessly analyzing and justifying the emotions associated with defeat, thus turning the political into the personal, is also gaining popularity again.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
All of the dreadfully sane so called conservative talking heads listed here are very much part of the strident anti-woke brigade. They also simultaneously make a mockery of any kind of classical liberalism - indeed Donald Trump gave an introductory "speech"/rant at this gab-fest
http://digital.cpac.org/speakers-dc2024