Election 2024 Part III: Out with the old!

[Gori the Grey]

The anti-woke are already in Trump's camp (are Trump's camp), not the independents he would need to expand his base.

 

[aelf]

Independents are anti-woke too. They just need to be sold that as Trump's cause.

 

[JollyRoger]

I don't think a guy in heavy make-up can sell himself as anti-woke.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Independents are anti-woke too.

That's a bold claim.

 

[KMRblue1027]

Independents are anti-woke too. They just need to be sold that as Trump's cause.

There's literally nothing to back that up. The anti-woke crusaders all under-performed pretty majorly in 2022. It's largely the reason that the Democrats still hold the Senate is that doesn't work as a message, the environment for the GOP was extremely in their favor in 22 and they flubbed it entirely.

 

[aelf]

I don't know if there are any actual studies and numbers, but my sense is that anyone who's not a raging (social) liberal is likely to be somewhere on the anti-woke spectrum. They might just not be very vocal about it.

It's probably thanks to the successful rhetoric linking of wokeness to poor quality in popular entertainment media. If Trump promises he will purge Hollywood of wokeness, I'm pretty sure he will jump a few percent.

 

[Sommerswerd]

There's literally nothing to back that up. The anti-woke crusaders all under-performed pretty majorly in 2022. It's largely the reason that the Democrats still hold the Senate is that doesn't work as a message, the environment for the GOP was extremely in their favor in 22 and they flubbed it entirely.

Being anti-woke doesn't resonate because its too political. For the average person that claims to be independent, they specifically don't want to identify with either major party, so for them ultra partisan stuff is a turn off. They don't want to associate with anti-woke. To people who are not ultra partisan, it comes off as fake, trying too hard, mean-spirited and in some cases, punching down for no reason. Something that springs to mind is the "Love" signs and messages that Disneyworld put up in a few places in the park with pride flags or in pride colors. Literally just the word "Love" in rainbow colours. Why be against that? Why waste time criticizing that? You're being extra hateful... doing too much. It's off putting. It invokes the message of that Taylor Swift song "You need to calm down". Taylor Swift resonates. Anti-woke doesn't.

Its the same sort of sentiment as when Hillary Clinton said "basket-of-deplorables"... why talk about people that way? You're doing too much. Its unnecessarily condescending and mean-spirited. Its off putting and rubs people the wrong way.

 

[KMRblue1027]

Yeah exactly right. People mostly just shrug their shoulders at stuff like that, why should I care is the biggest response, so building an entire platform around it just doesn't work.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Here's a survey:

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/americans-divided-whether-woke-compliment-or-insult

The second question is more revealing that the first, to my mind. The general population breaks 56-39 and independents 51-45 that woke is an essentially good thing to be: informed, educated on and aware of social injustices.

And that's with right-wing media demonizing the concept nearly hourly, and with really no pro-woke initiative to speak of.

 

[JollyRoger]

I don't know if there are any actual studies and numbers, but my sense is that anyone who's not a raging (social) liberal is likely to be somewhere on the anti-woke spectrum. They might just not be very vocal about it.

It's probably thanks to the successful rhetoric linking of wokeness to poor quality in popular entertainment media. If Trump promises he will purge Hollywood of wokeness, I'm pretty sure he will jump a few percent.

So a cancel culture crusade? Sounds pretty caricaturally woke to me.

 

[aelf]

Interesting that independents are actually more likely than the general populace to think that being woke is bad in early 2023. Curious as to what that'll be like by late 2024.

I hope everyone is right, but it's not looking good from where I'm sitting. People care a lot about entertainment.

So a cancel culture crusade? Sounds pretty caricaturally woke to me.

"It's only cancel culture/woke when they do it".

 

[Core Imposter]

I can see the hive weaving its self-reinforcing narratives.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Unprompted, Independent voters don't even list "woke" as one of their concerns:

Inflation, Immigration Rank Among Top U.S. Issue Concerns

Inflation and immigration rank among Americans' top issue concerns for the country when asked about national problems in March.

news.gallup.com

It's strictly a buzz-word on the right. It has no real traction in society at large. Not least because the right has drained the word of meaning by applying it to everything under the sun.

 

[aelf]

Would the German moderates in early 1930s have listed the Jews as one of their concerns unprompted? I'm just wondering if it's one of those talking points that can generate some momentum even though it's not a 'core issue'.

It's strictly a buzz-word on the right.

I wish this was true, but not in my experience.

 

[JollyRoger]

Woke is basically the password righties use when wanting violate their so-called stances on individual liberty and corporate freedom.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Unprompted, Independent voters don't even list "woke" as one of their concerns:

Inflation, Immigration Rank Among Top U.S. Issue Concerns

Inflation and immigration rank among Americans' top issue concerns for the country when asked about national problems in March.

news.gallup.com

It's strictly a buzz-word on the right. It has no real traction in society at large.

This is not news for anyone who has ever been living in the real world.

The political reality is and always was that every society is composed of several small but very loud ideological minorities and a large and mostly silent sensible majority.

The silent majority are your normal sane people. People who do not care about petty ideological squabbles like [insert group] equality, [insert group] rights, which race, religion or ethnic group is the bestest or which of the evil superpowers that are wrecking havoc on the world this week are the "bad" vs "good" ones. What we care about are the real, sensible thing that actually matter. Things like the price of rent, vacations, bread, education and the like. Basically the thing that let us lead a safe and happy life. And as long as the state provides that to any reasonable agree we stay silent. Which is why we are rarely seen.

Meanwhile the minority of people who are ideologically inspired can newer be satisfied unless they get their way. Which is why they keep incessantly instigating instability over frankly irrelevant ideological issues. And in doing so they are incredibly loud and noticeable. Which in turn makes people think that they must be many due to the sheer noise making up for numbers. Which in turn leads politicians to cater to them in hopes of winning. And because these people are incredibly motivated by their ideological idiocy they come out as a voting block so this actually turns out to be a smart, if cynical move.

Still, all is fine until they actually do get their way and win. Once that happens and the ideologues get into power they inevitably start imposing their ideological ideas upon society. At which point society inevitably fails at its contract toward the majority to keep us content and fed with bread and circuses. Because extremism is dumb and leads to dumb policies lead by ideals and not reality. Who'd have thought.

And eventually people have enough of that and the silent minority explodes in wrath by siding with the opposite extreme, causing a lot of harm and generally screwing everything up for a generation or so. Until eventually that too collapses and things even back out to the middle where they should be.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I wish this was true, but not in my experience.

I'm sorry for whatever it is you've run into, but your claim concerned broad societal tendencies that Trump could tap for more voters. Woke just isn't one. Everyone who already hates woke is already on his side.

 

[Akka]

I'm sorry for whatever it is you've run into, but your claim concerned broad societal tendencies that Trump could tap for more voters. Woke just isn't one. Everyone who already hates woke is already on his side.

You're deluding yourself. Lots of people are anti-woke and still able to understand that Trump is worse.

 

[Voidwalkin]

So I sorta think both sides are correct.

If woke is understood to mean an understanding of the world that focuses on identifying and alleviating through political action power imbalances, whether or not the general public likes or dislikes it is a consequence of the intensity with which it's pushed, not the principle itself. The principle is agreed on. The general public is however pretty quick to determine that the principle is being pushed too intensely, or unwisely, or unfairly or what have you, and is pretty often repulsed.

If Harris were to support something like mandatory quotas of representation of various different identity groups in media, it'd be too intense, and woke quickly would become a pretty defining issue as fairness debates would erupt like Vesuvius.

She hasn't really done anything like that, though. IMO she seems to be consciously avoiding doing anything like that, attempting to make abortion the primary social issue in focus... which may well be decisive, in the end, as its majority support sorta makes the Republicans appear like crusaders.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Lots of people are anti-woke and still able to understand that Trump is worse.

Ok, but then my main point still holds: Trump can't gain votes by adopting (any more of) an anti-woke policy (than he already has).