On his website, he stated:
Woke Right refers to right-wing people who have adopted the characteristics and underlying worldview orientation of the Woke Left for putatively "right-wing," "conservative," or reactionary causes. They are, as reactionaries, the image of the Right projected by the Left made real by players claiming to be on the Right. That is, they’re right-wing people who act and think about the world like Woke Leftists.
Lindsay echoed this definition in his written responses to Blaze News, in which he suggested that woke right "means using critical theories or Marxian analysis for right-wing or anti-Left causes."
"It is very specific," Lindsay continued. "Most conservatives do not meet this definition."
A sizeable portion of the MAGA coalition does, however, supposedly meet this or one of Lindsay's other definitions. Right-wing populists, for example, are on the liberal's naughty list, as are those who subscribe to national conservatism, which he dubbed "the Woke Right final boss."
The application of "woke right" to national conservatives amounts to the more tactical smear, as it not only cuts through the MAGA coalition but deep into the Trump administration and the Republican Party.
Past speakers at the National Conservatism Conference, which is run by the Hazony-led Edmund Burke Foundation, include Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Michael Anton, another senior State Department official; Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby; White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller; Trump border czar Tom Homan; and Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.).
Of course, there's also JD Vance, who underscored in a NatCon speech — given just days before President Donald Trump chose him as his running mate — that while America was founded "on great ideas," it is not, as some have suggested, reducible to "just an idea."
James Lindsay and a bunch of his friends tried to pump the hatred higher because the term 'illiberal' — it just didn't succeed in sufficiently tainting and de-legitimizing conservatives.
While Lindsay has danced around labeling Vance "woke right" for daring to express such thoughts, stating in December, "I haven't called JD Vance Woke Right anywhere yet," he has implied as much — calling him a "post-liberal" with a predominantly woke right team, who not only entertains the woke right definition of "nation" but did the unspeakable: speak at a National Conservatism Conference.
In fairness to Vance and his fellow NatCon alumni, it is apparently easy to find oneself labeled "woke right." After all, even a fast-food chain has been tagged.
Lindsay recently indicated online that Arby's had veered into woke right territory with its post, "Unlike dad, our ham & swiss actually came back."
In the much ridiculed post, which he has since apologized for and walked back, Lindsay noted, "That's curtains for them. Cringe af."
When asked why national conservatives warrant their categorization as "woke right," Lindsay suggested that while "not all of National Conservatism is Woke Right ... the general thrust of the movement meets the basic definition."
Hazony, the author of "The Virtue of Nationalism" whom Lindsay has repeatedly targeted with the “woke right” smear, explained to Blaze News that the strategy behind the term is not new.
"The main people who are behind this — and James Lindsay is the one who's most explicit, but I don't think that he's at all the only one — they've been doing the same thing for many years, long before the term 'woke right' came out; at least as far back as Donald Trump being elected, you know, so it's almost a decade ago," said Hazony. "There was this game of saying that in between liberals and Nazis or racialist fascists — in between, there is no legitimate position. That is a standard argument of the anti-nationalist liberal camp that has been used by many, many different people, and it's always the same."
"When people started using 'illiberal' ... in the mid-2000s, what they were doing was eliminating the legitimacy of the word 'conservative,' because 'illiberal' is anybody who's an authoritarian or a Nazi or a theocrat or a fascist, plus anybody else who's not a liberal," continued Hazony. "So that strategy, using the term 'illiberalism' as a way of saying, 'No, I'm not going to recognize that there are any legitimate conservatives or nationalists' — that's been around in that form for at least 15 years."
Hazony noted that more recently,
James Lindsay and a bunch of his friends tried to pump the hatred higher because the term "illiberal" — it just didn't succeed in sufficiently tainting and de-legitimizing conservatives. So they switched to "Christian nationalism," and it was the same kind of thing, where, you know, you pick the absolute least palatable people who can be called "Christian nationalists," you quote them, and then you say, "Well, everybody who's a nationalist and a Christian all the way right up to the borders of liberalism — that entire sphere of conservatives and nationalists who are basically normal but they have criticisms of liberalism — no, they're all illegitimate. They're all totalitarians. They all reject the American Constitution." And so they tried that; that peaked in 2023; and it failed. It petered out. They didn't succeed in convincing the average, intelligent person who's paying attention that the political spectrum is only liberals and fascists.
Whereas previous attempts failed, Hazony indicated that "this time, they have succeeded in drawing blood."
"This term [woke] was designed to be humiliating by taking the term that we were using for the Maoist-style cultural revolution that was taking over America and Britain and other countries. And now they say, 'Those of you who are fighting against this, you're exactly the same. You're the same exact thing.' And it upsets people."
'You got dogmatic, fanatic liberals who thought that the whole world simply could be brought under liberalism either by persuasion or, if not, then by conquest.'
Hazony further told Blaze News that "it's deeply insulting at a personal level for people who've devoted their time to trying to save America and the West from the woke, and at the same time, it's incredibly effective at destroying the coalition that was built — the anti-woke coalition — by making the different parties despise one another."
"The idea that liberalism is about toleration was just thrown out the window and you got dogmatic, fanatic liberals who thought that the whole world simply could be brought under liberalism either by persuasion or, if not, then by conquest."
Lindsay has tried tarring Blaze Media with the same brush he has used on Hazony and others, characterizing it as "the first captured stronghold" in his imaginative woke right "takeover" narrative.
'The term has little meaning other than as a slur used by people trying desperately to gatekeep this intellectual, cultural, and commercial majority movement.'
Blaze Media editor in chief Matthew Peterson, whom Lindsay has implicated as a key player in this supposed takeover, said, "I know Lindsay and we had a decent relationship until he suddenly lumped me and my tenure here at Blaze Media with his slur."
"Obviously, we have a wide variety of people and opinions at Blaze Media. We represent the broad MAGA-MAHA majority coalition, and I take that role seriously," continued Peterson. "But I do not need to say for the record that we are not 'woke right' because the term has little meaning other than as a slur used by people trying desperately to gatekeep this intellectual, cultural, and commercial majority movement."
Peterson suggested that the term's capricious usage has helped empty it of meaning.
"What's puzzling and ultimately discrediting about the term is that Lindsay and others lump disparate people and groups together into a wild, grand conspiracy," continued Peterson. "He and his associates refer a lot to abstract -isms like hermeticism, communism, and gnosticism and call all kinds of people followers of various schools of thought: 'Nietzscheans' and 'Schmittians.'"
The "Schmittian" smear lobbed around evokes Carl Schmitt, a German political theorist who critiqued liberalism, defined politics as the distinction between the categories of friends and enemies, and lent intellectual support to the Nazi regime in Germany.
Peterson noted that he once tried to explain his thoughts on Schmitt to Lindsay over text.
"As a student of political thinkers who were taught by Leo Strauss, who fled Nazi Germany (as opposed to Schmitt, who became a Nazi), I think Schmitt's writings are important to anyone who wants to seriously consider the nature of executive power, which is why they are still studied by people of all kinds throughout the world," said Peterson. "But the idea that this makes me a Nazi or that I agree with everything Schmitt says or believed is ridiculous. James recently asked me to 'denounce Schmitt' on X at his command, which sounds a lot like he's trying to initiate the very 'struggle sessions' he often decries."
Peterson emphasized the range of people and institutions that Lindsay and his fellow travelers have lumped into his "grand conspiracy," noting, for instance, that "they throw in institutions from the Roman Catholic Church to the Claremont Institute, countries from Hungary to China, and individuals from General Michael Flynn to Yoram Hazony to Peter Thiel in the mix as part of whatever the 'woke right' is."
"It becomes silly pretty quick," said Peterson.
The host of BlazeTV's "The Auron MacIntyre Show" — one of Lindsay's frequent targets — said that when it comes to Lindsay, woke right "seems to be more of a branding exercise and a political weapon than it does anything with definitive content."
"I think that's the reason so many people have had difficulty when attempting to have even a basic discussion about the term," MacIntyre said. "The guy who is most famous for coining and popularizing it himself has admitted that it wasn't a great one, and it doesn't really have a lot of content besides its ability to be used as a political weapon."
'The only thing that seems to actually link any of these people together is their willingness to win.'
MacIntyre suggested that woke right's apparent transformation in the wild from a denigratory term for anti-Semites and identitarians into a strategic full-spectrum put-down is “the real trick of this term.”
"A lot of people assume that [anti-Semites and identitarians] were the original targets, and because of that, many people thought that perhaps there could be some value in it because, you know, not all of those groups are particularly ones that people enjoy being associated with," said MacIntyre. "That said, it's become quickly clear that the expansion of the term has now come to encompass Orthodox Jews like Hazony, guys who are big fans of Israel like Tim Pool, and others."
"He's included a large number of very well-respected people who are obviously well outside of this — guys like Matt Walsh."
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"The only thing that seems to actually link any of these people together is their willingness to win, their willingness to fight back against the left, their willingness to say, 'Actually, we're going to take affirmative steps. We're going to take power. We're going to use power to win political battles.' And that seems to be the main violation," continued MacIntyre.
'What they're finding is actually, no, conservatives would like to be in charge.'
When asked whether this campaign might be, at least in part, the early stages of an effort to politically neutralize JD Vance ahead of the next presidential election, MacIntyre answered in the affirmative.
"Not only is that the case, I think he's been pretty explicit about that," said the BlazeTV host.
MacIntyre suggested that Lindsay and other "new atheists, rational-centrist types" feel threatened by Vance and the national conservatives, given their willfulness and refusal to "be ruled by people who hate them, hate their values, hate their religion."
MacIntyre suspects that while the "salience" of the "woke right" term has risen, the credibility of those wielding it has "plummeted."
"[Lindsay has] made many enemies of pretty high-profile figures with good reputations by throwing around this term and attacking people who clearly don't hold any of the nefarious views he's attributing to them," said MacIntyre.
The attacks have also served to expose bad actors who "ultimately were hoping to undermine the conservative movement rather than be a productive part of it," said MacIntyre. "That's something that's critical to know at this juncture."
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Early last month, establishmentarians were utterly humiliated in the European parliamentary elections where right-leaning parties enjoyed significant gains. One of the most telling showings was in France, where Marine Le Pen's National Rally ran circles around French President Emmanuel Macron's pro-European Renaissance Party, more than doubling its votes.
The continental trouncing was so embarrassing as to prompt Macron, who already lacked a majority in the French parliament, to call snap national elections on June 30 and July 7.
Macron tweeted, "I have confidence in the ability of the French people to make the fairest choice for themselves and for future generations."
On Sunday, the supermajority of eligible French voters cast ballots, fairly choosing to rid the country of Macron and his ilk.
Le Pen's National Rally and its allies reportedly secured 33.1% of the vote Sunday. Macron's centrist coalition couldn't even place second, instead coming third with 20.8% after the New Popular Front, a leftist coalition, which secured 28% of the vote.
'Democracy has spoken.'
CNN indicated that National Rally is poised to secure the most seats in the National Assembly but may prove unable to net the 289 seats necessary for an absolute majority, meaning the country may end up with a hung parliament. Le Pen's party and its allies are currently expected to pick between 230 and 280 seats.
However, should the right-leaning party prevail in the second round of voting on Sunday, National Rally President Jordan Bardella, Le Pen's protégé, will likely become the next prime minister. With Bardella running parliament, Macron would effectively be a lame duck until the end of his term, which runs out in 2027.
Bardella indicated Monday that the country has before it the decision between national unity, the well-being of the republic, and the furtherance of its values, or rule by an "alliance of the worst and the extreme left."
Le Pen told a crowd Sunday, "Democracy has spoken, and the French people have placed the National Rally and its allies in first place — and has practically erased the Macronist bloc."
Le Pen and Bardella both stressed that the next round of voting is critically important for the fate and future of the country.
Liberals further afield bemoaned the result. Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, for instance, said, "This is all really starting to smell dangerous."
Tusk added on X, "They love Putin, money and power without control. And they are already in power or are reaching for it in the East or West of Europe. They are joining ranks in the European Parliament."
Spain's socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez similarly whined about the success of French rightists, noting, "The advance of the far right in France isn't unconnected with what's happening in other parts of the world — including in Spain — where we're seeing how, directly or indirectly," reported Al Jazeera.
"The far right is advancing institutionally and in the opinion polls," added Sanchez.
The mainstream media leaned into the tired and ineffective suggestion that France's right-leaning populists were Nazis reborn.
France24 concern-mongered that the elections "could put France's government in the hands of a far-right party for the first time since World War II," discounting the Nazis' leftist nature.
The liberal publication beat this dead horse repeatedly, reiterating, "Victory for RN would lead to France's first far-right government since the Nazi-allied Vichy Regime."
NBC News similarly amplified the preferred narrative, noting, "Voters across France are casting ballots in the first round of an exceptional parliamentary election that could put France’s government in the hands of nationalist, far-right parties for the first time since the Nazi era."
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggested that the establishment's smear campaign against right-leaning politicians in Europe had once again proven toothless.
"The constant attempt to demonize and corner people who don't vote for the left ... is a trick that fewer and fewer people fall far," said Meloni.
While the media fruitlessly vilified the people's top choice of party, Macron planted the seed of violence, suggesting that electoral success on the part of National Rally could push "people towards a civil war."
Sure enough, after it became clear the party critical of unchecked immigration, a detached political elite, and ruinous economic policies was set to win, radicals — including Pro-Hamas demonstrators and Antifa thugs — began rioting. The Daily Mail reported that riot police were dispatched across Paris, where rioters launched incendiary devices, looted, and smashed up various establishments.
After a night of their comrades clashing with police, far-left politicians began urging Macron's supporters to support them to prevent National Rally from securing power.
Clémentine Autain, a member of the New Popular Front, said in an X post Monday, "The far right is at the gates of power. We must do everything to prevent them from winning and to open up hope with the New Popular Front."
The Telegraph indicated that Gabriel Attal, Macron's prime minister, has advised his party's supporters to support the radical left if the alternative was Le Pen's National Rally, stressing they had a moral duty to "prevent RN from winning an absolute majority."
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Voters across the Atlantic Ocean sent a message to the political establishment Sunday night, driving the European Parliament rightward and humiliating parties whose policies have radically transformed the continent with unchecked migration, failed assimilation, costly climate alarmism, and globalist tendencies.
The election results will reverberate for weeks and months to come. One country's prime minister has already resigned, and other leaders now face potential ousters in their respective nations.
As of Monday morning, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's national conservative Brothers of Italy party had gained 14 seats and secured nearly 29% of the vote. Reuters indicated the party's success Sunday more than quadrupled its showing in the 2019 European Union election and exceeded the 26% it secured in the 2022 national ballot.
"I am proud that Italy will present itself to the G7, to Europe with the strongest government of all. This is something that has not happened in the past but is happening today, it is a satisfaction and also a great responsibility," said Meloni.
"What we need is a Europe that will listen to citizens, that will look more to the centre-right and has more pragmatic and less ideological policies," added the Italian prime minister.
This victory has made Meloni one of the most powerful figures in the EU.
Meloni's Brothers of Italy party is part of a coalition in the parliament called European Conservatives and Reformists, which now holds 73 seats in the 720-seat parliament. ECR is set to gain the support of the National Popular Front of Cyprus, which secured 11% of the vote Sunday, largely on a message to address the problem of immigration.
Just as ECR made headway Sunday, so did the right-wing Identity and Democracy coalition, which nabbed nine seats for a total of 58. ID's gains were driven in large part by the success of France's National Rally.
Marine Le Pen's National Rally party ran circles around French President Emmanuel Macron's pro-European Renaissance Party, more than doubling its votes with 31.37%. The Need for Europe coalition, which includes Macron' Renaissance Party, secured only 14.6% of the vote.
This result was so embarrassing as to prompt Macron, who already lacks a majority in the French parliament, to call snap national elections on June 30 and July 7 and to call for the dissolution of the National Assembly in a few weeks.
After the French people largely kicked his party to the curb, Macron tweeted, "I have confidence in the ability of the French people to make the fairest choice for themselves and for future generations."
Axios highlighted that Macron leaned in to old scare tactics following his humiliation.
"The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation and for Europe," said the president. "After this day, I cannot go on as though nothing has happened."
"The French people have sent a very clear message to the Macronist power, which, vote after vote, is disintegrating," Le Pen noted on X, suggesting that such is the consequence of denying a people their history and curbing their "influence, identity and freedom."
Following Macron's announcement of the National Assembly's dissolution, Le Pen said, "I call on the French to come and join us to form a majority around the RN [National Rally] in the service of the only cause that guides our steps: France."
Macron's government is not the only one left tottering after Sunday's election.
Despite its vilification by the liberal media and the German political establishment, and a member's pre-election stabbing, Alternative for Germany gained six seats and placed second with 15.9% of the national vote. The top spot was firmly held by the center-right Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, which took 30.2% of the vote.
Extra to its 5% gain over its showing in the 2019 EU election, Alternative for Germany managed to beat German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's establishment Social Democratic Party, which is expected to finish third with less than 14%.
According to the German publication Bild, 76% of Germans think the SPD-led (Social Democratic Party) government is not governing successfully. 570,000 voters who cast votes for the SPD in 2019 instead cast votes for AFD on Sunday.
Social Democratic Party politician Lars Klingbeil doubled down on his party's ineffective rhetoric after its trouncing, stating, "I believe that the result of the European elections will wake many people up to the fact that the Nazis have become stronger in this election."
The Telegraph indicated that less than a third of German voters cast ballots for the ruling parties combined. Joining Scholz's party in humiliation was the Green Party, which hemorrhaged roughly 9%, and Scholz's coalition partners, the Free Liberals, which netted 5%.
Migration and refugees were far and away the top concerns for Germans going into the election — more so than energy, climate, the economy, pensions, and the war in Ukraine.
The poor showing of Scholz's ruling coalition has prompted some to suggest the government has lost legitimacy.
The AFD reportedly seeks to join the ID coalition, sacrificing its scandal-plagued candidate Maximilian Krah to sweeten the deal. That would mean that between the ID and ECR, rightists in the European Parliament would control over 131 seats in the chamber, not including the seats held by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, by the Polish Confederation party, and other right-leaning groups.
In Spain, the center-right People's Party overtook leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Spanish Socialist Workers Party. The PP took 34.2% of the vote and gained nine seats, ending up with a total of 22 of Spain's 61 seats in the European Parliament. Sanchez's radical party lost a seat and now only has 20 seats.
The right-leaning Vox party came third with six seats, having secured an additional two seats Sunday and 9.6% of the vote.
Dutch politician Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom gained six seats and 17.7% of its nation's total vote, placing second in the Netherlands. The Party for Freedom campaigned primarily on two issues: immigration and health care, reported the NL Times.
"The Greens and Liberals are the big losers, they will lost many seats in the European Parliament," Wilders tweeted Sunday. "On the other hand, the PVV is winning big, just like our friends in France, Belgium, Austria, Portugal and many other countries. It was a very beautiful election day!"
In Austria, the Freedom Party, whose members will join the ID coalition, placed first with 25.7% of the vote, gaining three seats for a total of six in the parliament. According to EuroNews, the Freedom Party largely campaigned on an anti-immigration, anti-Green Deal, and Euroskeptic platform.
Ahead of the vote, the Freedom Party wrote on X, "Asylum crisis, corona chaos, warmongering and eco-communism – are you fed up with all of this? Then ABSOLUTELY VOTE FOR THE FPÖ today! Together we will STOP the EU madness!"
A weepy Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced his resignation Sunday after his Flemish Lierals and Democrats party was crushed by right-leaning and nationalist parties. Croo's party lost a seat, such that it placed last with only one seat in the parliament.
"For us, it's a particularly difficult evening. We lost. As of tomorrow, I will resign as prime minister," said Croo, reported the Guardian.
The nationalist right-wing New Flemish Alliance placed first. Its leader, Bart De Wever, will likely become the country's next prime minister. The anti-immigration Vlaams Belang Party came second.
Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the centrist European People's Party — the biggest coalition in the new legislature — vowed to serve as a check on the ascendant right, reported Reuters.
"We will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right," said von der Leyen. "But it is also true that extremes and on the left and the right have gained support and this is why the result comes with great responsibility for the parties in the center."
Von der Leyen's continued presidency over the European Commission will rely upon the backing of the EU's national leaders.
Days ahead of the election, the BBC warned that a rightward shift might mean "more power for nation states, less 'Brussels interference' in everyday life"; less power for the European Commission; tougher EU legislation on migration; and a pushback against climate alarmist policies.
Upon seeing the results pour in, the Washington Post sounded the alarm that the "'cordon sanitaire' erected by more mainstream parties against the putative descendants of Europe's fascist movements had collapsed" and that "a new age of right-wing politics in the West" had arrived.
The New York Times noted that right-wing parties "have gained across the continent as voters have grown more concentrated on nationalism and identity, often tied to migration and some of the same culture-war politics pertaining to gender and L.G.B.T.Q. issues that have gained traction in the United States," then warned the result could "hearten kindred political forces loyal to former President Donald J. Trump as he seeks a return to office."
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The principle of “no enemies to the left” aims at fostering solidarity and unity by discouraging public criticism or opposition within the left, even when ideological differences exist. It’s become a common trope. It emphasizes prioritizing shared goals and external adversaries over internal disputes, ensuring a united front against political right-wing opponents.
But the idea appears to be weakening, especially in the face of the cultural response to the October 7 terror attack in Israel.
In a recent article titled "The Day the Delusions Died,” Konstantin Kisin highlighted how some on the “center-left” have experienced a profound wake-up call when it comes to the threat wokeism and identity politics pose to Western society after witnessing protesters mobilizing against Israel while expressing solidarity with Hamas.
“A lot of people woke up on October 7 as progressives and went to bed that night feeling like conservatives,” Kisin wrote. “What changed?”
The protests were not isolated incidents. They occurred in major cities across the Western world and, surprisingly to the moderate left, within elite American universities, which are considered bastions of liberalism. In one of the more well-known examples, 31 student groups at Harvard University signed a letter accusing Israel of being “entirely responsible” for the attacks last month.
In an instant, many white progressives, including those of Jewish descent, found themselves at the bottom of the intersectional food chain.
How could this have happened?
According to critical race theory, which has wholly captured academia and has been embraced by the adherents of woke ideology, Israeli Jews are “white colonizers” and promoters of Western culture. In other words, Israeli Jews and their allies are natural enemies of the left and subject to the woke doctrine of “decolonization.”
As such, terrorism, in the minds of woke activists, is considered legitimate political action in the pursuit of “social justice.”
To hammer this point home, Najma Sharif, a writer for Teen Vogue, posted on X on October 7:“What did y’all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? Essays? Losers.” (The post has since been made private.)
The revolution always goes too far. The outermost boundary of what is acceptable for “moderate” progressives varies, but wokeism eventually attacks something a progressive is “conservative” about.
In this most recent case, that sacred totem is Israel and, by extension, Judaism itself.
Ronald Reagan famously said, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.” This sentiment has since morphed into a new meme, recently popularized by Elon Musk, who posited that he didn’t leave the left — the left left him.
This is how yesterday’s “liberals” become today’s conservatives and how conservatism as a movement is constantly pulled leftward. This ongoing phenomenon can be understood through the “ratchet effect” and historian Robert Conquest’s second law of politics.
The “ratchet effect” in politics refers to a phenomenon in which specific policies, government actions, or political changes become progressively more difficult to roll back over time. Given how our country has become incredibly socially liberal from its conservative origins, this can also be considered the slippery slope argument, which is not a fallacy, contrary to leftist opinion.
The transformation is evident when we observe the progression from the LGB acronym to the more expansive 2SLGBTQIA+ acronym and the adaptation of the Pride flag into what has come to be known as the “Progress flag.” Consequently, what initially commenced as support for "equality" evolved into something more expansive, such as lauding drag queen story hour for kindergartners in public schools and libraries and the “right” of minors to undergo genital mutilation surgery.
At some point, adding one letter to the acronym or one stripe or color to the flag sends a few “moderate” progressives off the deep end, screaming that the left has “gone too far.” They will then declare themselves “classical liberals,” and conservatives will fall all over themselves to embrace them as their own.
Bari Weiss and Bill Maher are two clear examples of this. Each will give you “the woke has gone too far” schtick, and conservatives will pander to them while ignoring that, for the most part, both simply want to slow the pace of progressivism while being completely against the majority of conservative beliefs.
According to the Washington Post, Weiss "portrays herself as a liberal uncomfortable with the excesses of left-wing culture.” At the same time, Bill Maher is a self-identified “old-school liberal,” which means a Democrat from the 1990s.
Sadly, Weiss and Maher don’t understand that championing “old-school liberalism” is how we’ve arrived at the “excesses of left-wing culture.” Liberalism gives way to social excesses by design, and once the genie is out of the bottle, it is incredibly hard to put it back in.
So why does conservatism fail at halting the long march of “progress?”
The late historian Robert Conquest had an answer with his second law of politics: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
Conquest observed that organizations, institutions, and groups lacking clearly defined ideological principles and hierarchical structures, without strict controls on what ideas are accepted, tend to adopt left-leaning or progressive positions over time. This shift is often attributed to a perceived moral or societal pressure to align with the prevailing progressive trends.
Ideologically, we can see this on the right, as “conservatism” has become libertarian on social and economic questions under the guise of protecting “individual rights,” which is a centerpiece of liberal doctrine. Conservatism’s hyper-focus on “freedom” and “liberty” leaves itself open to the invention of a never-ending list of “human rights” and subsequent erosion of all traditional norms and values.
So can these newly disgruntled leftists help turn the tide against wokeism? Some on the right may view this wake-up call among moderate leftists as a positive development and rush to welcome these new disillusioned progressives into the conservative movement.
This would be a colossal mistake.
While it may appear politically expedient to court disenchanted members of the progressive movement, the solution does not lie in continually bringing moderate leftists into the conservative fold when they grow disillusioned with their own ranks.
Instead, it involves employing a political strategy of "divide and conquer," capitalizing on and fueling the internal conflicts within the progressive movement with the aim of weakening their alliances while, at the same time, practicing strict gatekeeping on the right.
The enemy of your enemy can become a temporary friend. But permitting disheartened progressives to shift conservatism further to the left will only hasten America’s descent into the cultural abyss.
A new study of voting records found that congressional lawmakers are less conservative than the voters they work for in 41 out of 50 states, according to The Institute for Legislative Analysis. “While one may expect the most conservative lawmakers in Congress to represent the deepest red states, the data proves this is simply not […]
James Lindsay. Photo by DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
The right should build a school to teach conservatives how to organize for political power and action beyond and between elections.
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I Can’t: Worst Presidential Speech Ever | 9/2/22