Matthew Continetti: Woke Isn't Dead, or Even Resting

Sad but true.

It's a little misleading to focus on woketarianism. That's just one way of talking about certain aspects of the problem. It's fine for many purposes. But the general problems, IMO, are:

[1] The radicalization of the American left

[2] The ideological capture of many of our institutions--including the Democratic party--by this radicalized left.

The contemporary radical left is largely characterized by "woke" issues--that is: race, sex (including so-called "gender") and related matters. Unlike some, I wouldn't quite include socialism, climate apocalypticism, nor open borders in wokeness. But all such categories have fuzzy boundaries. That's NBD.

Anyway:

DEI was never the main problem. "DEI" was a useful catspaw that the academic left used to advance radical left-wing ideology in its various aspects. It was a way to hire women and non-white men over white men--demographic groups that all trend left--to hire people with left-preferred sexual orientations and other so-called "identities"...and just to outright hire leftists. A straight, white male leftist would stand a good chance against a black conservative if a hiring decision came down to the two of them.

(Note: I don't speak of my own department, which is notably sane.)

Finally, ridding academia of its leftist bias will be just a tad easier than going down to your local First Baptist Church and getting the congregation to give up on the divinity of Christ...  We can't give up. But it's not going to be easy. It will not happen in my lifetime...