There was a lot of legitimate issues with the “woke” movement. Republicans used this as motivation to turn out the vote. Democrats have since chilled out quite a bit. Most didn’t do a 180, but just quit focusing on it.
This win was more a reflection of that than it was legitimizing the “old ways”.
I don’t recall the Democrats ever being so woke that it was a legitimate issue. Random individual people with zero power might have said or looked “cringe,” though, and that was somehow upheld as representative of everything. Virtually all of the backlash to “woke 1” was just memes and Youtube videos usually featuring the same three random nobodies…
…putting words in their mouth, taking them out of context, and holding them as representative of all liberals/leftists.
What was one actual policy position advanced or enacted by the Democratic party that was problematic because it was too woke?
I listen to some podcasts that talk a lot about polling data, and analyze not only how people vote, but why. It’s not political, and just about analysis.
It’s my understanding that there was a backlash to democrats going all in on woke issues. This drove republicans to the polls when they might have been more likely to stay home.
It’s fine to be woke, but let’s just stfu about it. Last thing we need is to encourage republican backlash.
This same thing applied to guns. Democrats talked too much about gun control, which drove Republicans to the polls at massive levels. Now they don’t talk about it, and that’s one less motivation for Republicans.
Edit: I’m not saying republican objections were fair or even honest. Just that it was effective.
That’s completely shifting the goalposts. Whether Republicans viewed the Democrats as being woke is an entirely different question from whether the Democrats actually were woke. Republicans believed Democrats for reasons I already explained, in my first reply and elsewhere in this thread.
The reality is that the Republican perception of the Democrats had more to do with their own minds and their own circles and their own conditions, rather than what Democrats actually said or did. Many of these people are just diehard reactionaries and unreachable anyway.
Also, Democrats won midterm races regardless of what their stance on trans rights was. El-Sayed for example did not (to my knowledge) adopt any anti-trans positions, and politicians like Talarico and Hamilton (Kansas) conceded on sports but overall had positive messaging.
This is exactly why it’s important to ground your narratives in hard facts rather than vague memories, because if you compare politicians’ rhetoric then to now, how much has it actually shifted? It’s more that Republicans overplayed their hand on the issue, while also fucking up in other, bigger ways, like in Iran. So the rhetoric that’s remembered as being “too extreme” and the rhetoric that’s seen as “reasonable” could be the exact same words, and what’s actually changed is people’s perception of that rhetoric. Which is meaningless for the conclusions and narratives you’re drawing.
So much of the rhetoric about “woke 1” is just “you remember how crazy it was, right?” without ever actually discussing what specifically was so crazy about it. And the reason that there’s nothing specific anyone can point to is that it was massively overblown. The left was never anywhere close to the levers of power, it was always centrists who at best sometimes pandered to an organic movement while doing little in terms of actual policy. It’s the same shit with like, “remember when the Democrats defunded the police” when in fact police budgets were raised almost everywhere, it was just a perception that that happened.
I definitely don’t have time to go through a decade of social media posts and news articles, so the best your going to get from me right now is my memory.
Fact that candidates like Talarico and Hamilton were able to say they didn’t support trans people on the issue of sports without the wrath of the left ending their career is evidence the Democrats are no longer “all in” on woke. Newsom said exactly as much 2 yeas ago and was branded a transphobic bigot immediately. Even though he also said very supportive things of the Trans community in the exact same podcast and has done supportive things. To me, this reaction from the community was a problem. It didn’t help that he sucks in other ways, so nobody really wanted to defend him.
“remember when the Democrats defunded the police” when in fact police budgets were raised almost everywhere, it was just a perception that that happened.
Perception was based on comments by many people on the left supporting this idea. Both politicians and the community. No actual legislation came from this, but the stigma was left behind as a result.
I think you’ve blindly accepted this narrative as dogma without any real evidence and anything that happens you could just twist into supporting the narrative. If Talarico and Hamilton had lost, you’d just say that it shows they were too supportive of trans rights, since they won, you say it’s because they weren’t fully supportive of them. Meanwhile, the example of El-Sayed is just written off because he doesn’t fit the narrative you already decided on. It’s nonsense.
To me, this reaction from the community was a problem.
Both politicians and the community.
Ah, see, there you have it. The community. When people talk about the left going too far, what they mean is almost always like some random Tumblr blog with 10 followers.
Guess what? There are still random Tumblr blogs with 10 followers saying all sorts of crazy things, wielding zero political influence just as they did back then. Fucking, saying crazy shit is part of growing up, part of sorting out ideas, and some of the “crazy shit” that’s taken to represent “the left” is literally just some 15 year old. You’re never going to enforce any kind of “party discipline” across everyone in the country.
What’s changed is not that teenagers suddenly stopped saying crazy shit, or lost the power they never had in the first place, but that the Republicans fucked shit up badly enough that people started having better things to worry about. And to some extent, people have just become more accustomed to the internet and the fact that there are always people saying all kinds of shit and it doesn’t fucking matter. And frankly, the most woke shit by the edgiest teen could barely compete with the shit Elon Musk tweets out regularly to huge audiences anyway.
So, in my opinion, this whole narrative is bullshit based on nothing but memories of perceptions.
How?
There was a lot of legitimate issues with the “woke” movement. Republicans used this as motivation to turn out the vote. Democrats have since chilled out quite a bit. Most didn’t do a 180, but just quit focusing on it.
This win was more a reflection of that than it was legitimizing the “old ways”.
Besides, pronouns never left the emails.
I don’t recall the Democrats ever being so woke that it was a legitimate issue. Random individual people with zero power might have said or looked “cringe,” though, and that was somehow upheld as representative of everything. Virtually all of the backlash to “woke 1” was just memes and Youtube videos usually featuring the same three random nobodies…
…putting words in their mouth, taking them out of context, and holding them as representative of all liberals/leftists.
What was one actual policy position advanced or enacted by the Democratic party that was problematic because it was too woke?
I listen to some podcasts that talk a lot about polling data, and analyze not only how people vote, but why. It’s not political, and just about analysis.
It’s my understanding that there was a backlash to democrats going all in on woke issues. This drove republicans to the polls when they might have been more likely to stay home.
It’s fine to be woke, but let’s just stfu about it. Last thing we need is to encourage republican backlash.
This same thing applied to guns. Democrats talked too much about gun control, which drove Republicans to the polls at massive levels. Now they don’t talk about it, and that’s one less motivation for Republicans.
Edit: I’m not saying republican objections were fair or even honest. Just that it was effective.
I asked for a specific policy, not vague allusions to “going all in on woke issues.”
If you’re focusing on rhetoric rather than policy, then fine, provide me some actual, specific examples of that rhetoric.
Relying on vague perceptions and imperfect memories is just bullshit. How I remember it is very different from what you’re saying.
We’re just 2 people sharing our imperfect memories on the internet.
Do you disagree that “woke” issues were a motivating factor for many Republicans in the past 5-10 years or so?
That’s completely shifting the goalposts. Whether Republicans viewed the Democrats as being woke is an entirely different question from whether the Democrats actually were woke. Republicans believed Democrats for reasons I already explained, in my first reply and elsewhere in this thread.
The reality is that the Republican perception of the Democrats had more to do with their own minds and their own circles and their own conditions, rather than what Democrats actually said or did. Many of these people are just diehard reactionaries and unreachable anyway.
Also, Democrats won midterm races regardless of what their stance on trans rights was. El-Sayed for example did not (to my knowledge) adopt any anti-trans positions, and politicians like Talarico and Hamilton (Kansas) conceded on sports but overall had positive messaging.
This is exactly why it’s important to ground your narratives in hard facts rather than vague memories, because if you compare politicians’ rhetoric then to now, how much has it actually shifted? It’s more that Republicans overplayed their hand on the issue, while also fucking up in other, bigger ways, like in Iran. So the rhetoric that’s remembered as being “too extreme” and the rhetoric that’s seen as “reasonable” could be the exact same words, and what’s actually changed is people’s perception of that rhetoric. Which is meaningless for the conclusions and narratives you’re drawing.
So much of the rhetoric about “woke 1” is just “you remember how crazy it was, right?” without ever actually discussing what specifically was so crazy about it. And the reason that there’s nothing specific anyone can point to is that it was massively overblown. The left was never anywhere close to the levers of power, it was always centrists who at best sometimes pandered to an organic movement while doing little in terms of actual policy. It’s the same shit with like, “remember when the Democrats defunded the police” when in fact police budgets were raised almost everywhere, it was just a perception that that happened.
I definitely don’t have time to go through a decade of social media posts and news articles, so the best your going to get from me right now is my memory.
Fact that candidates like Talarico and Hamilton were able to say they didn’t support trans people on the issue of sports without the wrath of the left ending their career is evidence the Democrats are no longer “all in” on woke. Newsom said exactly as much 2 yeas ago and was branded a transphobic bigot immediately. Even though he also said very supportive things of the Trans community in the exact same podcast and has done supportive things. To me, this reaction from the community was a problem. It didn’t help that he sucks in other ways, so nobody really wanted to defend him.
Perception was based on comments by many people on the left supporting this idea. Both politicians and the community. No actual legislation came from this, but the stigma was left behind as a result.
I think you’ve blindly accepted this narrative as dogma without any real evidence and anything that happens you could just twist into supporting the narrative. If Talarico and Hamilton had lost, you’d just say that it shows they were too supportive of trans rights, since they won, you say it’s because they weren’t fully supportive of them. Meanwhile, the example of El-Sayed is just written off because he doesn’t fit the narrative you already decided on. It’s nonsense.
Ah, see, there you have it. The community. When people talk about the left going too far, what they mean is almost always like some random Tumblr blog with 10 followers.
Guess what? There are still random Tumblr blogs with 10 followers saying all sorts of crazy things, wielding zero political influence just as they did back then. Fucking, saying crazy shit is part of growing up, part of sorting out ideas, and some of the “crazy shit” that’s taken to represent “the left” is literally just some 15 year old. You’re never going to enforce any kind of “party discipline” across everyone in the country.
What’s changed is not that teenagers suddenly stopped saying crazy shit, or lost the power they never had in the first place, but that the Republicans fucked shit up badly enough that people started having better things to worry about. And to some extent, people have just become more accustomed to the internet and the fact that there are always people saying all kinds of shit and it doesn’t fucking matter. And frankly, the most woke shit by the edgiest teen could barely compete with the shit Elon Musk tweets out regularly to huge audiences anyway.
So, in my opinion, this whole narrative is bullshit based on nothing but memories of perceptions.