Is it Time to Tone Down the Wokeness, Especially about the Past?

Great Debates
352

They are better than bigots.

Well, being as Brexits appeal to the masses was based on lies and xenophobia- they had good reasons for that. (Unless you can tell me when those hundreds of billions of pounds extra rolling in to help out the NHS is?). It was just like here in the USA- promises based on ignorance- "I can fix inflation! " “Brexit will save £350M for the NHS instead of being sent to Brussels!” and xenophobia. Promises that the people who said them knew they couldnt deliver- but honestly, stuff like the causes of Inflation are complex.

353

Do you honestly think that being bigoted is better than not being bigoted?

354

Really, if the progressives didn’t think they were better than the fascists and reactionaries, then why wouldn’t they just become fascists and reactionaries? It’s just a bizarre argument.

355

No I’m not, and I’m not debating that subject in this thread.

I got multiple replies to this, and all the others just confirm that I’m correct here.

Of course it matters if voters think a major political block looks down on them and doesn’t care about them - and the words and actions of left-wingers online and off significantly contribute to that belief. Those people support and to a large extent staff the Democratic party, and thereby gain influence to enact the policies they prefer (not as often as they’d like, but still).

It’s kind of parallel to how the Republican party treats black Americans: even if elected Republicans rarely say anything blatantly racist towards them, everyone knows who the racists vote for and which party they have influence over. I’m not saying the two attitudes are equivalent or that they have the same impact, but both can be off-putting to voters in a similar way.

In general the GOP doesn’t even try to appeal to black people, they don’t try to appeal to left-wingers, or to various other groups. Actually, they act a lot worse than the Democrats, but the groups they alienate are a smaller segment of the population and are further disempowered (thanks autocorrect, no I did not mean ‘disemboweled’) by the US electoral system, so they get away with it. (I mean, kind of? They’ve only won the popular vote twice this century, what they’re doing clearly is hurting them.)

I live in the UK and talk to people, I followed prominent people on Twitter, not anons, and this attitude was extremely prevalent everywhere post referendum. It was jarring to see something so opposed to their stated principles. The left was supposed to represent the poor and working class, they were supposed to defer to other people’s ‘lived experience’ - and here were a bunch of educated professionals denouncing working class Brits as too stupid to know what’s good for them.

356

What are these policies that left-wingers have enacted?

357

Hard 'R’s?

I will accept that as a fair statement. People make value judgements about how others act. Being “better” is a relative position.

But this “liberal elitist” idea about progressives is a right-wing distortion. Progressives may decry being bigoted and “unenlightened” and misinformed so they vote against their own interests, but that doesn’t mean we devalue them as people. We want to reach and inform and help them gain enlightenment.

Whereas the rhetoric from the right does display a shocking1 level of devaluing other humans, just for being who they are.

But I do see some validity to the criticism that the left has lost the blue collar vote. The populist right has woven a story that liberals are for elitism, and against white people, non- college degreed people, and the working class.

It’s telling that union leadership recognizes the Dems siding with them against big business, but the union workers tended to the Rep candidates who were openly big business and against unions.

That’s an example of voting against their own interests. Trump and Musk are definitely anti-union. They laugh about busting strikes and weakening unions by “right-to-work” and “right-to-fire” laws.

The problem is that identity is larger than one issue, and those union workers felt more solidarity with “rednecks” and the rural working class. They share other values and ideas and identity connections. And those are the identity that MAGA is playing to, feeding and misleading.

So what some see as voting against their own interests is one issue out of a lot of issues where they thought they were voting for their own interests.

Is there a frustration from conservative-minded people over social changes for the past 50 years? Yes. That is the objection to “woke”. LGBTQ issues are a slice of those social changes, probably the most visible of the past 30 years. That’s “woke” in action.

MAGA definitely connects with an identity politics that ties to uneducated white people who are a bit overwhelmed by social changes. And that is the base 40% that Trump has been riding in his entire political career.

But that didn’t cost the election. The factor that pushed the “red wave” was the economy the effect of inflation on prices.

Inflation caused by the global response to the pandemic cratering economic production and the efforts to bring things back on line caused the rapid price hikes that is the vising outcome of inflation. And high interest rates are one tool to fight inflation, but that also affects the pocketbook when you need to make large purchases.

The pocketbook and misinformation, not wokism, is what defeated the Dems.

But the Dems do have a legitimate challenge to overcome the misinformation to recover their position as the party of the working class. Uniting the disenfranchised and the economically challenged should be the goal.

1 I said shocking, but it really isn’t because it’s par for the course. That level of dehuminization should be shocking. If it were, humanity would be in a better place. The fact that it isn’t shows humans have a lot of maturing to do as a species.

358

Thing is? They were, demonstrably. They voted to harm themselves, in a really stupid way.

What the “tone down the wokeness” people seem to be dancing around is exactly what the liberals should or can do that isn’t actually treating the public as evil and stupid and just lying to them. Instead of coming across as “condescending” by being truthful and accurate.

359

I would assume saying “nigger”, which to some degree is separated in culture from the word “nigga”, which is seen as more acceptable to use in parts of American black culture. The somewhat stereotypical “Wassup, my niggas?” sort of greeting. The term “hard R” is often used at least online to allude to the difference.

And frankly, considering the example, I don’t think either word would likely go over well in the scenario described.

360

Yup.

Obviously the working class is much more populated than the wealthy class. Conservatives and leftists both need the votes of working class folks in order to win elections. There are two paths to getting those votes:

  1. Tell lies to working class folks: tell the majority of them that the minority of them are enemies, and get them focused on that minority so they don’t focus on how they’re getting fucked over by the wealthy. Tell that majority how amazing they are, and how you’re on their side.
  2. Tell truth to working class folks: refuse to divide them into the scapegoats and the bullies, instead focusing on their common interests.

Conservatives have gotten very, very good at the former path, and are using it to win elections. The thread’s question is whether the left should adopt that approach too. The answer, obviously, is “nope.”

There’s a third approach, and I’ll absolutely criticize the Democratic party for not adopting it more (I’d criticize the Republican party for not adopting it, but it runs counter to their goal of protecting the wealthy, so that’d be a waste of pixels):

  1. Listen to working class folks. Really listen. Devise policy from the ground up, in a transparent fashion that involves meaningful input from working class folks. Solicit leadership from folks with working-class backgrounds (union leaders, bartenders, community organizers, etc.), and help them access the training and education they need in order to become effective in the world of politics.

But participating in demonizing trans folks and others? Oh hell no.

361

This exactly. It’s a pretty common saying with millennials and others now, but I always heard it around other Black folks growing up.

362

Sure. Inflation was the biggest factor, followed by the border. You could argue that opposing border enforcement is woke, but it’s not what we’ve been talking about here. These attitudes only make a difference on the margin.

I don’t think they can recover that position. I’m not even sure they should. The political realignment of the last 20 years or so has seen them metamorphose into the party of the educated. You can’t be the party of a large educated class and of blue collar workers, because their interests and preferences are different, and they form too large a portion of the electorate to need to compromise in order to unite against any other group. Like inflation, this is a larger phenomenon happening in multiple developed countries. We saw it with the fall of the ‘red wall’ in the UK, and we’ve seen the rise of right-wing economically populist parties in multiple European countries. That can’t happen in the US due to the two party system, and so far the low tax wing of the Republican party has retained its grip. Still, Trump is populist in talk if not action, and he’s caused them to abandon the free trade principles they held for so long.

363

And the elite.

This is what a vice chair of the DNC said on Jake Tapper’s show yesterday:

“For the first time, the majority of Americans believe that the Republican Party best represents the interests of the working class and the poor, and the Democratic Party represents the interests of the wealthy and the elite. That is a damning indictment on our party brand. And that’s something we have to figure out as we move forward.” - Ken Martin, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC)

364

Dem voters are more educated. That makes them the party of the elite… just like that?

365

Like I said, I doubt the Dems can go back to being a working class party, but these are still good suggestions for increasing representation from these neglected sectors of society.

And then you bring up a ridiculous strawman. :roll_eyes:

366

This sort of reminds me of the standard norms here at SDMB about non-Pit discussion. We should not say “you’re a liar” but rather “that statement is not true”, but the person will be likely to feel you did call them a liar.

And because it has been made about that common identity “being seen” and being “validated”, they double down on “what my gut tells me” as opposed figuring out some intellectual explanation.

And to a great extent this is something of a Future Shock phenomenon. As mentioned earlier:

One difference being, in the past, the pace of major social changes was generational. People had a chance to get used to it. Nowadays there’s nobody in the whole country who does not hear about it in real time over the network, and it’s easy for demagogues to suggest to them that things can’t be changing by natural progress but someone is deliberately trying to destroy their way of life.

367

While I think that’s a perfectly valid point, I’d simply refer the studio audience back to my original argument: a sense of history – even the barest familiarity – should have them raising serious questions.

“They’ve been wrong every previous time; now, they’re just wrong at the speed of light.”

But then we’re back to people who’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated and whose critical thinking skills are radically subpar.

368

Yup, just like that. It’s subtly different to being the party of the rich, though. Education isn’t always necessary to earn a lot of money and doesn’t guarantee doing so, but it grants huge influence over culture and institutions.

369

Hardly. I refuse to play the game where we pretend like that’s not the subtext.

370

Especially since “The party of people who know which bathroom to use” has been the relentless message from the Republicans on social media for months

371

Where do you even get this stuff from? I’m saying ‘maybe don’t rush ahead passing laws most people oppose’, and somehow you hear ‘demonise trans people’. Like wtf?