The Ages of Woke

Avoid deal-breakers and observe the K.I.S.S. principle

My idol Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has caused a stir by criticizing so-called “Woke 1.0.” Exactly what was it? And how would she amend or alter it? I’d say the entire debate is futile because ‘Woke’ of any iteration is ill-defined. I’ve written about this in the past.

This is a hopelesss exercise in another sense. The Right will always find a way to caricature its targets. Lacking facts, it will just make them up. Even if you repudiate a previous, dubious statement, they will still associate it with you. The latest ignorant gambit is calling all Democratic candidates “vegan.” In other words, the men are pussies, the women are just weird. We’re all gay.

It still pays to minimize the supply of targets, as Woke of any vintage will never be able to do. There are a few markers that are easier to get a handle on, so I’ll pursue it by that route, going from simpler to less simple.

“Defund the Police” attracts the most brickbats. I understand the motivation, on both sides, but in ordinary retail politics, as everybody knows, it’s a deal-breaker. So if an axe murderer is charging up and down Main Street, chopping off heads, we don’t need armed police? Though I can’t help remembering an online video of an extraordinary scene in London. A clearly unhinged man is screaming and swinging a machete wildly in the street. He is surrounded by about thirty unarmed police, who just stand there calmly with arms crossed at a safe distance, until he finally tires out enough to be grabbed and restrained. Nobody gets shot, or even slapped. Imagine such a scene in the U.S.

Of course, what people mean is that in situations where mental health or domestic violence are involved, you don’t want to send armed police. You want to send somebody equipped to talk people down or restrain them with minimal resort to violence.

We could also talk about demilitarizing the police, training and managing them differently, diverting resources from bloated police budgets, putting their pay and benefits on a par with other public employees, etc. etc. etc. There is a lot to talk about, but it requires explanation and elaboration. What the advocates fail to grasp is the old saying that in politics, when you’re explaining, you’re losing. You have to be careful about the slogan on the bumper sticker.

Another political millstone is prison abolition. I would say a nation with an inordinate level of incarcerated population is not a successful or healthy place, but just as surely, there are some folks who are not fit for personal freedom. Getting to a better place would be a lengthy process. Abolition sounds immediate and precipitous. It is untenable in a political platform.

Both ‘Abolition’ and ‘Defund’ were understandable cries of frustration with execreble, racist police abuse. But politics requires persuasion, for which you have to keep your cool. Outrage needs to be calculated. ‘Defund’ is on much stronger ground regarding ICE, whose abuses are well-appreciated by the masses.

“Open Borders.” Clearly, xenophobia is a ready and effective tool of the Right throughout the world, but even in principle, ‘Open Borders’ is not smart. There are better stories to tell, as I have tried myself, but again, explanation takes time. Any nation worth its salt, as even Trump understands, will regulate entrance. It makes sense to defend immigrants who are already here, or who are presently massed at our points of entry, but that should be the limit, absent a more enlightened level of public opinion. Ideally we would provide transitional assistance for new arrivals, housing and employment.

I wrote that immigrants benefit the country of arrival. That implies they sap the vitality of the countries from which they departed. Of course, there is usually a lot wrong with those places, something with which U.S. immigration policy ought to reckon.

Banning or disrespecting Thanksgiving is said to have made a difference for Francesca Hong’s razor-thin margin of defeat in Wisconsin. To be sure, the folklore underlying Thanksgiving is repulsive, and turkey is not worth eating more than twice a year. Even here in Virginia, the fabled origin of “Thanksgiving,” we now have “Indigenous Peoples Day.” It transpires without clamor. Italians are not rising up. People celebrate the holiday as they prefer. I suspect most people, Woke or otherwise, think the original story is bullshit.

Two recent lefty takes on the Hong defeat oddly shy away from grappling with Woke. One is by Harold Myerson in The American Prospect, the other by Paul Heideman in Jacobin. I don’t disagree with any of what they say, but neither deal with the now common anti-Woke attack lines deployed by the Republicans and their sympathizers in the Democratic Party bureaucracy. They are both more at pains to point out that the meat-and-potatoes proposals of democratic socialists (e.g., Medicare For All, the Green New Deal) are popular. Sure, but so far, not enough to overwhelm MAGA.

We could think of a few other well-founded notions said to be Woke, or at least drastic, such as abolishing the U.S. Senate and/or the Electoral College and expanding the Supreme Court. These are fine ideas, but they too require explanation. On the surface, they look unfamiliar, drastic, and sudden. By contrast, some ideas sound simple but are anything but, such as “Medicare For All.” In politics, surface simplicity is what works.

In a recent conversation with other DSA members, we talked about data centers. My views on this are opposed by absolutely everybody. My point, however, is that my comrades’ views are not as inflexible as might be thought by other parties. It happens that the slogan of completely blocking new centers is popular, or at least not controversial. In this case, the inflexible interpretation happens to be what sells. In the worst cases of Woke, the converse applies.

I was pleased to see that my local Democratic Socialists of America (‘DSA’) in Virginia is getting behind three proposed amendments to the state constitution that are up for a referendum in November. They are: legalizing gay marriage, restoring voting rights to felons, and legalizing reproductive rights. These are simple enough. At last, something DSA is doing that I could get behind!

Then I found out that the amendments have strong Democratic Party support, including being approved by a vote of our state legislature. It is smart of the Party to elevate amendments that should increase Democratic turn-out and help the candidates in the general elections.

Nobody has a monopoly on popular causes, which to me means less reason for DSA committing resources, beyond verbal support, to the amendment vote. Activists can just blend into their own local Democratic efforts. At a certain point, back in the 1960s, Students for a Democratic Society got bored with anti-war organizing. Vietnam was still in full swing. Peace advocacy had become mainstream by a certain point, so there was not much point in SDS trying to continue to lead the parade. Its work had been done. Its early opposition, when it was unpopular and dangerous, helped to break the ice.

DSA can grow if it stakes out popular-trending positions of which it can take ownership. It cannot grow unless it supplies a reason for activists to operate outside of formal Democratic Party organizations. It needs to be ahead of the curve. It’s fine to prove we are better Democrats, where possible, but it is not as high a priority. Best is to stake out and own an unpopular position that will earn majority support in the future. Politics is a competition.

In Northern Virginia, I believe one such issue is Palestine. We have a large South and West Asian community much animated by this cause. Withdrawing support for Israel’s unconscionable rampages in Gaza and the West Bank, tied to Trump’s unpopular war with Iran, are easy things to explain. The compromised Democrats are on the back foot in this situation. It is ripe for DSA ownership.

Is there a new Woke 2.0? We certainly observe the advances of democratic socialists, and close facsimiles thereof, who provide ‘proof of concept’ by being smarter about politics. Invariably, they walk back from defunding and abolition. In a recent interview, even a DSA leader — one of the red-hot Marxist-Leninists — soft-peddled DSA’s own positions on abolition and defunding as ‘long-term objectives.’ That takes the edge off and it suggests DSA’s most radical leaders are intent on nailing themselves into the organization, taking advantage of its explosive growth and remarkable electoral victories through the promulgation of social-democratic — that is to say, reform — policies. So much the better.