Donald Trump’s electoral victory has acted like a lightning flash, illuminating the new situation that has, in truth, been the reality for some time.
That is to say, Trump’s return to the White House confirms undeniably that so-called ‘wokery’ is despised by the majority of people, has been rejected, and has little power.
‘Woke’ is not a precise, scientific term. But it typically refers to the attempt to combat forms of oppression – like racism and sexism – on the basis of identity politics, through means like quotas, changes to language, and raising awareness.
In other words, advocates of ‘woke’ policies seek to ‘fight’ oppression on an individualistic basis, whilst completely jettisoning any idea of class struggle, or seeing oppression as being rooted in capitalist society.
By contrast, Marxists and communists struggle against all forms of oppression, but with class-based methods.
How did woke become mainstream?
Thanks to woke’s middle-class individualism, it has always been unpopular. But over recent years, ‘woke’ identity politics has become thoroughly mainstream throughout the western world. As a result, in the minds of millions, ‘wokeness’ is strongly associated with the establishment.
As we have explained elsewhere, identity politics was developed alongside the rise of ‘postmodernist’ philosophy from around the 1960s onwards. In the subsequent decades, it was heavily promoted and adopted by a section of the ruling class. As a consequence, by the 1990s and 2000s, postmodernism and ‘idpol’ were mainstream ideologies.
Two related factors made this possible: on the one hand, the defeat of a series of revolutions and workers’ struggles in this period, due to the betrayals of the reformist and Stalinist leaders; on the other, the contemporaneous rise of idpol-based ‘liberation’ movements, particularly in the USA.
Stalinism spread a highly mechanical caricature of Marxism, and espoused a crude class-reductionism, failing to address questions of oppression.
These failures, and the obvious falseness of Stalinist ideas, pushed a layer of radical intellectuals away from Marxism and the working class, and into the hands of petty-bourgeois postmodernism.
Postmodernism and its offshoots – including idpol, intersectionality, and queer theory – has always been a thoroughly petty-bourgeois philosophy, reflecting the individualism and impotence of that class.
A layer of petty-bourgeois intellectuals, no longer looking to Marxism, saw in so-called ‘liberation’ movements – based on identity and oppression (for Black people, women, LGBT people, etc.), and not economic class exploitation – the answer to the problems of capitalism.
Being petty bourgeois, they were not interested in the understanding that capitalist society as a whole is the basis for oppression such as racism, or that the way to end oppression is by uniting the working class to overthrow capitalism.
Instead, they had an interest in promoting a subjective worldview of different ‘narratives’ and ‘lived experiences’. According to this outlook, each identity – such as Black people or women – is fundamentally different from all others. In turn, only people from such a background can understand their oppression and genuinely fight it.
Crucially, such identities are not seen as having class contradictions within them. This allowed petty-bourgeois, self-appointed ‘community leaders’ to speak for their identity group as a whole. This layer was vital in actively promoting woke politics, because it served their interests, despite the fact that it completely fails to tackle racism and sexism in general.
In this way, by pushing for ‘diversity’ at the top, such individuals gained ‘representation’ for themselves – obtaining privileged positions on the basis of their identity, whilst doing nothing to address the wider oppression and inequality in society. The rise of ‘girlboss’ feminism – the push to get more women into corporate boardrooms – reflected the pinnacle of this trend.
Identity politics is therefore a thoroughly individualistic ideology, which denies that there is a shared objective reality that all people belong to and can understand.
Instead, each individual is abstractly defined as belonging to various identity groups, sharing a common worldview and set of interests only with others of their identity.
At best, within this framework, one’s economic class is seen as merely another form of identity, rather than as the fundamental divide within society. Meanwhile, class antagonisms between female bosses and women workers, or between a Black employer and his/her employees, for example, are glossed over.
Over time, this ideology was promoted by a significant section of the ruling class of western countries, especially in the USA. This is because this wing of the establishment rightly understood idpol to be a bulwark against revolutionary ideas, and a great aid in their quest to divide the working class and destroy class consciousness.
In recent years, this phenomenon became mainstream, to the point that it appeared as if it were the official ideology of western capitalist society.
Where genuine movements against racism and sexism did take off, such as Black Lives Matter or #MeToo, these were quickly hijacked and cynically derailed into safe ipol-based channels by the liberal establishment and big business.
Major corporations, for example, were constantly at pains to advertise their ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’, whilst doing nothing to improve pay and conditions for workers more broadly.
This is increasingly seen for what it is: mere tokenism. Meanwhile, the ruling class has continued to attack working-class living conditions.
Politicians like Trump, despite being billionaires, could therefore be seen as being plausibly ‘anti-establishment’ by attacking ‘wokery’.
On the other hand, in the latest US elections, Trump was the only politician, in his own way, addressing questions that are the cause of so much class anger in the United States.
He promised to bring down inflation and interest rates, bring well-paid jobs back to America, and end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Even support for his anti-immigrant policies, in a highly distorted way, reflects class anger – towards the lack of decent jobs, school places, housing, etc., which Trump, of course, blames on migrants.
What was noteworthy in the presidential election was that there was a swing towards Trump amongst Black, Latino and female voters. In general, this is because of the promises he made regarding the economy, and the disgust these layers feel towards the Democrats.
The capitalists read the tea leaves
Trump’s victory has been widely understood as a coup de grace against this already-deeply-unpopular wokery. Everyone has noticed that the emperor is wearing no clothes; that it is not just they and their friends that hate ‘woke nonsense’, or a far-right fringe, but most of society.
That is certainly how the capitalists have understood Trump’s latest election win.
The most high-profile example is Mark Zuckerberg’s prostration before Donald Trump. The Big Tech boss recently released a statement that openly expressed the cynical calculations of his entire class regarding the ‘culture wars’.
“The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” the Facebook founder asserted. In other words: we businessmen have no principles other than to make as much money as possible, and so we must adapt to whichever way the wind is blowing.
For this reason, Meta will end its ‘fact checking’ programme, giving free reign to the spreading of racist content on its platforms. It is also ending the company’s own ‘diversity, equity, and inclusivity’ (DEI) programme.
DEI is the set of policies that businesses and governments are supposed to institute to bureaucratically ensure the ‘right’ level of diversity within them. It was perhaps the most tangible policy of idpol, and became the norm in many US firms. Ending it is therefore a direct attack on ‘wokery’.
Following this, Zuckerberg appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast to complain about the overly ‘feminine’ nature of workplaces these days, arguing for more ‘masculine energy’.
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What is significant about this is that the Meta chief not only felt comfortable making such comments, but in fact felt that it was in his interests to break a taboo and openly talk of the desirability of male domination (i.e. ‘masculine energy’). This would have been unthinkable for a prominent CEO such as himself only a year ago.
This same ‘liberation’ from the norms of wokery is percolating throughout the capitalist class. The Financial Times even published an article entitled ‘Is Corporate America going Maga?’, which contains the following:
“Even the way people on Wall Street talk and interact is changing. Bankers and financiers say that Trump’s victory has emboldened those who chafed at ‘woke doctrine’ and felt they had to self-censor or change their language to avoid offending younger colleagues, women, minorities, or disabled people.”
“I feel liberated,” one top banker told the newspaper. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled . . . it’s a new dawn.” Inspiring stuff.
The same article stresses that the shift amongst the capitalists is not merely an attempt to please Trump, but reflects a realisation of a general rejection of wokery in society:
“Companies, executives, and analysts contend that the motives driving the changes are complex and reflect far more than a desire to pander to the incoming president. The mood among their customers has changed, executives argue.”
In another sign of this newfound woke-bashing confidence amongst the capitalists is the documentary that Amazon is planning to put out about Melania Trump. This is being produced by Melania herself, so it will be a hagiography.
Up until very recently, this was unthinkable: all biopics by major media companies that presented their subjects in a positive light would be about ostensibly progressive celebrities – often individuals from minorities presented as trailblazers and positive role models.
As if to make it even clearer that Amazon is now ‘anti-woke’, the documentary is being directed by Brett Ratner, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.
Meta’s abandonment of DEI has been followed by Walmart, who have stopped considering race and gender in granting supplier contracts, ended racial equity training for staff, and will not renew their funding for the Center for Racial Equity, which it set up with a $100m pledge after the George Floyd protests.
McDonald’s have also dropped their goals for hiring a certain proportion of women and non-white people as managers. Amazon is doing the same, as are JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock.
The retreat from ‘diversity’ and superficially progressive political propaganda and advertising is turning into a stampede. And leading the charge is Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire sidekick and head of ‘DOGE’ (the Department of Government Efficiency), who is using the ‘war on woke’ as a cover for purging the US state of MAGA opponents, and for slashing federal spending.
In turn, so keen are big business bosses to fall in line and rid themselves of the ‘stain’ of ‘wokeness’, that there are reports of PR companies being paid to delete overtly woke statements from company websites.
Of course, these capitalists also have a material interest in cutting DEI programmes and other related policies. For them, such measures amount to extra, costly red tape: burdensome regulation that bites into their profits.
Trump vs the establishment
The capitalists are discarding DEI policies as easily as a man changes his socks.
This turn away from woke may embolden extreme reactionaries and racist cops, making provocations against Black people and minorities more likely in the future. But the first reaction of most working-class people to the scrapping of tokenistic ‘woke’ measures will be a shrug of indifference.
At the same time, the election of Trump has unleashed a struggle between a handful of MAGA mavericks and the liberal establishment.
The former use ‘anti-woke’ rhetoric to wage this battle, while leaning on mass anger in society. The latter hide behind hypocritical liberal phraseology, while defending the old policy of US imperialism and the bureaucracy of the capitalist state.
This represents a historic turning point. But it is being superficially dressed up as merely a ‘woke’ versus ‘anti-woke’ question.
Trump attacks institutions like USAID (the US agency for international aid programmes) as ‘woke’, and sacks state bureaucrats for being ‘soft on the trans question’. The liberals then defend the supposed ‘humanitarianism’ of USAID, and say they are standing up for trans people in the army, etc., while in reality defending the dominant position of the ruling class.
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We have to cut through the Gordian Knot and discern what’s really going on behind the outward appearance of things.
Both these camps are reactionary. However, amidst all this, what is clear is that public rejection of wokeness reflects a rejection of the liberal establishment; a repudiation of the petty-bourgeois idpol ideas that a wing of the ruling class has adopted and pushed in order to cut across class consciousness and class struggle. And that is a good thing.
No alternative from the ‘left’
Identity politics rose to prominence over a number of decades owing to the failures and demoralisation of the left. Postwar revolutionary waves, such as May 1968 and the class struggles of the 1970s, failed to overthrow capitalism. Stalinism collapsed.
Subsequently, for the past period, the working class has suffered from a profound lack of leadership. Inequality has risen enormously, but there has been no real point of reference providing an alternative to this.
As a sort of substitute for a class-based, anti-capitalist programme, ‘left’ leaders – if we can call them that – have in this time period gravitated towards identity politics. Positive discrimination quotas are cheap, after all, whilst funding large-scale welfare programmes is not.
At root, this reflects the lack of confidence of the left reformists in the working class and its ability to transform society. Instead of advocating class struggle methods and bold socialist measures, the so-called ‘lefts’ have restricted themselves to ‘progressive’ policies that are – or have been, until now – fairly palatable to the ruling class.
‘Woke’ politics has thereby acquired a left ‘tinge’. Because this state of affairs has lasted for decades, in the eyes of many workers, ‘the left’ has come to be associated with wokeness – which is to say, the snobbery of self-appointed, ‘enlightened’, middle-class people condescendingly telling off ordinary people for using the wrong terms.
The left is seen as standing for preferential treatment and for reserved jobs, social housing, etc. for minorities – all whilst doing nothing about the fact that conditions for workers are worsening all the time, as a result of capitalism and its endless crises.
On @AJStream I said the American establishment are going into overdrive using the identity of Kamala Harris to cover up for her GENOCIDAL policies on Palestine.
Why should we celebrate a black woman sending bombs rather than a white man? I WILL NOT!
Revolutions are coming. pic.twitter.com/ny22LuV9fX
— Fiona Lali (@fiona_lali) August 23, 2024
So, not only can the likes of Trump present ‘wokery’ as establishment, they can also present it as left-wing. This is why we often hear bizarre claims that imperialist institutions like USAID and even big banks are stuffed with ‘Marxists and radicals’.
Following Trump’s victory, the penny seems to have dropped for many on the left: embracing wokery instead of class politics is the kiss of death.
This realisation was summed up in the title of one recent Guardian article by columnist John Harris: ‘From Trump’s victory, a simple, inescapable message: many people despise the left’.
Most of the ‘left’ figures who are realising this, however, are incapable of doing anything with this realisation. Ultimately, they remain wedded to the perspective that there is no alternative to capitalism.
That is the underlying problem: capitalism is in deep crisis; it can offer nothing more to the working class than austerity, and so reformists simply have nothing to offer. The crisis of capitalism is therefore a crisis of reformism.
At best, the rejection of wokery by any of these ‘lefts’ will see them put forward vague socialistic language, whilst remaining as prone to capitulation as ever. At worst, they will slip over to the other side of the culture war, and think that the way to win over workers is simply to be ‘anti-woke’ – i.e. to be overtly reactionary and racist.
The continued absence of any real left wing, in turn, means that the mass rejection of wokery will only be grist to the mill of reactionary grifters such as Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
In the US, Trump is rolling out extremely reactionary policies – and no doubt there are more to come. Racist, sexist individuals and organisations will launch attacks on oppressed groups, feeling they can get away with anything.
This is what the end of ‘wokeness’ will mean, in the absence of a clear class-based alternative.
Backlash and class struggle
Trump and co. feel invincible. They are in fact overconfident, and will make many blunders as a result. They do not understand that the mass rejection of identity politics does not mean their racist politics have mass appeal.
Yes, many workers despise wokeness. Some think there is too much immigration. But this is superficial. Most workers are not racists. They are instead searching for a way out of the endless crisis of capitalism: the acute shortage of well-paid jobs and affordable housing; and in America, the drug epidemic, which is very real indeed.
For a long time there has been no left wing with a serious programme on questions like jobs, housing, and social services. Consequently, many workers will vote for a politician who says they will drive down immigration, in order to provide more homes, etc. for native workers.
Trump, Musk, and others will find to their horror, however, that their popularity is very skin deep and short-lived. In power, right-wing populists will have to manage a growing crisis of capitalism. In the case of the latest Trump administration, their own chaotic policies are very likely to spark a serious economic crisis.
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Under the banner of fighting woke, we can expect other policies to be enacted by Trump that directly attack the working class: attacks on public sector workers, on migrants, and so forth, while economic fallout from their other big business policies will feed into a mood of anger.
It’s wholly possible that their hubristic and brazen attacks will spark mass protests, including movements that focus on racism and sexism.
We must oppose Trump’s policies on a class basis. At the same time, we must expose the liberals and Democrats, who themselves set new records for deportations under Biden, and who conduct similar attacks on workers – albeit behind a smiling, hypocritical mask.
As the crisis of capitalism deepens, class battles will intensify and increasingly come to the fore – cutting across the culture war and all the poisonous bile that the ruling class foments around migration, and bringing workers together on a class basis.
On the basis of the hammer blow of events, workers who today might hold shallow, surface-level prejudices will tomorrow channel their anger towards the bosses, the ruling class, and its representatives.
Furthermore, because a layer is radicalising to the left, realising that ‘woke’ politics has become deeply unpopular and is not progressive, there is also the potential for a hardening of consciousness against Trump.
In other words, many of those who come out in opposition to Trump and his reactionary capitalist agenda will correctly conclude that they need to do so not by adopting ‘woke’ politics, but class politics.
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On the other hand, the Democrats and other liberals will try to use Trump’s presidency and his errors to renovate their image, posing as leaders of a fightback.
Their leadership must be totally rejected by workers and youth. It is the establishment’s liberalism and cynical promotion of identity politics that is responsible for Trump’s second victory.
It is not even true that these liberals represent a ‘lesser evil’. It is the Democrats who have armed and supported the genocide of Gaza, who have provoked the war in Ukraine, and who stand for austerity. The liberals and the open reactionaries are two sides of the same capitalist coin.
Class war vs culture war
Wokery must be rejected emphatically. Not only has it alienated the working class and offered no solutions to their problems, but it has failed even on its own terms. For instance, the Center for American Progress reports that:
“The ratio of average Black wealth to average white wealth never exceeded the 21.6 percent in 1992. Roughly speaking, the best-case scenario for the past 30 years occurred when Blacks had about one-sixth the median wealth of whites in 1998.
“But in the wake of the Great Recession, which lasted from 2007 through 2009, America has seen its black-white wealth gap increase sharply and move even farther away from that best-case scenario.”
In other words, during the period in which ‘woke’ politics became mainstream and idpol-inspired DEI programmes proliferated, there were no improvements in racial inequality at all.
In the UK, the gender pay gap has barely budged after decades of legislation mandating equal pay for equal work. In January, the National Audit Office reported there is an “epidemic of violence against women and girls in the UK” – and it is getting worse.
These grim statistics reflect the fact that capitalism breeds inequality and oppression, and cannot be tackled with impotent woke-inspired legislation, such as positive discrimination policies and quotas.
No wonder that woke politics is deeply unpopular even amongst the minorities it supposedly serves. It is a big part of why Kamala Harris performed worse amongst Black, Latino, and women voters than even Joe Biden did.
Obama doesn’t understand why black men aren’t supporting Kamala Harris. Obama should thank his own track record, which showed the shallowness of identity politics. The shallowness of ‘progressive Democrats’, and the need to overthrow the whole capitalist system instead. pic.twitter.com/9MQuEO4q8B
— Fiona Lali (@fiona_lali) October 24, 2024
Wokery must therefore not only be rejected, but renounced on an independent class basis. The way forward for the exploited and oppressed is not through a reactionary ‘war on woke’, as waged by Trump, Farage, and co., but through a class war against all the billionaires and bankers, and their rotten system.
Marxists oppose all discrimination and oppression, which are inherent in capitalism, and which only serve to divide the working class.
The only way to truly end oppression, however, is to unite the working class of all backgrounds against the capitalist system as a whole, overthrow it, and replace it with a socialist plan of production to meet the needs of everyone in society. Only then will the basis for prejudice and oppression be eliminated.
The coming period will be one of extreme political and economic turbulence. It is an epoch of wars and revolution. Discontent is already at record levels, which is precisely what has propelled Trump into power. And yet Trump’s reign will not only be unable to satisfy this discontent, the economic crisis that underpins it will in fact get worse.
Armed with this perspective, we must build a powerful revolutionary organisation that spurns the divisive and middle-class politics of wokery; that openly declares war on it from the point of view of revolutionary class unity; and that offers the workers and youth a real class-based alternative to the injustices, poverty, and insecurity of life under capitalism.
With such an organisation, we can defeat both sides of the so-called culture war.
