#liberal values

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ani O'Brien

Published: Apr 18, 2025

Never wrestle with pigs. You’ll both end up covered in shit and the pig will enjoy it.

Around a decade ago the burgeoning Woke Left really hit its straps and was observably and overtly dominating cultural spaces (it still does). Language policing, cancel culture, moral purity, and complete obsession with identity cannibalised leftist politics and bled out into progressive strongholds like academia, public service, the media, and eventually the corporate world. Attempting to argue principles or nuance with the Woke Left would (and still does) result in a struggle session complete with a suite of DARVO tactics.

The fight against the Woke Left has been maddening and destructive, but we appear to be moving into a new phase of the movement. The re-election of Donald Trump has been hailed by some as the end of woke, but that is not quite right. Yes, some of the most overt and outrageous aspects of leftist wokeness have been seriously weakened. Trump has signed Executive Orders banning men from competing in women’s sport, for example, and his administration has made it clear DEI is to be eradicated as far as they are concerned. The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the legal definition of ‘woman’ is based on biological sex.

But, wokeness is a formidable opponent. Wokeness is a parasite. It burrows under the skin of society causing havoc and driving the host to insanity.

Burrowing is exactly what the Woke Left are doing now. They have retreated to their (substantial) strongholds and are digging in. They are rebranding DEI, dressing it up as something more subtle that will slip under the radar and preparing for four years of lawfare against the Trump administration.

In New Zealand, the public service has dug its collective heels in so determinedly that the Coalition Government is having to battle their own ministries and advisors on every minute detail of policy and legislation. Just this week, Minister Casey Costello had to instruct Health NZ to cease using “gender neutral” or so-called “inclusive” language like “pregnant people,” “birthing parent,” or “people with uteruses” to describe women in maternity care. There has been an outcry of protest at this including from the Leader of the Opposition who famously doesn’t know what a woman is.

That isn’t to say there is nothing to celebrate. The Woke Left have taken significant hits and that they have to retreat and make their insanity more palatable is a win in itself. But I always imagined getting to the point of seeing the Woke Left in retreat would be a moment of delirium and relief. Finally! It’s nearly over! These woke tyrants will no longer hold an anvil over our heads…

Enter, the Woke Right.

I was sceptical when I first heard the term ‘Woke Right’. How can the right be woke? I initially thought that this must refer to centre-right social liberals who are into identity politics like LGBT+, BLM, or feminism. It seemed like a strange concept and of little value to broader political analysis. And from what I am observing in the discussion following Joe Rogan’s podcast (JRE) episode with Douglas Murray and Dave Smith, I am not the only one who made these assumptions.

The online right has turned into a living version of the Spiderman meme. Everyone is pointing at each other and shouting “Woke Right!” in accusing tones. Some of it is blatant shitposting1 from trolls who seek to simply confuse everyone who isn’t already confused. But part of it is a power struggle that could well come to define the right.

This power struggle has been on my mind since I listened to that JRE episode. Or rather since I listened to the ep and then saw X split in half over who “won” the debate between Murray and Smith. You would think there were two versions of the conversation circulating. Accusations of “Woke Right” from one side of the debate to the other continue to be flung like the left fling around new genders and it has become abundantly clear that a rift in the right is brewing.

Because my mentions are so full of both genuine and disingenuous demands for a defintion of “Woke Right,” and I am apparently a sucker for punishment, I am going to do the unwise thing and attempt to provide one.

I will lean heavily on the work of James Lindsay (New Discourses) who is probably the reason “Woke Right” has entered the lexicon.

So, who is the “Woke Right”?

On the surface, “Woke Right” is a deliberate paradox, since “woke” has typically been associated with progressive or leftist politics — especially around issues like race, sex/gender, identity, and social justice. However, it is not an affinity to these topics that makes this section of the right “woke”. It is rather the behaviours and tactics that they utilise in pursuit of right wing goals.

This is a segment of the right that tends to be hyper-online, very meme-savvy, and culture war–obsessed. They are deeply ideological - much like their left wing equivalents - and this usually plays out in nationalism, religiosity, and/or anti-globalism. They are populists with a tendency towards the authoritarian. Anti-elite and anti-institution, they cannot stand “normie” conservatives. They will not hesitate to turn on their own side for what they perceive as weakness or disloyalty. In fact, this seems to be what they spend most of their time on.

These people are prevalent in Christian nationalist communities [example], but also include figures from the MAGA world, right-wing influencers, conspiracy-adjacent commentators, and online bros with Pepe profile pics who think Ben Shapiro is a sellout.

James Lindsay characterises the members of the Woke Right as being rarely over the age of thirty-five and predominantly male. Most, he contends, are between the ages of 15 and 25 and have zero interest in listening to anyone over the ripe old age of 40.

Lindsay actually sees the Woke Right as another stream of the Left, but I won’t get into this too deeply as we could be here all day. Basically, he contends that the most invested activists actively claim to use postmodernism and critical theory, but to different means. They are pro-redistribution and socialism, but the nationalist kind. He sees the fight against woke as a two front war or rather two hands of the same beast.

Ultimately, and of most concern, the Woke Right embody everything the left has accused the wider right-wing of being. They take the position that anything the left does is bad, so everything the left hate must be good. They have embraced white supremacy, homophobia, racism, and general offensiveness. The left have dreamt up a bogeyman and the Woke Right have brought it to life.

Caveat: there are degrees of Woke Right like there are degrees of Woke Left. Some people are sticklers for pronouns and proponents of Drag Queen Storytime, but oppose the use of puberty blockers and juvenile transition. Likewise, some on the Woke Right are vehemently anti-globalism, but reject the white nationalist aspects. Some ideas from the Woke Right and Left are founded in utterly reasonable concepts too. It is reasonable and common to be opposed to mass immigration and expect one’s government to put its own citizens first, for example, but when this extrapolated to the idea that there should be zero immigration and that white people are the superior race it becomes a serious issue. Likewise, most people abhor racism, but when the left extrapolates that and sees racism everywhere, blaming white people for everything, it is problematic.

Culture Warriors of the Right

These Woke Right-Wingers use many of the same tactics or language as progressive activists. They emphasise identity, grievance, and victimhood, but from a right-wing perspective.

In this sense, it is “woke” in form but not in content — the same kind of intense cultural engagement, but flipped ideologically.

The Woke Right adopts identity-based frameworks like the left does too. These tend to champion white identity politics and emphasise oppression or suppression of Christianity (although this is not as common in less religious countries like New Zealand). In a real reversal of politics, the right now tends to be the one focusing on rural or working class oppression and rights.

This flips the idea of social justice on its head. They use the left’s tactics to highlight what they see as neglect or discrimination against conservative, right-wing, or majority groups. Same playbook, different players.

This right-wing version of the playbook includes cancelling people for being too liberal, creating right wing echo chambers, conservative or based virtue signalling, creating division within political allies, gatekeeping, purity tests, and loyalty demands.

The Woke Right aggressively police ideological loyalty. If someone on the right doesn’t go far enough, fast enough, or speak in approved terms, they’re labeled terms like “RINO” (Republican in Name Only), “controlled opposition”, “Neocon”, “Cuckservative”, “Normie”, “grifter” or “fence-sitter”.

These are functions of gatekeeping and ‘othering’. They create tight in-groups and out-groups based on binary purity tests. For example, if you support Ukraine, you’re “deep state”, if you support Israel, you’re “Zionist-controlled”, and if you won’t go all-in on adoration of Trump (e.g. never critique him), you’re “a traitor”.

While they mock the left’s cancel culture, the Woke Right has wasted no time at all engaging in their own campaigns to boycott, bully, and excommunicate. However, broader conservative boycotts are usually about where one spends their money, like the Bud Light boycott, rather than the more violent and aggressive version we are seeing from the Woke Left regarding Tesla currently. The Woke Right boycotting and cancelling techniques against the Daily Wire are an example of in-group attempts to excommunicate.

Just as the Woke Left will flood comment sections with name-calling and moral accusations when they smell blood - in the form of a woke transgression - in the water, so too do the Woke Right. We are all familiar with the left’s style of moralistic name-calling e.g. “terf”, “bigot”, and “racist”, but the right have a far superior and more creative suite of slurs, in my opinion.

The Woke Right employ several different kinds of insults used interchangeably and dependent on context. Many of these have foundations in concepts or behaviours that are widely criticised, and are quite fairly viewed negatively, but these are hyperbolised and weaponised.

First of all, they seek to effeminise their opponent to signal that they are weak, emotional, or “not masculine enough.” Some examples of this are: Soyboy, Cuck, Beta male, and Simp. They also use conspiratorial or anti-globalist terms to paint opponents as tools of global elites, or enemies of the nation/state; Globohomo, Commie / Marxist / Cultural Marxist, NPC (Non-Playable Character), Shill, and Deep State Stooge, for example. While the concept of DEI hiring is widely disliked, the Woke Right have taken to using racialised and DEI-related insults such as Diversity hire or race hustler and using “white guilt” in pejorative terms. They openly mock feminists in very unoriginal ways. For example, they’ve brought back the good ol’ “feminazi”. They also use mocking terms that I myself am guilty of using to describe the madness of gender ideology e.g. Alphabet Mafia, Gender Goblin, and Pronoun Police. Fond of pushing boundaries and saying things they are ‘not meant to say’, they have brought the word “retard” back into circulation and also regularly employ the portmanteaus Libtard and Woketard. And of course, we can’t forget “Snowflake”.

Call out culture is flourishing in the woke world of the right just as it does on the left. The Woke Right can be found making YouTube and TikTok videos “exposing” the political impurity of others on the right. X spaces and threads have also played host to such call outs. These often aim to deplatform or humiliate right-wing figures who aren’t ‘pure enough’.

They may not be tearing down statues just yet, but the Woke Right are just as determined to destroy the heroes of Western civilisation as the left. Winston Churchill is a popular target for them - poor fellow has copped from both sides. Ronald Reagan has also been in the firing line. The inverse is the more than troubling sanitisation of dictators like Adolf Hitler.

Unquestioning support is expected for certain figureheads of the MAGA movement - though remember that the Woke Right is not synonymous with MAGA, but they are a subsection who seek to take it over. Obviously these figureheads include Trump, but also people like RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson. Support for certain ideas and causes are also unofficially compulsory. These include being vehemently anti-Israel, anti-vax, anti-immigration, and anti-globalism. Criticising the movement or a figurehead, idea, or cause from within, is likely to result in being seen as a traitor, weak, bought and paid for, or “working for Soros or the deep state”.

You might assume that these figureheads and issues are American-specific, but the Woke Right (again, like the Woke Left) is so culturally ‘American’ that even those beyond the United States’ shores demonstrate allegiance as if they were citizens.

People on the Woke Right engage in trying to ‘out-extreme’ each other in feats of performative outflanking to prove their credentials or loyalty to the cause. They use “that’s cute” rhetoric steeped in condescension and hyperbole. It becomes a competition of who’s most based, most redpilled, or most willing to say the unsayable.

“You still think democracy works? Lmao.” “You still believe in voting? Fed behaviour.” “You’re not calling for a Christian monarchy? Weak.”

Just like the left as they built the dominance of the Woke Left cultural tsunami, the Woke Right seek to build identity and define what it truly means to be “right wing” in 2025. They are asserting dominance over the rest of the right and are engaged in a power struggle over who controls the narrative. Purity always wins over pragmatism and this drives extreme rhetoric in much the same way that the transgender movement on the left push the increasingly more ridiculous (e.g. men can get pregnant). They’d often rather burn bridges than compromise.

Conservatives are generally advocates for smaller government. The Woke Right bucks this trend. They want the state to intervene to force compliance with their own belief systems. They rail against “big government”, “globalism”, and the “deep state”, but when it serves their moral, cultural, or ideological goals, they are happy for Daddy Trump to lay down the law. The Woke Right doesn’t reject state power outright; they want to reclaim and weaponise it to enforce traditional values, suppress leftist “wokeness,” and reshape society in their image.

Old-school conservatism says the Government should be small and stay out of our lives. Woke right conservatism says the Government should be big enough to crush the people we hate.

It’s a shift from libertarianism to reactionary statism — all justified in the name of moral survival. It is the belief that the government should enforce traditional values and crush progressive threats.

Not only have some opponents of the Woke Right pointed out the fascistic flavour of these beliefs, but some of the Woke Right itself has begun to reclaim the term “fascist”. In a mix of irony, rebellion, and sincerity, they aim to own the label their enemies use for them and signal ideological defiance. And sometimes they do this because they actually like elements of fascism. Many on the dissident or Woke Right feel that the left calls everything fascist, from moderate conservatives to Trump voters. So instead of denying it, they lean in. “If everything’s fascism, then fine — I’m a fascist.” As with much of what they say and do online, it should never be forgotten that shock-value is always an objective. It is also worth noting that it certainly isn’t universal of Woke Right figures to embrace the label of “fascist”.

Despite enjoying weaponising language as a tool to shock and push the boundaries, the Woke Right engage in plenty of language policing themselves. At its core, language policing is about controlling what people can say, how they can say it, and which words are socially or politically acceptable. It's about enforcing a moral or ideological framework through language.

Even while they mock the left for being “snowflakes” or “too PC,” the Woke Right pushes its own rules around what language is acceptable and this is often presented in a binary: patriotic vs. unpatriotic, moral vs. immoral, traditional vs. radical, and based vs. woke. They ridicule and condemn the use of terms associated with their counterparts on the Woke Left. These include: “systemic racism”, “white privilege”, “DEI”, “critical race theory”. Whereas the left claims “inclusive” language, the right owns “traditionalist” or “nationalist” framing.

The language wars are polarising and both sides brand and rebrand cultural terms in a war of meaning and construction. For example, the Woke Left uses “undocumented immigrant” whereas the Woke Right takes it to the opposite extreme with “illegal alien”. Likewise, the tug-of-war over abortion phrasing; the right say they are “pro-life” instead of “anti-abortion” like the left say “pro-choice” instead of “pro-abortion”.

They recast language to shape public perception and claim moral ground.

In New Zealand, the Woke Right tend not to be so religious, even so they still identify with Christianity for political reasons and engage in the linguistic front of the religious culture war. For example, they criticise people who say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas”. They see it as a war on Christianity. Recently, there has been criticism of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for being explicit in his support and celebration of Muslim holidays while overlooking Christian ones. The Woke Right are vocal in their condemnation of this.

A linguistic loyalty test is created based on what you say and how you say it: are you “with us” or “against us”.

High profile right wingers can be caught in a spiral of proving they are “with” the in-group and as a result become increasingly more ‘woke’ in the content they create. This is often due to audience capture. Their base rewards extremism and pushing the boundaries, but punishes them when they demonstrate moderation. James Lindsay points to public figures like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson as examples of this.

A less mainstream example of a Woke Right influencer - as pointed to by both Douglas Murray and James Lindsay - is a guy called Ian Carroll. He is primarily a content creator who appears on various right wing podcasts and Murray and Lindsay assert that he promotes conspiracy theories and revisionist historical narratives. His interest in Israel and the history of the Second World War are typical of the Woke Right and his audience lap up content that challenges dominant narratives of history which they contend have been written by Jews.

In the recent Joe Rogan episode, both Rogan and Smith deny that Ian Carroll and another content creator, Darryl Cooper, are as bad as Murray claims. They are particular defensive of Cooper and reject Murray’s characterisation of him as expressing far-right ideologies and rewriting history. His re-casting of Winston Churchill as the villain of the Second World War particularly offends Murray, but on the podcast Rogan and Smith deny that he does this. Screenshots of his tweets doing just that have subsequently circulated X.

DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is a central feature of ‘woke’ behaviour. It’s a psychological defence mechanism that was initially identified in relation to abusers or manipulators, especially at times when they're being held accountable for their actions. They deny the wrongdoing, attack their accuser’s credibility or character, and reverse the roles so the abuser looks like they’re the real victim.

The Woke Right has adopted some of the emotional and rhetorical postures of DARVO — particularly around victimhood, identity, and moral righteousness — and simply flipped them ideologically.

To break this down, here are some examples from both the Woke Left and Woke Right to demonstrate DARVO in action:

1. Deny

In this first stage, the person usually refuses to engage with the substance of a critique. ‘Deny’ often comes from a place of moral certainty; the confidence that one’s side is “on the right side of history” or the “real good guys”.

Woke Left examples:

“They just want to pee!” [Regarding males who claim to be women using women’s bathrooms.] “Bussy isn’t an inappropriate word — context matters.” “I never said ‘Defund the Police’. I just said…”

Woke Right examples:

“I’m just asking questions.” “I’m not antisemitic — I’m just anti-Zionist.” “I never said Churchill was worse than Hitler, I just said...”

2. Attack

Instead of responding to the critique directly, they attack the motives or identity of the critic — often using social justice language as a weapon.

It usually involves casting the intentions of the critic as coming from a place of hate, bigotry, or evil. It often descends into a moral purity test and can include overt intimidation. It is moral outrage that appeals to emotion, fear, or belief systems.

Woke Left examples:

“You’re a racist/sexist/transphobe.” “You would say that; you’re a white man.” “You don’t care about future generations. You’re happy to watch the world burn.” “Why are you so obsessed with people’s genitals?”

Woke Right examples:

“You’re a cuck / groomer / globalist shill.” “You hate America / New Zealand.” “You’re complicit in demographic replacement.” “You’re paid for.”

3. Reverse Victim and Offender

This is when the person who is called out turns the tables and claims they’re the one being harmed. The left like to claim victimhood when their views are so much as questioned. They frame this oppression and use therapeutic or trauma-informed language (like “harm,” “safety,” or “violence”) in a way that shuts down debate.

They do this to shift the focus away from the issue and onto how they are being victimised by criticism. The recent case of Green MP Benjamin Doyle being found to have an alternate Instagram account featuring inappropriate content is an excellent example of this. Immediately his party and its proxies sought to frame him up as the victim of bad actors, threatening behaviour, and homophobia. They guy isn’t even gay, he just uses they/them pronouns and paints his nails.

In Woke Right spaces, the cultural narrative is different but the behaviour is the same. They apply grievance discourse to conservatives, Christians, white people, or men as victims of a new liberal or “woke” oppression. They mimic the language of civil rights, anti-racism, or trauma-informed justice just as the left do, but use it to justify reactionary beliefs.

Woke Left examples:

“Misgendering trans people is literal violence.” “Do your own research. I’m not doing your emotional labour.” “This isn’t a debate — this is about our right to exist.” [Calling everything genocide]

Woke Right examples:

“I’m being silenced for speaking the truth / asking questions.” “White men are the real oppressed group now.” “You’re not allowed to criticise Israel without being labeled antisemitic.” “They control the media, and we get banned for pointing it out.”

Case study: The "Woke Right" & Israel

The Joe Rogan Experience episode with Murray and Smith focused a lot on Israel as both men are outspoken about the conflict. It is a good case study for how traditional conservative perspectives are at odds with those held by the Woke Right. While traditional conservatives in the United States and elsewhere have historically supported Israel due to religious, strategic, or ideological reasons, the Woke Right — especially online — do the opposite. Far-right influencers, nationalist populists, and “edgy” online subcultures have adopted strident anti-Israel and even antisemitic positions, but framed in a way that mirrors activist language.

Generally, they criticise "Zionist control" or “globalist elites” and use this to defend themselves against accusations of overt antisemitism. They see Israel as a “colonial apartheid state” and claim support for Palestinians. However, their motives are regularly questioned as they spend a lot of time flirting with outright hatred of Jews and the oldest of conspiracy theories.

I find the Woke Right’s stance on Israel an interesting contradiction of some of their anti-immigration narratives. They are aggressive supporters of Palestinians who are Arabic and Muslim, while also opposing mass migration of Muslims to Western countries on the grounds that they bring violence and inferior cultural practices with them.

Let’s look at how Woke Right DARVO plays out regarding Israel.

1. Deny

They deny that their views are bigoted or conspiratorial, even when they use classic antisemitic tropes (like accusing Jews or Israel of secretly controlling media, finance, or politics). They also mask far-right ideology under progressive-sounding slogans like “decolonisation” or “liberation.”

“I’m not antisemitic — I’m anti-Zionist.” “I’m just criticising Israel’s government.” “I support free speech and human rights. That’s all.”

2. Attack

They go after journalists, activists, or anyone who challenges anti-Israel narratives. They use inflammatory or coded language to delegitimise pro-Israel voices and often accuse Jewish critics of being manipulative or dishonest. Sometimes it crosses the line into full-on antisemitic conspiracy theories, but is framed as “just asking questions.”

“You’re a Zionist shill.” “She’s always standing up for Jews. Who’s paying her?” “So you support bombs being dropped on schools and babies being murdered?” “Jews always play the victim card.”

Reverse Victim Offender

They cast themselves as victims of censorship, persecution, and political correctness — claiming they’re being punished for telling “an uncomfortable truth.”

“I was just telling the truth and got cancelled for it.” “They can bomb civilians, but I get banned for posting memes?” “Jewish power is so strong, you can’t even talk about it without getting attacked.” “They’re trying to erase national borders and replace us.”

What next?

James Lindsay is pretty pessimistic. He sees the Woke Right as an existential threat to the success of the Trump administration. He views them as kind of cuckoo birds in the right wing nest and it is only a matter of time before they go insane and attack their host.

After the Murray vs. Smith debacle, the Woke Right firmly piled in behind Smith. They aggressively shitposted and swarmed Murray using homophobic and antisemitic slurs. Then, the next day, Donald Trump posted about his “friend” Douglas Murray and his new book.

This did not impress the Woke Right and the sensitive wee petals launched into full conspiracy mode. They speculated why Trump would say pro-Israel things and if the Israeli government has something on him. Their nihilism has sent them into a spin and they have begun to turn on Trump.

The Woke Right is very nihilistic. They want to tear down liberalism, democracy, modernity, feminism, and secularism. But they frequently don’t propose coherent, positive replacements — or treat the idea of rebuilding as a joke or afterthought.

“Let it all collapse.” “We’ll build something better from the ashes.” “Modernity is a failed experiment.” “We want Caesar — or chaos.”

There is only so much that they can defend with the excuse of irony. They bat back accountability and criticism with retorts like “it’s just a meme,” “I’m just joking,” and “we’re being post-ironic”. This makes it hard to tell whether they believe in anything at all. That playful ambiguity is a hallmark of postmodern nihilism ��� meaninglessness masked as provocation. It is seen in their flirtations with breaking taboos, attention seeking, and gratuitously subverting moral norms. Religious traditionalism is a feature of their culture, but often it is a shallow aesthetic based on identity politics rather than a sincere spiritual belief. On some level they are yearning for order and meaning in their lives.

The power the Woke Right wield on X is considerable. They have weaponised the platform and operate in swarms or packs to push conversations where they want them to go. They engage in a great deal of agitprop. They reply en masse in ways designed to enrage or agitate. The best thing to do is not feed this beast. The saying that I began this post with applies here: Never wrestle with pigs. You’ll both end up covered in shit and the pig will enjoy it.

I was on the left when the Woke Left imploded the progressive movement and I now find myself somewhat on the right as the Woke Right threaten to do the same thing. The right must do what the left did not and excise the wokeness from the wider conservative or right wing cause. James Lindsay is doing overtime trying to bring this situation to the attention of influential people on the right. Douglas Murray’s appearance on JRE can be viewed as one big appeal to Rogan to be wary of the Woke Right.

James Lindsay - who is not religious - uses the biblical story of Cain and Abel to demonstrate the futility of the Woke Right and the value in sticking to principles. He offers it as a hopeful alternative narrative, but maintains a depressing pessimistic doubt that it will be received well.

In his analogy, the Woke Right is Cain. Cain is consumed by resentment and thinks the world is unfair. He is jealous of his hardworking and productive brother, but instead of improving himself, he becomes destructive and kills him. The “normie” conservative movement is Abel; disciplined, sincere, a picture of true positive masculinity, humble, and focused on service. He does not posture or perform, he is reliable and delivers on promises.

The Cains feel like the system is rigged and the world doesn’t reward their effort. They feel invisible, disrespected, and pushed aside. Cains mistake online rage for a show of strength. They mistake the bogeymen of the Woke Right - feminists, elites, Jews etc - for the villains causing their pain, just as Cain blamed Abel for his problems. Resentment is a false energy. It depletes rather than propels.

Abels show that even when life is hard you can live with integrity. You might not always win, but the goal isn’t dominance. The goal must be meaning, personal strength, and rising above victimhood.

The message to the young men captured by the Woke Right has to be that burning it all down isn’t victory. The problem is they’re already playing with the matches.

Note: I am aware that this post will upset those who think the Woke Right means something completely different. It will likely upset those who know that it applies to them, but they don’t like the association with the Woke Left. I have no problem with disagreement and invite people to try to change my mind. However, aggression and shitposting will be ignored.

-

1 URBAN DICTIONARY: “A post of little to no sincere insightful substance. Especially a "shit"(low)-effort/quality-post with the sole purpose to confuse, provoke, entertain or otherwise evoke an unproductive reaction. Often exemplified in surreal out-of-context posts.”

==

Woke Right is not a solution to the Woke Left.

[connectinglines]

4. Muslims in Israel Without Israeli Passports

4. Muslims in Israel Without Israeli Passports

Muslims in Israel who do not hold Israeli passports are mostly Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Their status is complex:

East Jerusalem: Palestinians in East Jerusalem were given the option to apply for Israeli citizenship after Israel annexed the area following the 1967 war, but most have refused, seeing this as an acceptance of Israeli rule over a city they claim as the capital of a future Palestinian state. As a result, most East Jerusalem Palestinians hold Israeli residency cards but not full citizenship, meaning they can live and work in Israel but cannot vote in national elections.

West Bank and Gaza: Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are under Israeli occupation, though Gaza is governed by Hamas. In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority provides limited self-rule in certain areas, but Israel maintains control over security and borders. Palestinians here do not have Israeli citizenship or passports; instead, they carry Palestinian Authority-issued documents.

[quillsword]

Ten Ways to Tell if You are a Democrook

10) You think it’s perfectly okay to lie, cheat and even steal if it benefits the Democrats but if Republicans so much as jay walk, it’s proof that they are evil. 9) You believe that watching any news source besides MSNBC or NPR makes you a Russian spy – and you’re beginning to doubt CNN. 8) You are convinced that the only way to save democracy is to ensure that only people like you can…

[thenewdemocratus]

Dan Mitchell: 'The Fiscal Case For Federalism'

Source:Dan Mitchell being interviewed by federalism.  “Fixing entitlement programs is the the most pressing fiscal need in Washington. In a discussion with the Club for Growth Foundation, I explain that we also need federalism – i.e., shifting programs to the state and local level. Some of those activities should be left totally to the private sector (agriculture, housing, etc) while others could…

[thisisthinprivilege]

All of this, and also, you don't owe health to anyone. We should be free to choose how we want to order our lives without hatred, as long as we are not doing anything to hurt anyone else. Tolerance used to be a core value of a liberal society. Tolerance isn't supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to make you want to crawl out of your skin because you really, really want to judge someone else negatively even though that person isn't hurting anyone. We need to demand true tolerance in our liberal values, and practice it, especially when it is difficult.

-ATL

It's crazy to me that when fat people exist they get told to exercise

They exercise, gain muscle, but still look "fat".

They get told being fit/being able to lift doesn't mean you're healthy.

I'm sorry. Healthy?

What are we talking about then? Because I've been plenty skinny most of my life, most of my gamer friends are twigs.

And we chug monster drinks like there's no tomorrow, and shove them down with chips.

Why is it that it's always people who don't fit into what we see as skinny that need to explain their dietary habits?

Why is it that we don't bat eye at a skinny person who says they don't do any exercise, who can't hike, who can't do a simple run to the grocery store, who eats tons of unhealthy food.

But the moment it's person that doesn't fit in the perspective of people on what's healthy suddenly it's an issue?

Stop pretending your opinions on people with bigger bodies has anything to do with fitness, or health. It's all about aesthetics. Just shut up. Go drink your monster energy drink and scream at people in CoD, oh mighty judge of fitness

[girderednerve]

the theory of law that says it matters a lot what the particular text of a given policy says, what loopholes the specific language might leave, &c., is best described as "LSAT prep" or perhaps "wishful thinking." the actual practice of the law is not a rhetorical exercise, it is a power negotiation; these executive orders are written to signal clear intention to judges & create chilling effects for people who are bound by the law but not empowered to interpret it. the viciously transmisogynist executive order signed yesterday says "at conception" because it's a popular phrase among people who oppose abortion, & the violent repression directed at trans women is connected directly to all other attempts to subjugate women as a class, not least by suspending safe, legal access to reproductive care

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

Every "Western" "democracy" in Northwest Asia aka Europe banning so much as hoisting a Palestinian flag I TRULY never want to hear you corny motherfuckers talk about muh censorship and free speech in China or w/e again

[bonefall]

I haven’t read these books in years WHAT is the angel fetuses. What is happening

LMAO yeah there's actually been three instances where Warrior Cats made fetuses into StarClan characters. We're joking about Moonpaw's absorbed fetus twin (Starpaw/The Voice) meeting with Clear Sky's first dead wife's unborn kids.

The first time they did this was in the last book of DOTC, on Gray Wing's deathbed. Bright Stream, last seen in early pregnancy and being carried off by eagles to be gruesomely eaten alive, shows up accompanied by Tiger Tail and Pale Sky. Her embryos.

Because they show up in this big fanservicey montauge of all DOTC's fridged wives happily living as eternal mothers in StarClan, I sardonically call them the Dead Angel Fetus Children.

(It's dark humor to cope with how much the concept freaks me out)

And with Moonpaw, I have to explain how fusion chimerism works.

There are a few types of chimeras, but when a single individual is created from the combination of two fully fertilized zygotes, that is called fusion chimerism. That's what Moonpaw is.

And you have to understand, we're talking zygotes as in cells. The fusion of haploid gametes. NOT embryos (developing major organs) or fetuses (has major organs). When multiple embryos or fetuses are detected during pregnancy, but one vanishes, that is called Vanishing Twin syndrome (VTS).

There is actually very little linkage between VTS and the chance of a baby being born with fusion chimerism. At best it's an overstated link. At worst, it is a general misconception of Vanishing Twin syndrome.

Fusion Chimeras can happen in a lot of different ways, most of them fertilization errors, very few of them involving the multiple embryos of VTS. Likewise, the vast majority of VTS cases do not result in fusion chimeras. I explained Chimerism in-depth over in this post, and I encourage you to follow my citations to learn more if you're interested.

Sooooo... we're not even talking fetuses for Starpaw and Moonpaw. If they ever were separate, it would have been as embryos at best.

Which means that Moonpaw is haunted by cells that hadn't even developed major organs.

Ergo, we're joking around about how peculiar it is that Supernatural Utero Ghosts have happened thrice.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Helen Pluckrose

Published: Mar 20, 2025

Cathy Young recently wrote an excellent piece on “How to Navigate Transgender Issues in the Trump Era”. Cathy argued for a ‘sane middle’ that rejected any bullying and dehumanising of trans people and discriminating against them in the military or controlling how they lived their lives while recognising the need for stringent safeguards on gender clinics and protections for women’s spaces and sports where biological sex matters. She called for open debate over dogma. I shared the piece and congratulated Cathy on it. One reader commented,

This is where Cathy is stuck between a rock and gaping chasm: their wish to “live as they want” as she puts it, impedes the ability for women and gay men to live as is their (our) hard-earned right. Need I remind anyone reading this, gender ideology is inherently non-consensual and forces people to use language that runs head on against reality. Hmm! Does compelled speech seem particularly “sane middle”? When the transgender movement has set colonised and reappropriated gay rights to the point where we've all been dragged into the quagmire of gender identity fiction; when we're outcast from our own social circles because we adhere to fundamentals of reality; how reasonable are we expected to respond? Being constantly forced into preference falsification has resulted in gaping wounds of moral injury. The well of charity, for many of us, has run dry. This fascination with being middle-of-the-pack and “centrist” over every issue inherently causes people to trip over themselves in favour of playing into fiction. Furthermore, every time we're “nice”, we're enabling this ideology and in many cases a fetish, whether the source be innate or social. Not affirming. Enabling.

This comment perfectly encapsulates a fundamental misconception of liberalism that I have been encountering increasingly frequently. Although Cathy is writing about the need for a ‘sane middle,’ what she is defending and what her critic is condemning is what I have described as the fundamental liberal principle “Let people believe, speak and live as they see fit, provided it does no material harm to anybody else nor denies them the same freedoms.”Subscribed

No belief, speech or way of living is “inherently” non-consensual or forces people to use language that goes against reality or against their own positions. People can really, really believe that everybody else must perceive reality the way they do and use language that affirms that, but they have to have institutional power to enforce this. The use and abuse of institutional power in a society is the legitimate business of members of that society while the beliefs, speech and lifestyle of other people are not.

We can test whether a belief is inherently non-consensual or whether consent is forced by institutional power quite easily. Imagine a situation where someone says, “I am a woman despite having been born with a penis” and you want to say, “No, you are not because ‘woman’ is a biological sex category defined by the reproductive system.” What happens if you try to say or type that? Do your mind, tongue or hands get possessed and you find the words, “Yes, you are a woman” coming out? Does your head explode? Do you get struck by lightning?” Clearly not. There’s nothing inherent about the beliefs that coerce minds or speech and, in fact, throughout history, people have been able to say that men and women are sex categories without being prevented from doing so or anything bad happening to them. Coercion is enabled to happen when the proponents of an idea gain institutional power and can start firing, arresting or cancelling people for not affirming it.

This has always been the case. Imagine someone says, “Christ is your saviour and the only way to Heaven” and I want to say, “I don’t believe in Christ or Heaven.” I am physically able to form those words and nothing bad happens to me for doing so. Yet, 500 years ago here in the UK, I’d have had to recant and pretend to believe that or be executed. What has changed in that time is the use of institutional power. Christians who believe that everybody must accept Christ as their saviour because otherwise they and anybody else they convince of this will be damned to eternal hell still exist, but the rights of others to be atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh etc. are protected by law, in institutions and largely accepted socially. There is nothing inherent to Christianity that enables it to be imposed on everybody else and we can know this because we live in a time and place where it isn’t. I have also lived in a time where nobody was coerced into pretending to believe in gender identity.

We need to do effective things to be living in such a time again and we are. In the UK, Gender Critical views have been upheld in a court of law as a protected philosophical position and we have seen the closure of ideologically captured gender clinics that were harming children and changes to rules about sports and prisons that were harming women. Challenging coerced beliefs and speech on an institutional level works while trying to coerce people to pretend to hold different beliefs just recreates the same problems from a different perspective. This remains the case even when one of those positions is almost certainly true and the other demonstrably false. I think Christianity goes against reality and Young Earth Creationism does so demonstrably. I think the world would be much better off without it. Yet I will not seek to impose my position on everybody else to try to prevent the harms done to people (again, often women and gay men) in the name of Christianity. People must be able to believe, speak and live according to their beliefs and we must prevent them from using those beliefs to do material harm to others or deny their freedoms.

This is liberalism and it is the role of liberalism to protect everybody from coerced beliefs and speech, including Christians and trans-identified people. The problem is that we, as a society, have not been upholding the principles of liberalism and that is what we need to remedy if we do not wish to be coerced into pretending to believe anything we don’t or penalised for not doing so. It would not have been ethical or productive to replace authoritarian Christianity with authoritarian atheism and it is not ethical or productive to replace authoritarian trans activism with authoritarian ‘anti-wokeness” or gender critical feminism.

When people try to address a problem of coerced beliefs and speech by neglecting the role that institutional power has to play in the coercion and instead going to “Nobody must be allowed to believe or express belief in these ideas that are currently being imposed on us”, they just seek to replace one authoritarian form of mind and mouth control with another. They might be able to do that if their ideas gain enough influence and power, but not only will this perpetuate the abuse of institutional power as a norm, but the people in power will almost certainly change and their complicity in enabling them to impose their ideas on everybody will come back to bite them.

Is this entirely satisfactory, though? Cathy’s critic goes on to say that every time “we” are “nice”, we are enabling this ideology. Is this not a reasonable point? People who want the concept of gender identity not to exist enable its existence by being nice to people who claim a gender identity different to their biological sex?

I understand the drive to eradicate beliefs that one thinks is harmful in all situations. I have felt this drive myself as part of the New Atheist movement. I continue to think religion is harmful and way more so to women, children and same sex attracted people than a belief in gender identity and if I were to try to urge people not to be complacent about or speak in ways that give credibility to anything, religion would still be my priority. However, having been part of a movement that did that for many years - picking up on people referring to "God" as though one is real and asking them to evidence this, imploring other atheists not to speak in ways that validated the concept of gods but use terms like 'mythological deity,' criticising atheists who treated religion with respect as 'faitheists' enabling a delusion - I have to say it wasn't helpful and only alienated people. What we really needed to do was work with religious believers who also upheld the values of secularism to oppose harm and denials of freedom being done in the name of religion. Activism that works by trying to change the way people think by changing the way they speak doesn't work. It just makes people stop talking to you when you really need them to talk to you to achieve anything.

Nevertheless, it could be a good argument for one anti-woke or gender critical activist to make to one another that if they want to eradicate the concept of gender identity, they should not be nice to people who claim to have one or use any language that could be seen to accept the concept of gender identity. However, people don’t have to be anti-woke or gender critical activists. Most people are not. I am neither. I am a liberal. I will find common ground with anybody who shares my aim to let people believe, speak and live as they see fit, provided they do no material harm to anybody else nor deny them the same freedoms. This means I share values with liberal trans people, liberal anti-wokeists and liberal gender criticals and am opposed to authoritarian trans activists, anti-wokeists and gender criticals.

Because I have been so critical of the authoritarian Critical Social Justice (woke) movement including authoritarian trans activism, there is a tendency for some among the anti-woke and gender criticals to treat me as though I am a malfunctioning anti-woke or gender critical activist who is not pursuing their goals doggedly enough when I am actually being a functioning liberal pursuing my own. Compare:

Primary anti-woke activist goal: Oppose anything woke.

Primary gender critical activist goal: Oppose the concept of gender.

Primary liberal activist goal: Oppose authoritarianism.

I have no “fascination with being middle-of-the-pack or ‘centrist’” but a strong commitment to being consistently liberal. Sometimes, to be consistently liberal, one has to push back hard at a rising authoritarianism on one side and then one is perceived as being on the other side. I have been pushing back at the authoritarianism of the Critical Social Justice (woke) movement on the left for a decade now and this has caused people to see me as being on the right or as being defined by anti-wokeness or as being gender critical rather than a left-leaning, empiricist, rationalist, anti-authoritarian liberal even though I have made no secret of this. Often, to be consistently liberal, one has to push back at rising authoritarianisms on both sides and then one is perceived as being a wishy-washy, centrist fencesitter. I am still a left-leaning, empiricist, rationalist, anti-authoritarian liberal and still making no secret of this.

This misconception about the fundamental principles of liberalism typically arises in people who do not hold freedom-centred principles themselves and have difficulty conceiving that anybody else does. The fundamental (and, I believe, genuine) failure of the dogmatic, authoritarian mindset to comprehend “Let people believe, speak, live as they see fit provided it does no material harm to anyone else nor denies them the same freedoms” is not only unethical, however. It is also counterproductive because most people are not dogmatic or authoritarian. Most people are not strongly principled liberals who look closely at all the major issues of our day and apply first principles to them either, I must concede. Nevertheless, people who are not deeply entrenched in any aspect of the Culture Wars and way too online do typically have a general sense of fair play, proportionality, a will to live and let live and a dislike of bullies. That is, most people are more liberally-minded than authoritarian-minded. (I have argued this in more detail here).

It took significant time for enough liberally-minded people to become convinced that the “woke” movement was authoritarian, unjust and disproportionate that public opinion shifted against it and it began to wane. It seems clear from polling surveys that illiberal, identitarian left-wing ideas were a significant factor in the shift away from the Democrats in the last election. It would be a huge mistake, I’d suggest, to believe that this means those swing voters are now in favour of illiberal, identitarian, right-wing ideas. Those of us who want to see ‘woke’ die would do well to influence the parties and movements we support to become more liberal and less identitarian if we do not want people who support us in that aim to swing back behind wokeness again. The gender critical movement, similarly, had an uphill start in trying to convince enough well-intentioned people who care about the rights and freedoms of everyone, but particularly minority groups, that the dominant form of trans activism was aggressive, abusive, authoritarian and was doing harm to women and children. They achieved this, I have argued, by focusing on the harms and denial of freedom of belief and speech being done by it. They gained the support of the liberally-minded and they will lose it again if they mistake this support for freedom of speech and opposition to harm and abusive behaviour for newly acquired gender critical activist aims and badger people to take an aggressive, abusive and authoritarian attitude towards trans people.

The authoritarian anti-woke and gender criticals will shoot themselves in the foot if they do not recognise how much of their support they owe to liberals opposing the same harmful authoritarianisms that they were because they were harmful and authoritarian and not because they have suddenly become anti-woke or gender critical activists. Strongly principled liberals won’t be bound by the activist aims of either group and will actively oppose them if they become harmful and authoritarian. This is not because we are wishy-washy, fence-sitting centrists who always want to find a middle ground and ‘both sides’ everything. We are not half-measure anti-woke or gender critical activists. We are full-measure liberals.

To be a principled liberal is not to take a weak position but a strong one that frequently finds us fighting many battles at the same time. When one is opposing authoritarianism coming from more than one angle, one frequently finds oneself in between two or more opposing dogmatic forces and believed by each of them to be on the other side. Alternatively, dogmatists on one side or the other may believe that we are there too because we have supported their freedom of belief and speech and supported them in opposing harmful authoritarianism, but believe we do not support them strongly enough because we oppose their harmful authoritarianism too. At the same time, we are typically trying to persuade the large number of people who are liberally-minded in that they value freedom and tolerance and oppose bullying, but do not dedicate much of their lives to evaluating the culture wars using the first principles of liberalism not to surge left or right depending on which side they see as more authoritarian at any time, but to oppose authoritarianism consistently.

Consistent, principled liberalism is not for the faint-hearted! It is not a weak position and it is often significantly harder, more complicated and more stressful than falling in line with a dogmatic, single-issue movement. Liberalism requires accepting that social reality is messy and that navigating it in an ethical and effective way that both protects freedom and prevents harm takes more than simply trying to blast all the ideas we don’t like out of existence, (which has also never worked in the history of humanity). What liberalism has in its favour is that it works. We need progressives to recognise that what has produced so much progress for women and racial, religious and sexual minorities is liberalism and conservatives to recognise, when speaking of conserving Western Civilisation, that the defining feature of this is liberalism.

There is nothing wishy-washy about that.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

🖕

[thenewdemocratus]

Salman Rushdie: Freedom of Speech

Source:Ingur– Author Salman Rushdie, making the case for free speech. Source:The New Democrat Salman Rushdie: “Nothing should be immune from criticism.” From Imgur “Author Salman Rushdie, who lived for years under a death threat after his 1988 book The Satanic Verses drew the wrath of Iranian religious leaders, said the right to free speech is absolute or else it isn’t free. Following a speech at…

[eugenedebs1920]

The master class in deception begins and ends with the once “Grand Ol Party”. Today’s Republican Party has betrayed our veterans, our children, and the middle class in general. The so called “GOP” will decry patriotism while turning their back on those who fought for our freedoms. They will claim to support the troops while slashing funding and eliminating jobs at the veterans affairs. Heck! They even got rid of the veteran suicide hotline.

How is that patriotic!? How does that support the troops!? How does treating our men and women in uniform, who swore an oath to defend the Constitution, who risked their lives, left their families, who faced death in service of our nation, how does voting against their interests show a single ounce of respect to our country’s military members!?

EVERY SINGLE NAY VOTE FOR THE PACT ACT WAS A REPUBLICAN.

It’s not just veterans and service members that Republicans betray and lie to, they hold no regard for the average American. As Helene was forming in the Gulf of Mexico every nay vote to fund FEMA was a republican. Some being representatives from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, then they spread fake stories about Biden refusing aide! It’s mind blowing!!

Republicans voted against paid sick leave. They voted against guaranteed overtime pay. They voted against raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to an actual living wage. They voted for a bill to increase asbestos and other hazardous product levels in building materials. They voted for corporate tax cuts. For giving their constitutional power over taxes and tariffs to the executive branch. How is this the party of the working class!?

Today’s Republican Party is the enemy of the people. As maga goes around defiling our nations flag with superimposed pictures of trumps stupid orange face on it, cheering on the tyrant who is actively destroying our republic. All the while Republicans “leaders” cower in fear to speak out, afraid they might lose power through a primary challenge. The fecklessness is shameful. What happened to protecting the constitution, defending democracy, standing with your country, your constituents, your fellow Americans!?

While they stoke division through culture wars our rights and reputation slowly fizzles away. While the “GOP” and the right wing propaganda machine encourage hate, spread misinformation, blame Americas problems on trans people, gay people, DEI programs, radical left lunatics, it is them who undermine the very foundation this country is built upon.

Republican lawmakers don’t care about veterans. They don’t care about fiscal responsibility. They don’t care about the working class, the only thing of relevance to them retaining power, and supporting the corporations and wealthy donors who fund their campaigns and lavish lifestyle.

The left. Liberals. The Democratic Party. It may have its faults, but it stands with its military members, it sides with the working poor and middle class. I’d take a party that cares for Americans over oligarchs any day.



[nephyria]

sorry but if you’re doing choice feminism I will be reminding you of the consequences of your choices. yeah you choose to wear makeup, and the mica for the glitter in there was mined by child slaves, but it’s justified if it’s to make you feel like a bad bitch. the talc thing will probably give you cancer at a higher rate than your cis male peers but you can’t just go into work bald-faced, that’s nuts, what if you have acne!!! what if OTHER WOMEN think you’re TRANSSEXUAL??? it’d be nuts of you to ally and align yourself with, like, people who get killed by cis men for Looking Wrong, so cancer’s really the safer bet isn’t it! no more shein hauls because of tariffs? damn, that’s crazy, here’s 20 alternative websites for fast fashion that uses sweatshop labor. and the clothes will still disintegrate in a month so it won’t feel too different. It’s keeping you safe though, it keeps you comfortable, you’re gonna get a raise at work, and you’re hashtag Valid for it.

[time traveling back to the late 1800s] oooo a whole Carolina parakeet on your hat? good to see that you’re taking care of yourself despite your material oppression. Those girls wearing the audubonettes mean well but it’s not like it does anything under capitalism, does it? just makes them look drab and puritanical, it’s like virtue signaling. and people are mean to them :( you can care about birds and still look hot, y’know? you deserve it femme 🩷

[succulentsiren]

Shame is a choice. Make the decision to be free of it.

[overstimulated-autism-creature]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Katherine Brodsky

Published: Mar 24, 2025

In the midst of a perfect storm of language policing, grievance culture, puritan political correctness, intolerance, and borderline authoritarian behavior that demanded ideological compliance—a new type of warrior emerged to counteract the SJW types: “The anti-woke warrior.”

They were a necessary force—willing to risk their own standing by speaking and pushing back against the illiberalism dressed in progressive clothes, while many chose to remain silent, and worse, compliant.

But somehow, somewhere along the way “anti-woke” became its own kind of infectious ideology to many of those same people.

A number of them, as Helen Pluckrose points out in her essay, were merely anti-woke because of they didn’t like the ideas espoused the "woke” but, in fact, coveted the same level of authoritarian power to impose their own will. Eventually, the goalposts shifted. It became about power over principles. They were less concerned with resisting authoritarianism than figuring out how to seize power so they could wield it in the other direction. They didn’t want to dismantle the machinery of control—they just wanted to be the ones pulling the levers. Some have referred to them as the “woke right.” As Pluckrose notes, opposition to wokeness comes from many different ideological positions, each with its own agenda—ranging from evidence-based liberals to far-right authoritarians.

Still, a number were indeed fighting to preserve free expression, critical thought, and basic sanity, while simultaneously pushing back against illogical and dangerous ideas. It was about resisting an authoritarian moral orthodoxy that sought to punish deviation and dissent. But disagreements do not make someone a sinner. And supporting viewpoint diversity is not a crime. Plainly, these individuals were standing up for liberal values. Yet, in time, “anti-woke” became an identity in the same way that someone might consider themselves a SJW. It became a “them vs us” struggle, and on that battlefield they’ve turned to extremes as single-minded, self-righteous crusaders. Ironically, becoming similarly intolerant just as their “enemies” had been. They began to think in extremes, hardened their resolve, and banished nuance.

The “culture war,” as it had been dubbed, became their entire identity and they began to resemble the very thing they were fighting against. They were now reactionaries full of rage and vengeance. It became an all-consuming singular obsession. They may not have picked up the positions of the “woke” but they certainly did their behavior: pile-ons, name-calling, attacking, strawmanning, vilifying, et cetera. They began to ridicule people, rather than ideas. They claimed to stand for tolerance while acting intolerant towards differences in others. And they embraced their own sense of victimhood, while mocking that of their ideological opponents. In an increasingly black-and-white worldview, little room has been left for complexity, let alone self-reflection. In their own way, they became tribal too. It was the “anti-woke” tribe.

The thing about being the leader of a tribe built on emotionally-charged grievances is that its flock wants an endless supply of rage. Bread and circus, and half-truths. So over time, these culture warriors gave in more and more to their audience’s demands—many of whom just wanted to see someone “destroy” the left. On social media, there were endless posts making fun of woke people, often obscure individuals who had no power nor fame. DEI was blamed for just about any tragic occurrence, regardless of whether there was any evidence. Agreeing with something across enemy lines would be met with swift punishment. It was seen as a betrayal. In an uncertain world, the flock demands certainty. Audience capture is a potent thing and it’s difficult to escape when you’ve isolated yourself in an echo chamber where dissenting voices are demonized.

For some, it became more than just a fight or tribe, it became the very source of their livelihood. Now that the anti-woke are in power and are toppling policy after policy while enforcing their own brand of control, I wonder what their role will look like. Will they be cheerleaders, or critics?

The problem is that the culture warriors began to define themselves by what they oppose more than what they stood for. It was grounded in resentment rather than hope. Grievances more than solutions. What started as a passion that spurred them to challenge authoritarianism gradually eroded their capacity for empathy and dialogue. The perpetual conflict and state of ‘fight or flight’ broke them in a way, transforming them into a caricature of themselves. The discourse imprisoned them rather than freeing them.

And what impact did this have on a cultural level? On the one hand, it helped shift the Overton window. They were voicing things that many people were thinking but felt too scared to say. But it also created its own counterreaction. Instead of meeting people where they were, they were attacking them. That rarely changes minds.

Certainly, amongst the so-called “woke” there are plenty of radicals. But they are not the majority. Most of the people who had aligned with the beliefs being pushed at them did it because of a misplaced sense of doing what’s right and what’s good. They wanted to be good. Perhaps there was also a lack of deeper understanding of their own positions. And often, extensive social pressure. What these people needed was an olive branch. Open dialogue. Not extreme rhetoric.

I know this because I’ve had countless conversations with people like that in real life and took the time to understand why they think what they do. Then I talked to them, without buzzwords, without ridicule. Yes, even the people with the pronouns and the purple hair. I refused to see them as mere caricatures, but rather as fellow human beings who arrived at their views for a reason. Sometimes those reasons were surprising. And sometimes my immediate judgement was entirely wrong. I approached them with curiosity rather than judgement and in almost every single instance, we reached an understanding. We didn’t always agree, but we agreed to disagree and not think worse of each other. And that’s a step in the right direction.

Even when it came to cancel culture, a lot of people simply didn’t understand the issue. They simply did not realize the scale of it and the types of minor incidents that have resulted in horrible damage to people’s lives, destroying them. I wrote a book, “No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage” to help people understand what was happening in the cultural moment, as well as the draconian policies creeping in around speech.

I prefer not to see myself as “anti-woke” but rather, pro-human. Being anti-something tends to turn you into a mirror image of the very thing you despise. Being pro-human is about protecting the freedoms, dignity, and individuality of all people, regardless of which ideological flag they fly.

Fighting an enemy, can turn us into something we might no longer respect. I say this as someone who noticed that change in my own self early on, but I didn’t like what stared back from the abyss at me. So, I recoiled.

Still, there are some who’ve remained good faith throughout all this. They’ve retained a commitment to principles over ideology, and stood by the premise of an open society where people could speak freely and where ideas could be debated without fear. They didn’t let themselves be audience captured and continued to invite a diverse group of people to their discourse, whether they agreed or not.

If we don’t want to risk losing our North Star, we must focus on what we stand for rather than only what we stand against. For me, that’s evidence-based reasoning, freedom of expression, authentic and respectful discourse, tolerance towards dissenting views, individual rights, and, well, curiosity.

Perhaps some of these resonate with you too.