Posted on 01/05/2022 6:39:14 AM PST by MtnClimber
Pronouncements on the impending death of the woke mania are premature.
y friend Paul Gottfried has already ably and trenchantly critiqued the faulty assumptions about the meaning of recent elections offered by Scott McConnell in his recent American Conservative essay. In it, McConnell suggests we might be at the end of wokeist domination of political and cultural discourse in the country. He is, alas, wrong. Wokeist power cannot be so easily wished away.
McConnell’s piece is long, so I’ll concentrate on just two of his more specific claims in order to illustrate his missteps.
He claims, in the article’s penultimate paragraph, that wokeists make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, citing the Pew Research Center but without a link. I assume he is referring to the November Pew survey on political ideologies that has been much discussed online. These results do not at all support McConnell’s claim.
Pew divides the left-leaning portion of the American public into four groups. McConnell apparently believes only one of these, the progressive Left, counts as woke. But the Pew write-up on its results, and the data show this is not so. Another 10 percent of the American population are what Pew classifies as “Outsider Leftists,” who hold views on issues indistinguishable from those of the progressives and differ only in that, unlike progressives, they reject both established political parties as an effective means of action. That is, they are in some ways more radical than the Progressives.
Pew breaks down their data from all groups on how they feel about redress of “racial bias” and whether they think “systemic change” is needed. About two thirds of both Progressive and Outsider Leftists say “yes.” More importantly, of the two other left-leaning groups, which Pew calls “Establishment Liberals” and “Democratic Mainstays,” nearly 30 percent and 40 percent (respectively) agree. Establishment liberals are 13 percent of the American public and Democratic mainstays are 16 percent.
When you do the math here, it means that more than 20 percent, or more than 1 in 5, of the American electorate believes that systemic change is needed to address “racial bias.” That number is still larger than 1 in 5, because Pew shows that small percentages of all the centrist and Right groups agree with this sentiment, too. How much impact on affairs can one-fifth or more of the voting population have, especially when they disproportionately occupy important institutional positions? McConnell’s refusal to see survey data clearly results in a total misread of how many people in this country agree with woke principles.
McConnell also comments on how, in his view, there are signs of popular culture rejection of Woke principles. He invokes as evidence a recent Netflix series, “The Chair,” claiming that the show presents activist college students who illegitimately try to badger a white male professor out of his job on a trumped up social media cancellation campaign as the bad guys.
Is the poll weighed to consider the Bradley Effect? Its worthless if it hasn’t.
You cannot reason with an irrational person. They are operating under an internal logic that makes sense to them. The opposite of irrationality is not reason, it is force.
Unfortunately, I think the author is right. Wokeism under one name or another is here to stay.
Things that appalled our parents our children will accept as normal. There are many examples of that.
Woke = joke.
If you apply the follow the money theory I think that you will discover that the number of folks benefitting from wokeism is a pretty small group of self-serving contractors providing woke training, some government bureaucrats who see wokeism, like its cousin, COVID, as roots to power and prestige and some corporations who can use the woke -train to gain a regulatory advantage over competitors. The so-called target group to be helped by wokeism for the most part isn’t and in fact is bearing disproportionately the costs.
Think of every liberal ‘educating’ you about anything and everything you do wrong, with a haughty look, open mouth, and a raised pointing index finger.
The many stupid among us cower, listen, and get lectured. The only sane response is a raised middle finger, or two.
Needs a sarcasm tag, or at least an explanation for those in Rio Linda!
What Progressives believe will sometimes will change, but Progressivism is here to stay. For example in the early 20th century the Progressives were all about everybody not from Northern Europe being genetically inferior. That view is now so unpopular these days that Progressives are revising history about it. I suspect they eventually will about the current woke madness. They are always coming up with new group think stupidity. But at least each wave of stupid has an end to it.
You cannot reason with an irrational person.
*************
The Left, by and large, are emotion driven creatures. Facts, logic and the lessons of history mean nothing to them.
You are correct. Attempting to have a rational, constructive dialogue with them is futile.
“You’re just being mean, and you don’t care as much as i do.”
Root Liberal arguments.
Aside from their love of virtue signaling ever notice how liberals always promote the things that give them more control over people? If they’re for it you can bet it does.
Wokeist rhymes with locust. Coincidence? I think not.
Yes ,it will! If my voodoo sticking every kicks in.
I’m willing to think outside the box. Are you?
The alternative is bullets. And those are hard to get out here in CaCaLand.
Yep, its all about power and money
The Woke...can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em. Yet.
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