Woke 1.0 is over – What the activists got wrong & what the Left needs to learn
Here is the news from the US: Woke 1.0 is over. But what did progressives do wrong?
A movement with safety, dignity and equality at its heart may now be blamed for the rightwing backlash. But within it were principles worth carrying forwards
When even The Guardian and AOC can admit it…
How AOC is rewriting her own “Woke 1” history
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is laughing off “Woke 1.” But she’s carrying baggage from the 2020 era of cultural progressivism that some Democrats say is an obstacle to a future presidential run.
Axios
…you know woke 1.0 is over.
As someone who likes to credit myself with the wide spread use of the word ‘woke’ as a derisive term aimed at identity politics activists in NZ, and as the only Left winger in NZ who called it out, I feel we need an urgent redefinition of the term as it looks likely to be the most over used insult in the 2026 election.
As a class lefty, I see identity as an important personal journey that leads you to politics but feel Identity Politics becomes terribly limited in gaining the democratic 51% as its most shrill advocates in the cancel culture landscape manage to make progress as alienating as drinking a cup of cold sick.
Class solidarity can gain 51%, Identity Politics risks pure temple over broad-church and you get endless schisms and little to show for it.
For most ultra woke activists, their starting point is all white people are racist, every man is a rapist and anyone supporting free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi.
There’s not much intellectual wriggle room there.
That virtue-signalling-middle-class-micro-aggression-policing-identifiably-Green-Party-militant-bike-riding-vegan-condescending-supporting-pronoun-Spinoff-subscriber in your social media feed screaming endlessly at you in the ubiquitous world of social media certainly thinks they are shouting truth to power, unfortunately it all ends up as a cacophony of self righteous struggle sessions alienating the vast chunk of voters who just want to know how they are paying for the roof over their heads and the food on their tables.
So that’s ‘Woke’. Identity Politics activists suffering the narcism of petty difference and subjective triggering who put their identity above all else.
They engage in outrage olympics and cancel culture because it’s easier to shut down an idea because you have feelings than actually put together a cohesive intellectual argument.
It’s middle class and it’s very virtue signalling.
We get it wokies, your self created identity is more important than our shared humanity.
The Holy Trinity of Identitarians is:
- ALL White people are irredeemable cross burning racists.
- B-E-L-I-E-V-E ALL WOMAN that ALL men are rapists.
- Anyone supporting free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi who hates the Trans Community.
Wokeness was never about redistribution of wealth (most Woke Activists are middle class).
Wokeness was never about redistribution of power.
Wokeness was always about a redistribution of status.
For the first time in their lives 4th wave feminists, mommy bloggers, non-binary activists and the woke middle class had a tiny amount of power and rather than demand structural economic change, all they had were toxic micro aggression policing.
The poor tuned to us looking for solutions and all the got was pronoun cancel culture.
Most working people had no idea what a pronoun was!
They asked, ‘can you eat a pronoun? Can you use it to pay bills”?
The NZ Woke are now all on Bluesky and it’s vital this election that they stay there so that their alienating pure temple nonsense doesn’t continue to drive voters into the arms of the reactionary right.
You don’t want men thinking of themselves as heteronormative white cis males, you want them thinking of themselves as part of the 90% and you want them to see themselves as citizens.
Broadchurch solidarity is how you beat the Billionaire Class, Property Pimps, Big Polluters and Corporations, Pure Temple Woke Dogma does nothing but empower the Billionaire Class, Property Pimps, Big Polluters and Corporations.
If you have a woke friend on Bluesky – keep them there.
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Oh Dear, You seem to have fallen into using the Right’s ridiculous and intentionally twisted definition of “Woke” and not the original meaning from American Blacks as being AWARE of the inherent but hidden duplicity and hypocrisy of much social discourse. A great pity as there is absolutely NOTHING to be ashamed of in being “woke”, especially as “non-woke” really means being “IGNORANT”, even intentionally. Non-Woke certainly applies to many who, in their simplest thinking, use “woke” or “woketards”, “libtards” etc as derogatory insults towards the Left but which is as stupidly NOT insulting as “Social Justice Warrior”, “Do-Gooder”, “Snowflake” etc. I’m disappointed you’ve taken this stance, Martyn. You seem to have succumbed to the Right’s misinformational narrative.
Great – woketards to the left of me and manosphere fuckwits to the right of me . .
There are people in our society who are bullies. Back in the day when racism was acceptable bullies were racist because it gave them a justification for picking on people. Bullies are cowards though so these days they side with the anti-racists and it’s turned out to be been really great for them because they get to whip themselves into a total self-righteous state while they’re conducting their bullying.
Everyone thinks the movement went too far but really it’s just that the wrong people joined.
Oh and there is also a bit of class-war stuff going on with middle class people lecturing working class people for getting their pronouns wrong – but oh the feeling of self righteousness, it’s like a drug but it’s totally free!
“But within it were principles worth carrying forwards”
No, there is nothing redeemable about wokeism. DEI cost the NZ navy HMNZS Manawanui, and produced the academic crash-and-burn of Claudine Gay and Jason Arday. It is a senseless, counterproductive philosophy that brings suspicion among those women, Maori, black people etc who succeed on their own merits. Wokeism gave us “mana orite”, the deluded and irresponsible proclamation by the previous government that science and maatauranga are equally valuable. To tell our children that is to deceive them – the world we all live in is largely a product of the scientific revolution, it is built on the harnessing of electricity by 18th and 19th century scientists, the discovery of electromagnetism (without which there would be no electric motors), the development of germ theory by people like Pasteur and Fleming, the isolation of elements like oxygen and aluminium. Yet “experts” like Rosemary Hipkins have been telling our kids that science is just another “knowledge system”.
Wokeism has done immense damage to NZ, and to the West in general. Wokeism is cultural cancer.
Well, the backlash was so fucking obvious it was going to happen, I sometimes wonder if there are agent provocateurs among these extremists.
FFS Martin. Why the hell do you know include vegans and bike riders in your woke list?
The planet is seriously fucked and a couple of ways to make it less fucked is to stop eating meat and ride a bike.
Better for the planet, better for your health, and a whole shitload better for the animals.
“You don’t want men thinking of themselves as heteronormative white cis males”.
Bro too late. The young men have joined the manosphere and I kid you not they believe boomer men made their lives worse by not fighting back against feminism.
And dont forget three of the leaders in the current govt Winnie, Jonsey and Seymore are heteronormative maori cis males.