Stop Saying Woke
You sound like a gay nerd. Stop it.
It needs to be said: “woke” as a conservative term of contempt has outworn its usefulness and become extremely cringe-worthy.
Worse yet are its flowery variants, “wokeism” and “the Woke,” popularized by astroturfed geeks like James Lindsay and Jordan Peterson (who’ve done such an effective job rebranding rightism as “liberalism but less hostile towards effete beta dorks” they might as well be regarded as subversives at this point).
“Wokeism.” It’s even embarrassing to type out. Nerd shit. “The Woke” in particular sounds like a race of hooded warlocks from Magic the Gathering or a World of Warcraft expansion pack. It also suffers from the same “doesn’t translate well to real life unless you’re in a private setting” problem that plagues most politically-charged internet jargon (let’s be real: no public figure has ever sounded cool saying “based and redpilled" “OK boomer” etc).
Its lameness scales up: the more important-seeming someone is, the dumber they sound when uttering it. Hence why everyone from Trump to Petri dish-bred Soros catamite David Hogg are scoring easy dunks on DeSantis for his rampant overuse of the phrase. The official line is that conservatives can’t define it (stupid and mostly false) but the real reason their critiques land is because saying “woke” all the time makes Ron and co. sound like massive geeks (not a good look when you’re trying to position yourself as the force to “destroy leftism”).
“Woke” broadly refers to social justice-focused leftist concepts/policies and their consequences. It’s a repurposed slang term which originally got popular some time around 2016 when it was used in earnest by leftists to promote totally grassroots “social movements” like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo—movements which conveniently stopped existing the moment Joe Biden became president. Some may have forgotten, given the term’s total connotation reversal in such a short time, but just a few years ago leftists proudly espoused #Woke as a staple of their profoundly embarrassing late-2010s’ political-brand identity along with “pussy hats,” endless demonstrations in places which had already become irreversibly liberal decades ago, and “clever” protest signs.
The Democrat strategists responsible for aggressively engineering the slogan in the first place have clearly since arrived to the same conclusions about #Woke’s innately-embarrassing qualities as I have, hence the left abandoning it entirely and memory-holing the notion that they’d ever clung so tightly to the phrase in the first place.
As previously stated, many leftist commentators have insinuated that conservatives are unable to specifically articulate their own definition of “woke.” This isn’t true, but it’d be fine if it was: most conservatives (aka normal people) think on a gut first/brain second basis and are too focused on quaint hobbies like “raising families” and “contributing to society” etc to be concerned about refining the political rhetoric they’re served. Decent people know there’s a rising tide of society-wrecking psychopaths in America and “woke” is how said-psychos branded themselves for years, so, “woke” it is.
Up until this point “woke” has admittedly been instrumental as a quick and easy catch-all to help people identify a demented mind virus that is proliferating rapidly in large cities, college campuses, online spaces etc. Now that the phrase has reached a national stage its rhetorical limitations are showing. Time to get serious. There are a number of alternatives worth considering:
1. “Communism/socialism”
These terms, like other outdated 20th century ideological labels, basically mean nothing today but are still positively identified with by many over-educated elite freaks responsible for the advancement of #Woke initiatives (see: DSA)—on the other hand millions of red-blooded Americans still react with deep-seated kneejerk disgust at their mention. Resurrecting “communist/socialist” ire is a win/win scenario: either normie-presenting liberals at the reigns of the Democrat party have to disavow their “radical” (in reality they’ll vote for whoever their parents support lol) DSA-adjacent wing or they embrace it instead—the former outcome sows division among the left while the latter makes it abundantly clear to conservatives that today’s Democrats aren’t bashful about their support of ostensibly anti-American ideology.
Plus, just try saying “commie shit” out loud. Go ahead. Felt good, right? You can’t tell me you don’t feel like an all-American chad alpha boss when you say “commie shit.” Imagine if literally any presidential candidate, even Chris “the Baskin Robbins Receptacle” Christie just straight up said “If you elect me president I solemnly swear to do something once and for all about the horrible commie shit in this country” — instant 5-10 point poll boost right there.
2. “Leftism”
Same as above but more precise. Open immigration is leftist. The desire to teach elementary schoolers about gay sex is leftist. The pathological white liberal worship of all-things African-American is leftist. You can tell these things are obviously, indisputably and essentially “leftist” because virtually nobody who identifies as a leftist would ever dare cast aspersions on any of them. Making explicit left-wing politics a more toxic brand than it already is requires far less context than “woke” and minimizes the remaining vestiges of hope that some mythological extinct standard of common good-focused “leftism” can still be resurrected somehow.
3. “Degenerate”
If I were advising, say, a presidential candidate who really wanted to tap into the frustrations of normal, generative members of society I’d highly encourage him to reintroduce this one into common parlance. “Degenerate” is a handy top-to-bottom descriptor of social ills which cuts to the heart of most issues in America today: decline; moral, material or otherwise. There are lots of issues effectively branded “woke” that would be better described as “degenerate”: things such as the sexualization of children via LGBTQ culture, the tyranny of mentally ill public school teachers and the societal trend of racial animus directed towards whites.
Furthermore there are many, many problems in modern America that “woke” obviously fails to address. Urban crime, homelessness, rampant drug culture, young people’s diminishing financial prospects and overall lack of cultural/vocational pathways, pollution, pharmaceutical over-application, the wretched state of industrial farming, etc—all represent different shades of degeneracy. “Degenerate” also serves to describe all manner of evil motives plaguing our culture, from greed to perversion and everything in between.
“Degenerate” is a strong-sounding word. It hits like a slur (in a good way). “Woke,” in contrast, sounds whimsical and jokey. You’re talking about vile freaks who literally want to destroy your country. Don’t give them a joke name; give them a slur. Call them “degenerates.”
Lastly, as with countless other political tactics, I’d bet that if the right doesn’t wield the term then the left inevitably will. If you don’t want to live in a world where “degenerate” refers to not letting your kids consume recreational hormone replacement therapy you’d better claim it as yours sooner than later.
Warlocks aside, ask yourself: who comes to mind when “Woke” is invoked? Blue-haired feminists and overzealous BLM protestors, the lamentable “social justice warrior” set initially responsible for promoting the term. As miserable as those groups are, they represent vectors of American decline rather than root causes. At a certain point it comes off more than a little pathetic to hyperfixate on freakish footsoliders. The American right needs less whiney nerd “anti-woke” bloviating and more 2016 Trumpian “put the bad powerful people in prison” energy (but for real this time).
Commie shit lefty degenerate!
this is the type of stuff I'd say if I was an angry divorcee