Robb: What does the Democratic Convention mean for the future of wokeism?
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Robert Robb
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By Robert Robb
One of the most intriguing questions coming out of the Democratic National Convention is this: What does it mean for the future of identity and grievance politics, often referred to as wokeism?
The convention was imbued with patriotism, love of country, respect and appreciation for its founding principles and those who have served in its military.
Kamala Harris ended her acceptance speech with this:
“We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. …It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done. Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love. To fight for the ideals we cherish. And to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth. The privilege and pride of being an American.”
Harris’s peroration directly contradicts, and rebukes, the fundamental premise of wokeism. Wokeism holds that the U.S. was rotten from its founding. That all our high-sounding principles — natural rights, federalism, separation of powers, meritocracy, rule of law — are just camouflage for the creation of institutions actually designed and intended to preserve and perpetuate white male supremacy.
Wokeism ranks people according to the allegedly illegitimate privileges they have been given from the operations of these ill-motivated institutions and the camouflaging principles. Those of low-ranking privilege are entitled to compensatory treatment, irrespective of relative objective merit. Those of high-ranking privilege should go along, since their relative advantage is unearned and morally tainted. An awareness of that was what was originally meant by being “woke,”
Harris’s acceptance speech also, more subtly, contradicted and rebuked wokeism’s prescribed compensatory remedy for the supposed illegitimacy of the social stratification the country’s founding principles has produced. The lessons Harris cited from her mother were all about self-initiative and self-improvement. Overcoming obstacles rather than complaining about them.
That this paean to the greatness of American democracy and our founding principles came from a female Democratic candidate of Black and Asian heritage was not unimportant. The Democratic Party has been where identity and grievance politics found its advocates. In fact, the extent to which the Democratic Party has heretofore accepted and advocated for wokeism is a significant factor in the drift of blue-collar workers to the Republican Party.
Now, there is a question about whether this embrace of the founding principles and the essential goodness of our country by Democrats is sincere or a contrived act of political calculation.
The Biden administration has been friendly to at least soft-wokeism, supporting diversity, equity and inclusion indoctrination training for the federal workforce, among other examples. While it is wrong to dismiss Harris as exclusively a DEI hire, President Joe Biden did say he would only consider a woman to be his running mate. And only a Black woman for his first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Former President Donald Trump is running on an apocalyptic view of the country, a doomed nation that only he can save and redeem. Outside of MAGAland, this sounds weird and narcissistic. The Democratic counter positioning runs as follows: We respect and appreciate what the United States is. But we must always strive to make it even better.
Now, how Harris and the Democrats propose to make the country better, in the opinion of this observer, would greatly exacerbate the biggest threat to the country’s future: fiscal incontinence. However, as a matter of political positioning, it is a clever way to engage swing voters who don’t share Trump’s apocalyptic view of the country, or his messianic view of himself.
Regardless of whether sincere, the Democratic Convention’s effective rejection of wokeism’s fundamental tenets is important. At a minimum, it reflects a political judgment that wokeism isn’t something the body politic is willing to accept or be governed by.
There are signs that the influence of wokeism is ebbing.
It remains dominant in academia. It is so entrenched there among tenured faculty, and administrators so unwilling to buck it, that it will take generations for universities and colleges to again become environments conducive to free inquiry, if they ever will. This, along with the high cost of a college degree, is why it is so important to develop alternative ways of credentialing young adults for jobs and professions.
Wokeism also strongly infected government, big business and the traditional media. Government and big business are somewhat retreating, induced by public backlash and the threat of legal liability after the Supreme Court’s ruling against racial preferences in college admissions, using reasoning that could be applied in other arenas. There is enough diffusion and competition in the media that, if some venues want to be self-consciously woke, there are plenty of alternatives for news and commentary — including, to pick an example totally at random, opinion journalism on Substack.
Wokeism is a pernicious ideology in a way that the traditional case for affirmative action was not. Traditional affirmative action sought to expand access to an American meritocracy. Wokeism denies that an American meritocracy exists. I wasn’t a supporter of traditional affirmative action to the extent it resulted in racial preferences. But it never rejected the legitimacy of the American creed in the way wokeism expressly does.
The U.S. is better off with the spirit of the Democratic Convention and the lessons of Harris’s mother.
