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[Editor’s note: Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s masterpiece contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
Walking into the children’s section of a public library, I spotted a copy of ‘Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice’’. Published in 2020, it’s almost a cultural artifact because ‘woke’ has gone from a hip term for leftism to a battered conservative punching bag in the culture war.
‘Woke’, the term, peaked in 2020. In 2017, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary and appeared as a category on Jeopardy. Next year, Essence magazine announced its list of ‘Woke 100 Women’. In 2020, Disney’s Hulu aired ‘Woke’:, a tedious series about a college activist.
By 2023, wokeness has come to mean leftist extremism. It’s most often used by Republicans and hardly ever by Democrats who act baffled at the idea that there was ever such a thing as wokeness. Much like ‘Defund the Police’, a set of sounds that once defined lefty culture, has been flushed down the memory hole and everyone is pretending they never heard of it.
In Seattle, the home of wokeness, “race and equity experts” say it’s “time to get rid of woke.”
“That word has been taken,” Erin Jones, a DEI consultant who charges $1,000 an hour for her workshops, admitted. “There’s no good way to use that term. I think it’s been so weaponized at this point that there was not a positive way to use the word ‘woke.’”
What happened to ‘Woke’ is the same thing that once happened to ‘Liberal’. Conservatives seized on it and used it to sum up everything wrong with leftist extremism. Before long, no one wanted to identify as a liberal because it meant being seen as a lunatic fighting for sex ed for kids, free needles for addicts, political correctness in the office and surrendering to enemies.
Leftist support for these policies never went away, but leftism underwent a rebrand.
Unlike conservatives who have retained the same name over time, leftists are chameleons. Leftists were first characterized by that name during the French Revolution because they tended to cluster to the left during legislative debates. More specific ideological terms like socialists and communists came and went, and became tainted by association with leftist policies.
There is no name for the Left that doesn’t have negative associations even for leftists.
Senator Bernie Sanders has spent most of his otherwise useless career trying to redeem the term ‘socialist’ in the United States. And recent polls show a growing approval for socialism among younger people. But, as the example of ‘Woke’ shows, that appreciation may not last long once conservatives turn whatever term the Left uses now into a political scarlet letter.
The destruction of wokeness within a matter of years shows why conservatives should not underestimate their cultural power. Barred by the media, censored by tech companies and shut out by the entertainment industry, conservatives were nevertheless able to take the hip new term that leftists had rebranded as and make it as toxic as yesterday’s radioactive waste.
That is something worth taking a moment to appreciate.
Wokes argue that ‘wokeness’ has a long pedigree and will be back. They’re probably right.
In 1923, the Nazis deployed the Sturmlied of the SA with its concluding command, “Deutschland, erwache! Erwache!” or “Germany, awake! Awake”. That same year, Marcus Garvey, a black nationalist fascist, incorporated it as “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!”
Black nationalists complained that white leftists had “appropriated” a black slogan, but it was the black nationalists who appeared to have appropriated a Nazi slogan.
Garvey, usually described as a civil rights activist, was an unabashed fascist. “Hats off to Hitler the German Nazi,” he had cheered and urged his followers to read Mein Kampf.
“What the Negro needs is a Hitler.” he had suggested and had himself in mind for the role.
But Garvey claimed credit for inventing fascism and argued that the Nazis had appropriated it from him. “We were the first Fascists,” the civil rights leader bragged, “Mussolini and Hitler copied the programme of the UNIA.” But just as Garvey copied Mussolini and Hitler, it’s more likely that Garvey borrowed ‘wokeness’ from a Nazi call to arms that included genocide.
Much like its Third Reich inspiration, wokeness has undergone its own decline and fall.
The Nazis, black nationalists and leftist wokes all meant the same thing by the use of the term which was to distinguish those who are ‘awake’ and aware of the crisis from those who aren’t. The hipness of the term required a certain amount of insider cachet which became impossible to sustain when Republican politicians became the ones to popularize wokeness.
When people think of wokeness, they no longer envision the BLM activists who used to appear on TV shows and on children’s books, they think of Gov. Ron DeSantis or an episode of FOX News. Republicans went to war on wokeness and in doing so, they appropriated it, they took the word and made it their own. Destroying the brand value of wokeness is not the same thing as defeating woke policies, but marketing is fundamental to leftist recruitment and expansion.
And now, once again, the Left is between descriptors. Some call themselves “progressives”: a longstanding and twice dated term that sounds like an eyeglasses prescription. Social justice still hovers around the margins but its users still remember when SJW became the derisive acronym of choice. The media, which rarely recognizes the existence of a separate leftist movement, describing its members only as ‘activists’, ‘experts’ or ‘concerned citizens’, likes the idea of an invisible ideology that, much like 1984, no one even has the words to describe.
Wokes still control most major cities and companies, the educational system and the government’s policymaking apparatus, but the backlash has inflicted some casualties. America is still a long way from 1988 when Saturday Night Live aired ‘The Liberal’ depicting a hunted Matthew Modine on the run in a conservative nation. (Like most SNL cultural guesses, it was actually wrong and conservatism had peaked while liberalism was in ascendance). The long-awaited backlash that would usher in a new ‘Reagan America’ has been promised many times in the last two decades, but has never actually been able to survive and take root.
And yet conservatives, who operate in a counterculture, should remember that they have the power to hurt the Left. The decline and fall of wokeness is a demonstration of the fragility of leftist cultural power which commands budgets in the tens of billions of dollars, controls private and public institutions, yet is deeply resented and vulnerable to some pointed mockery.
Wokeness, once a badge of pride, has become a badge of shame.
Algorithmic Analyst says
Thanks Daniel! Excellent study of the etymology of the word “woke”, how its meaning changed.
Daniel Greenfield says
Thank you. To understand language is often to understand history.
thomas warwick says
Language, by its very existence, describes history. Change the language; change the history.
Daniel Greenfield says
Exactly. Manipulating language manipulated our understanding of reality, past, present and future, but language is harder to change than the elites think
Miranda Rose Smith says
One of the greatest, most influential men who ever lived believed he was the man who was awake. That was BUDDHA.
Andrew Blackadder says
The word/name Buddha actually means ”He who is awake”.
Sadu,Sadu,Sadu.
Mo de Profit says
Woke has now been replaced with “bitter” or perhaps it always was.
Laurence Jarvik says
Leftists change their terms as often as Barbie changes her outfits in the new movie, as often as snakes shedding old skin….don’t declare victory until they are defeated please!
Daniel Greenfield says
Sometimes they want to change their names
Other times they have to
This is the latter case
And it’s worth recognizing that conservatives made this happen.
And then to think about what else we can do.
Robert Hagedorn says
But what will change if only the name changes?
Jeff Bargholz says
I think we should piss on their heads.
Miranda Rose Smith says
Your comment reminded me of Charles. Lamb’s essay “The Convalescent.” Descrbing the restless invalid, fidgeting around in bed, Lamb wrote “He changes SIDES oftener than a politician.”
Ugly Sid says
When we was Fab, was sentimental recall of a pleasant British fad.
“Kilroy was here.” WWII
Hoola hoops. My youth.
Many fads have been harmless.
Leftist fads, like their social upgrades leave scars.
Steve says
Exactly. Giving up “male privilege” a la Jazz Jennings is a but more difficult to reverse.
arnold ahlert says
“Destroying the brand value of wokeness is not the same thing as defeating woke policies…”
Then what’s the difference?
Daniel Greenfield says
The difference is that conservatives won a battle.
It’s not the same as winning a war
mj says
Another uplifting message
that the woke grip is weakening and woke’s failure is inevitable.
I just hope that the fourth reich in Washington collapses before ‘24, before it consumes America and worse.
We need a collective David to slay the woke Goliath, speedily, in our days. How close are we?
And then we can rededicate and purify the
sacred places in America: the library, the classroom, the halls of justice and the home.
Daniel Greenfield says
Beautifully expressed
Steven Smothers says
I second Daniel’s reply: “Beautifully expressed”. As was Daniel’s article.
It’s so nice to read articles and replies that exhibit a knowledge of the proper use of the English language and also in depth thought rather than a purely emotional response.
Cheers to you both.
Jason P says
An excellent reminder that they’ll just rebrand their poison to seduce the next generation. It works for awhile until the innocents become aware. Yes, to be aware or conscious is good even if the terms, in the hands of leftists, means to blinded by their dogma. Usual Orwellian twist!
Daniel Greenfield says
Eventually people get wise that the current brand iof Woke is poison but they never seem to learn that New Woke is even worse
PERRY BONNEY says
“An excellent reminder that they’ll just rebrand their poison to seduce the next generation.”
The left operates the same was as snake-oil salesmen did. What they are selling doesn’t nor ever have worked, but they keep moving on to find new “customers” so they’ll be able to scam them.
SKA says
How fortuitous that Woke rhymes with Broke and Joke!
ed says
Woke
AKA black
PERRY BONNEY says
“Republicans went to war on wokeness and in doing so, they appropriated it, they took the word and made it their own.” – article
Yeah. Like the phrase “fake news”. It was originally coined by some female reporter to describe news written by a conservative. But, with lots and lots of help by President Trump, we appropriated it and took the word and made it our own!
Semaphore says
“…conservatives, who operate in a counterculture, should remember that they have the power to hurt the Left.” Absolutely! Remember Budweiser…
Jeff Bargholz says
“Butt Wiper. beer” I’m glad I didn’t drink that clydesdale piss because after that annoying tranny I would turn down ambrosia.
TruthLaser says
When a word used by the left is discredited and has become less effective, they claim that it is a right wing term that has been weaponized. Replacement policy, long advocated and predicted by the left, has been denied by calling it a conspiracy theory. Other terms are meaningless without specific substance, such as forward and backward which are code words for approved and disapproved..
Andrew Blackadder says
” If Fascism ever came to America it will come disguised as Liberalism”… Ronald Reagan…
It has arrived folks…
RS says
Ronald Reagan was a man of wisdom, courage, and rationality from a humble background. Thank God America had him for President.
RS says
The world’s godless power brokers and global elite can think only one thing: GLOBAL GOVERNMENT. They would like nothing better than for America to enter a war like the Ukraine conflict because then it would become a world war. The globalists always need a crisis! That is how they manipulate the world, and cause government to expand, reduce the rights of the people, and implement their one-world plan. The International concern is that the next tactic will be a cyber attack on a sovereign nation, even derailling the banking system. Out of those ashes will come a digital ID system.
Perry Bonney says
“In 1923, the Nazis deployed the Sturmlied of the SA with its concluding command, “Deutschland, erwache! Erwache!” or “Germany, awake! Awake”. ”
So, great. The modern leftists got the term “Woke” from the NAZI’s, then. Wouldn’t that then make THEM the NAZIs?