Individuals and groups with right-leaning and conservative political stance have vilified the concept of “woke” as part of their criticisms of both liberal and progressive or left-leaning political positions. Terms like “wokeness” and “wokeism” have been blurted out to underscore oppositions to advocacies related to perceived social inequalities. Some of those who adhere to either liberalism or progressivism have proudly labeled themselves as “woke” and have considered the state of “wokeness” as akin to awareness of prevailing inequalities. However, in what seemed to be a schism within the overall right-wing and conservative movement, several right-wingers have used the term “woke right” to describe other right-wingers and conservatives who have extreme and needless far-right sentiments.
What Exactly is the Woke Right?
Origin
The term “woke” is an African-American Vernacular for the General American English term “awake” that has been used as a metaphor for political engagement and activism. This usage can be traced back to the plight of African Americans. Some track its origin to the Republican youth and militant organization Wide Awakes that was established in 1860. There was also pervasive use of “wokeness” as an idea for black political conscious beginning in the 1920s.
Nevertheless, beginning in 2008 and further in 2014 onwards, the expression “stay woke” has been associated with self-awareness and desires to question the dominant paradigm. It has been used in specific movements like Black Lives Matter and gained an increasing left-leaning connotations that represented reactions and oppositions to the right-wing politics of Donald Trump. However, beginning in 2019, right-wingers used it to mock progressive social movements.
The term took another turn. The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter before the acquisition of Elon Musk, has seen increasing usage of the term “woke right” due to the discourse surrounding legal immigration. Several right-wingers and Trump supporters who advocate the principles of America First have opposed the issuance of H-1B visas due to the perceived impacts of legal immigrants displacing native-born Americans from the labor market.
Definitions
A heated exchange transpired between figures from the tech and business communities like Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and anti-immigration right-wingers like Laura Loomer since December 2024. Computer scientist and known frontliner of the effective accelerationism movement Guillaume Verdon, who is also known by his pseudonym Beff Jezos, posted on 26 December 2024 that tech people on the X platform has discovered the “woke right” that day.
The exact time when “woke right” was first used is uncertain. There have been blogs and social media posts using and even defining the phrase in 2023 or even earlier. For example, in his blog article that was first published in 2023, theoretical chemist and Christian apologist Neil Shenvi noted that one of its publicized use was in a 2022 interview of Republican U.S. representative Dan Crenshaw who criticized the “woke right” for portraying themselves as victims.
Shenvi added that the phrase first gained ground in Christian evangelical circles around November 2022 after American theologian Kevin DeYoung reviewed the book “The Case For Christian Nationalism” by Christian political theorist Stephen Wolfe in his article entitled “The Rise of Right-Wing Wokeism.” Russian-British satirist and author Konstantin Kissin published his blog article in February 2024 in which he noted that the dissident right is going woke.
Numerous definitions of the phrase have emerged from the brewing discourse. Shenvi explained that right-wing wokeness is the mirror image of left-wing wokeness. He further defined “woke right” as something that surfaced from the perceived societal divide between straight White men and their enemies via hegemonic norms. These right-winged individuals do not call themselves “woke” but their qualms and rhetorical tactics are borrowed from progressives.
American author and right-wing conspiracy theorist James Lindsay also has the same definition. He called “woke right” as “a victimhood-based identity politics” whose “victim groups are white, Christians, men, and straight people.” He added that the “woke right” claim to endure perceived anti-white racism and believe that there is a conspiracy against White people. These individuals resort to collective power in the same manner as their left-leaning counterparts.
Rebuttal
The reemergence of the phrase “woke right” amidst the discourse of legal immigrations in the U.S. comes from an attempt to characterize the grievances of anti-immigration Americans. Musk and Ramaswamy claim that the domestic labor market lacks the needed human resource to fuel the technology industry. This view does not sit well with the right-leaning “woke” individuals who believe promoting legal immigration is anti-American and anti-White.
However, for some right-wingers and conservatives, the “woke right” does not exist. C. Jay Engel of the digital Christian publication American Reformer explained that right-leaning individuals have been called “woke” because detractors of right-wing politics cannot “think outside the hegemonic presumptions of liberalism.” He essentially means that the dominant influence of liberal ideas prevents critics from grasping the nuances of right-wing viewpoints.
American philosopher and historian Paul Gottfried wrote in the Chronicles magazine that there is no more such thing as the “woke right” than there are Burkean Marxists, black Dixiecrats, or patriarchal feminists. Moreover, in his attempt to discredit the phrase, he said those who push the phrase as an idea have a political agenda. Gottfried suspects that it is part of an effort to isolate right-wingers who have strayed away from the well-funded conservative establishment.
FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
- Engel, C. J. 2024. “Is There a Woke Right?” American Reformer. Available online
- Gottfried, P. 2024. “There’s No Such Thing as the ‘Woke Right’.” Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Available online
- Kissin, K. 2024. “Tucker Carlson and the Woke Right.” Konstantin Kissin. Available online
- Lindsay, J. 2024. “The Liberal Consensus and the New Christian Right.” American Reformer. Available online
- Shenvi, N. 2024. “What is the ‘Woke Right’?” Neil Shenvi – Apologetics. Available online