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Demonizing "Woke"
Both Democratic party centrists and economically progressive, culturally "moderate" social democrats have doubled down on marginalizing what they are calling the "woke" left...... Why? How?
How did “woke” rhetoric become a bad thing?
Many words and phrases that begin on the left are taken over by the right or the center, with the goal of discrediting the ideas or the constituencies of origin—by resignifying the language. This happened with “identity politics,” which began as a term of ironic self-critique on the left, but became a term of derision. “Intersectionality” began as a method of analyzing interacting, dynamic social formations and became code for either out-of-touch academic jargon, or superficial multiculti class-exclusive liberalism. Most recently, “critical race theory” and “woke” have come in for widespread resignification and demonization.
Leaving CRT aside for the moment (this deserves a separate post), it has been disheartening to see “woke” demonized not only by the right and by centrists intent on discrediting progressives, but now also by leftists intent on distinguishing “populist” progressive universalism from “woke rhetoric.” In a new study cosponsored by Jacobin magazine, YouGov and the Center for Working Class Politics, “Commonsense Solidarity,” “woke” has taken the place of identity politics or “id pol” as a perceived drag on the popularity and electoral prospects of the left.
“Woke” began innocently enough as slang used primarily by Black Lives Matter activists to refer to the goal of evolving awareness within the context of activist mobilization. A social movement can be the best kind of university, and among BLM organizers the road of collective education about structural inequality—along class and gender lines as well as race—leads to becoming “woke,” or awake to the brutal histories that have shaped US political culture. It is unsurprising that (a) some activists began to use “woke” in either superficial or moralistic ways, and that (b) the right wing would adopt the term as short hand for the forces of BLM and Antifa perceived as a threat to Americanism. So goes the political life of language in a politically charged context. But why oh why is the social democratic left represented by Jacobin piling on here?
The immediate context is the electoral debate raging between corporate Democrats and the insurgent progressive left. As progressives have made electoral gains, the corporate funded so-called moderates have attacked by charging that the “identity politics” and “woke” rhetoric of progressives makes them unelectable, and especially unpopular among the white suburban and working class swing voters crucial to Democratic victories. This charge is repeated regardless of the actual circumstances, as in the defeat of centrist Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race. Somehow, the defeat of this uninspiring Democratic corporate mainstream candidate was the fault of the left—the slogan “Defund the Police” and “woke” rhetoric brought McAuliffe down, and will only lead to continuing defeat if progressive candidates win primaries. Makes no sense, but what the hell…… the goal is to use everything that happens to load your own canon, rather than parse the actual forces in contention.
The dispiriting response on the Jacobin left is to agree that “woke” rhetoric is to blame for Democratic unpopularity, pointing particularly to the supposed preferences of working class voters. In the design of the new study, the “woke” contingent is separated from the “populist” group, and effort is directed to showing that populist universalist language that emphasizes “bread and butter” economic issues (Bernie Sanders), while avoiding “woke” rhetoric and identity framings (AOC and Rashida Tlaib are actually named as culprits here), can win elections over Democratic centrists. Four categories are deployed in measuring working class voter preferences: (1) Democrats moderate on economics, moderate on cultural politics (Biden); (2) Democrats progressive on economics, moderate on cultural politics (populists, Sanders), (3) Democrats moderate on economics, progressive on cultural politics (“woke moderates,” Kamala Harris) and (4) Democrats progressive on both counts (“woke progressives,” AOC and co.).
Big surprise—the populist universalists win! Who would ever have predicted that a study sponsored by Jacobin would come to that conclusion? The story is that this is a careful “study” though, and so deserving of credibility. As any student of critical social science knows, the framing of the questions, the definition of the terms and the selection of the target populations pretty much determines the outcome of survey style research. Surely the last two elections have demonstrated how so-called neutral polls can miss the main plot of current events, due to the contestable assumptions that underpin them. So it is with studies like this one, as illustrated by the New York Times account of it. Since the NYT generally aligns with the Biden centrists, David Leonhardt shifts focus away from working class Democratic primary voters, which the Jacobin study argues may well vote for populist universalists over centrists, toward so-called “swing voters.” Using the study’s own results, Leonhardt shows that the left can not win on universal benefits like Medicare for All, since swing voters (who have contradictory views) often support cutting government spending and want “affordable health care” instead. Voila! Same study, different implications! Shocking, shocking that the results in each case line up with the pre-existing political views of the analysts.
The study bases its design on a definition of “working class” that privileges education as class indicator (though other measures are also used, the primary category is with or without college), and defines wokeness as a “political style” that emphasizes anti-racism and a specialized vocabulary—”systemic injustice,” “cultural appropriation,” “equity,” “Latinx” and “BIPOC.” As many commenters on twitter noted, the working class in this study excludes teachers and nurses (might gender be a factor here at all?), but includes many landlords and business owners. And the definition of the unpopular “woke” rhetoric is heavily slanted to terminology used by BLM and other racial justice activists. Of course, the study’s authors are careful to explicitly and repeatedly support racial justice goals (with barely a mention of gender justice, it must be said), as they proceed to argue that they shouldn’t be too, well, obvious in electoral rhetoric. What they are covering over is the racial divide that appears in their data—white workers and workers of color respond differently to the prominence and language of racial justice in electoral campaigns. It’s not a simple one-to-one division, as lots of voters of color are voting for Republicans of late. But rather than confront this conflict head on, the study fudges it by advocating for “universal” language and policies that deep-six the concerns of many black voters especially.
This dismissive use of “woke” is nothing really new of course, any more than attacks on CRT from the right are new. On the Jacobin left, “woke” is the new “id pol.” And behind the whole thing is a dubious distinction between economic “bread and butter” politics, and a supposedly more superficial, divisive cultural politics. But one group’s divisive cultural issue is another’s material, economic bedrock. The coding of issues around this divide is utterly loaded. How does abortion become a “cultural” issue, when forced reproduction fundamentally impacts the material lives of women? How does policing and prisons become a “woke” preoccupation, when these are life and death issues for black and brown people?
The response here from study supporters would be to insist that we must be pragmatic, we must win elections with the actual constituencies that now exist, not the ones we wish we had, in order to get anything major done at all. But that is a very static view of political life, where candidates and campaigns appeal to some pre-existing set of preferences. The campaigns and the candidates shape the preferences. The Sanders campaign was as successful as it was because of the “cultural” successes of Occupy. The BLM mobilizations moved the needle of “public opinion” significantly—until a severe backlash demonized the activists, often via their slogans and language. And demonizing the term “woke” is very much a part of that backlash, that the Jacobin left has now joined. We might fight for a vital, progressive culture that pushes forward with the goal of changing the electorate and the electable. At its best, this is exactly what the Sanders campaign did. Trying to cut out a portion of your constituency, tarring their/our leadership and language as divisive, can not be the basis for a visionary, mobilizing, broadly inclusive movement to seize the future.
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I just want to add that some versions of wokeness can be ridiculous, moralistic and alienating. No question. But then a lot of Bernie supporters were pretty vile too. That doesn’t validate the “Bernie Bros” demonization campaign from the corporate Dems. Ridiculous “woke” pronouncements do not validate the demonization of “woke” rhetoric in general either.