The term “woke” is for some people the hope of a discrimination-free life, for others academic snobbery. Ironically, the democrats, for whom an identity-political stance is mandatory, distance themselves from the fighters for justice.
In the meantime, hardly anyone in Germany can ignore the excitement of identity politics. The new issue of “Spiegel” headlines: “Revolt against the old white man. Gender language, quotas, taboos – progress or new injustice?” Mentioned in the story itself, which “provided evidence for the first time” that identity politics divides. And across Europe. “We therefore recommend politicians not to take sides with the polarized positions,” it says, which is like a call for slick opportunism.
Skepticism about “woker” politics
But precisely in the USA, where there has long been no getting past identity-political attitudes – whether right-wing or left-wing – some election campaigners are starting to heed the advice. It is also the Democrats who are beginning to distance themselves from “woken” ideas and representatives. “Woke” means something like vigilant, awake, attentive and is a further development of “politically correct”. People who are “woke” gender and denounce racism, they demand quotas for minorities and sensitive language. Basically, they are just fighting some kind of struggle for more justice and less discrimination.
But their self-image and their choice of weapons are increasingly meeting with criticism, even from leftists and left-liberals. They mock capricious, ultra-sensitive moralists who want to enforce their worldview with rigid language regulations and taboos and silence those who think differently. Keyword: “Cancel Culture”. Even Barack Obama felt compelled to shout to the Americans a few years ago: “Don’t be too woke.” Strictly speaking, the addressees were his own Americans, the Democrats, whose left wing belongs to the spearhead of the justice fighters. Although the term “woke” is slowly going out of fashion again, some democratic politicians are now touting that they want to do “anti-woke” politics.
Black ex-cop and “anti-woke”
One of the most prominent representatives of them is New York mayoral candidate Eric Adams. The 60-year-old former police officer recently won the inner-party area code – and is likely to have taken a very big step towards the town hall. Republicans have rarely appointed the mayor of the ultra-liberal city. But Adam’s most important campaign slogan sounds like that of a conservative from the 1980s: “If we want security, we need the NYPD,” that is, the New York police. Such a demand is booming again in the metropolis. For some time now, crime and violent crime have risen sharply, while trust in the police is bad.
After the murder of the black man George Floyd by a white policeman last year, some “Black Lives Matter” demos quickly turned into anti-police rallies. Even many moderate protesters chanted “Defund the police” at some point, which, in a much less tangible way, can be translated as “withdraw the money from the police”. But what very many meant by it: “Dissolve the police”. And in fact, the city council of Minneapolis, where Floyd died, wanted to do just that and replace it with an office for “community security and violence prevention,” which the law did not provide. A referendum was also rejected by the citizens.
“Being woke is a problem”
Some representatives of the Democrats see this defeat as a warning against the “defund-the-police” rhetoric. Party strategist James Carville recently said: “Don’t you feel like the people on the faculties and in the fancy colleges speak a different language? Woke is a problem and we all know it.” What worries Carville most is that although his party won the White House and both chambers of congressional in the last election, Donald Trump was still only marginally inferior to Donald Trump, “a buffoon unprecedented in the world,” as the Democrat added.
In his opinion, the fact that it was so tight in the end is due to the “lecture hall policy” that some of his party friends would pursue. “They use words like ‘Latinx’ (a gendered form for Latinos of any gender, d. Red.) or ‘color neighborhoods’ (Original “communities of color”, d. Red.) Such designations are not wrong, I just don’t know anyone who uses them, “says Carville. The problem, according to the political strategist, is that large parts of the country” perceive us as arrogant city and coastal party “and, if in doubt, prefer it Republicans would vote for.
The publicist Kevin Drum also got involved in this debate with studies that are rather unfavorable for Democrats. The author, who puts himself on the left, that non-white Americans would increasingly vote as white conservatives, or that Hispanics turned to Republicans with the beginning of the “Defund-the-police” shouts. “The truth is, the Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that even non-crazy people find us frightening – something Fox News loves to take advantage of,” said Drum.
“If you bet on the woke card, it’s goodbye majority”
In November, New Yorkers elect their new mayor. At the moment, the chance of ex-police officer Eric Adams to win against his competitor Curtis Sliwa is around 7: 1. The so-called mid-term elections follow a year later. It is a series of seats in Congress. According to the US news portal “Axios”, moderate democrats and those from particularly hotly contested countries fear massive losses – at least if candidates like left-wing Senator Elizabeth Warren are involved. “Axios” quotes a former Senate employee as saying: “If the Democrats bet on the woke card, it means bye-bye majority.”
Swell: DPA, “”, Uni Münster, “”, Jabberwocking.com,,,
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