The ‘Woke’ Got What They Wanted—And Then What?

[bigbird 60,580]

The ‘Woke’ Got What They Wanted—And Then What?

Victor Davis Hanson

 

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won." You can reach him by e-mailing [email protected]

The “woke” movement was giddy after Jan. 20, 2021. The left controlled both houses of Congress.

President Joe Biden was drafted as the necessary veneer of 1980s Democratic normality to ram through an otherwise hard-left agenda.

All the major cultural, financial, economic, entertainment, and media institutions had played various roles in seeing former President Donald Trump not just defeated, but also impeached, twice. He was written off as persona non grata after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

So, academia, corporate boardrooms, Hollywood, the media, the Pentagon, professional sports teams, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street in near hysterical fashion all boarded the woke train. All boasted of ferreting out “white rage” and hiring legions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” czars.

Critical race theory would be mainstreamed to excise racism and discrimination by embracing racism and discrimination.

“Crime” was to be seen now mostly as a construct created by the elite to protect their own privilege, prerogatives, and property. Shoplifting, looting, and street thuggery were just part of living in a normal city.

“Social justice warriors” could replace defunded police. Gone would be most bail, incarceration, mandatory jail time, stop-and-frisk, and broken-windows deterrent policies.

Green agendas, the left hoped, would fundamentally transform America in putting an immediate stop to man-made “climate change.” So, lots of oil and gas leases were either canceled or their fees vastly increased.

Pipelines were stopped. Gas and oil companies were warned that everything from lack of financing to new regulations would soon put them out of business. The golden age of wind and batteries was already upon us.

Modern monetary theorists assured us that printing money would “spread the wealth” and devalue the cash of undeserving capitalists who had too much of it. Printing more cash, they believed, would implant it in the hands of the needy who unfairly had too little.

To the extent inflation followed, it would be a good thing, they hoped, a sign of a newly empowered and robust consumer class long denied “equity.”

 

COVID-19 was virtually over. We were assured by Biden that Trump had killed over 350,000 Americans with his lax health policies. In contrast, Biden would soberly vaccinate us all, claiming the vaccine’s efficacy as his own. He predicted victory over the virus by the Fourth of July. The delta variant was still then just an obscure rumor from abroa

 

The border would be opened—and stay open. No more walls. As citizens of the world, the left welcomed in 2 million immigrants who arrived illegally without audit or vaccinations during a pandemic

 

As the woke drove terrified old liberal Democrats into hiding, all the old wisdom about human nature vanished. Forget that criminals hurt the poor the most. Discard the quaint idea of Martin Luther King Jr. that our character, not our color, determines who we are. Ignore the passe idea that inflation eats away at the wages of the working class

 

We could always resume the quarantines, lockdowns, and shutdowns that made Amazon, Target, Walmart, and other conglomerates hundreds of billions in profit, while the mom-and-pop small businesses went broke

 

So, what did the people conclude 10 months out from the woke getting their wishes

 

The polls reveal that voters don’t like open borders at all. They disapprove of illegal immigration as much they support legal immigrants. They worry about crime and drugs. They don’t want the unvetted and unvaccinated flowing across their border

 

The people want cheaper, not pricier gas. They prefer American energy self-sufficiency. Why, with cup in hand, go begging to Saudi Arabia and Russia to pump more supposedly Satanic oil

 

The people like the police and hate crime. Even the rich among the woke are now scared—some of whom sowed the wind of decriminalization and are themselves reaping the whirlwind of crimE

 

Most voters care less about our color, but far more about our character. They think a meritocracy, not quotas and tribal chauvinism, explains the exceptional American standard of life

 

They despise inflation as much as recession, and fear they may now get both

 

Freedom-loving individuals don’t like cancel culture, ostracism, iconoclasm, Trotskyization, and commissars. They prefer free speech and treasure the Bill of Rights

 

So, in just 10 months the left got what it wanted. And the people are becoming not just sick of what has followed, but disgusted. They are terrified that the left is not just failing, but also wrecking the country and them along with it

 

The ages have left us adages for the people’s growing anger at the hubristic and now unpopular left. We know the ancient warnings variously as, “What comes around, goes around,” “You reap what you sow,” “Be careful about what you wish for,” and “The law of unintended consequences.”

 

Words like “nemesis and “karma” also come to mind. But of the collapse of the woke appeal, perhaps we could say, “It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of zealots.”

 

 

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[CoffeeTiger 5,169]

 

So if Bidens low polling #'s mean Americans are sick of Democrats and the "Woke" Agenda, Why was Trumps approval ratings so much lower for his whole presidency. Does that mean Americans were even more sick of Conservatives and their "non-woke" "America first" agenda? 

The border has never been open under Biden, we're almost just as strict on border enforcement and deportation as Trump/Republicans are.  "border crisis" has been a propaganda tool for the Right for decades now and rarely matches reality. 

The crime and police nonsense mentioned here never happened other than a few cities in California and maybe Seattle. 99.9% of American police departments weren't "defunded" and petty crime wasn't legalized or softened up. 

inflation is because of the pandemic and it's disruption of production and distribution of goods from over seas. We'd be dealing with this no matter who was President.

High gas prices affected the whole world, not just America, and the prices are already starting to go back down.

This looks like Victor Davis Hanson watched NewsMax for an afternoon and just re-wrote all their talking points into a list.  Hardly any of this has anything to do with "wokeness" and is just a mess of gobbley gook. 

Edited December 10, 2021 by CoffeeTiger

[DKW 86 7,440]

Ballotpedia shows a <3% difference between trump and Biden. 

https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia's_Polling_Index:_Comparison_of_opinion_polling_during_the_Trump_and_Biden_administrations

[wdefromtx 3,159]

That didn’t take long for the obsessed to bring up Trump….

[bigbird 60,580]

29 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

That didn’t take long for the obsessed to bring up Trump….

Would that be whataboutism?

[CoffeeTiger 5,169]

@bigbird

😏

[homersapien 11,440]

22 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

That didn’t take long for the obsessed to bring up Trump….

But but, only HE can fix it.

[alexava 6,973]

I have become a fan of Hansen! Interesting fact about him is his twin brother is a Bernie supporter. They don’t hate each other. 

[homersapien 11,440]

I was actually laughing out loud while reading that.

 

"I come across books now and then, and I heartily recommend those I really like. But I'm just flat-out telling you to get this one. If you believe in Donald Trump, if you believe in the whole 'Make America Great Again' agenda, if you want to read some of the most intelligent defense of Trump, the most intelligent defense and explanation of Trump's agenda...the book is tremendous.... If you love Trump and if you're looking for ways to help other people who don't understand Trump to understand, this book is gonna be ideal."—Rush Limbaugh