Zoe Booth, Anthony Rispo: Leaving the Woke Cult

A very common kind of story now.

   I was never part of the cult of Woketarianism--better called by its ca. 1990 name: political correctness. I fought against PC in grad school, and began fighting against it again as soon as it reared its ugly head.

   But I was largely trapped in the blue-team/liberal echo chamber for much of my life. I thought that if you were reading the Washington Post, and the NYT, the Atlantic, etc. and listening to NPR, watching mainstream news...well, I thought that made you well-informed. Though I was mostly a New Republic type--back ca. the Andrew Sullivan days, when TNR was really TNR...  It took me too long to recognize that academia had a liberal (" ") bias. Took me even longer to realize that the mainstream media did. I guess I might have broken out sooner if not for the appalling lies that dragged us into the Iraq war. And, as I've said, if I'd realized that PC would rise again, I'd have been more vigilant. PC/Woketarianism is, of course, a deeply illiberal ideology--and it was important to me that I was a liberal fighting anti-liberalism--important that you didn't have to be a conservative to fight illiberalism...why would you?

   Anyway, this kind of "walk-away" story is common now. Of course it is. If a normal political faction loses its shit and becomes a crazy radical cult, why would you stick with that faction? It's not a bit surprising that real liberals and centrists are leaving the left. What surprised me during the paleo-PC era was that so many people who considered themselves liberals refused to criticize the PCs. It's even more surprising now, as neo-PC/Woketarianism is so much crazier than paleo-PC was.

   Of course part of the reason is Trump. It's easy to see why people--especially "elite"/ academic/ wordy-professional types are revolted by him.

   But that's not the most significant causal factor here, IMO. Well before Trump blue-team types were acquiescing to trangender pseudoscience, CRT, etc. Without Trump, I'd expect that there'd be more walk-awayers...but probably not a a whole lot more... Tribalism is a helluva drug...

   Anyway: there's really nothing new in this interview--again, it's an old story by now.

  But anyway, here's a link.