The left is rethinking the “woke” era

Progressives are reconsidering the politics of the COVID era without abandoning the causes that mattered.

There is a new debate happening on the left about something being called “woke 1.0” and whether it should be replaced by a more politically effective “woke 2.0.”

The terminology is admittedly vague, which is part of the problem. What exactly counts as woke 1.0? What would qualify as woke 2.0? Depending on who is speaking, these labels can describe everything from basic support for civil rights to some of the more extreme political slogans and cultural practices that emerged during the late 2010s and the COVID era.

The latest round of this debate took off after Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez repeated a line from a local council member who told her that “woke one was crazy.” During an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, AOC was pressed about progressive positions from that period, including defunding the police. Her answer was considerably more nuanced than the viral line suggests.

AOC argued that the COVID period dramatically expanded the political Overton window. The country was shut down, unemployment soared, and people were suddenly willing to entertain ideas that previously would have seemed politically impossible. Some of those conversations were productive. Others clearly were not. Her broader point was that politicians and candidates should ultimately be judged on what they advocate today.

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The problem with “woke 1.0”

Before deciding whether woke 1.0 was “crazy,” we need some agreement about what the term actually describes.

If woke 1.0 means recognizing that racism still exists, taking sexual harassment seriously, respecting gay and transgender people, reforming abusive policing, and examining discrimination within institutions, then calling the entire project crazy makes very little sense. Those were legitimate concerns then, and they remain legitimate concerns today.

There was, however, another political culture that developed alongside those ideas, particularly online and within certain left-wing organizations from roughly the mid-2010s through 2021 or 2022.

That culture could be extraordinarily counterproductive.

Disagreement over complicated political questions was sometimes treated as evidence of moral corruption. Finding exactly the right terminology could become more important than persuading ordinary people that the underlying policy was worthwhile. People were divided into increasingly specific identity categories, with perceived oppression sometimes determining whose opinion was supposed to carry greater authority.

Minor verbal mistakes could become grounds for public condemnation. Complicated policy disagreements became tests of whether someone was a good person. And slogans such as “defund the police” or “abolish prisons” gained traction without much agreement over what those phrases actually meant, much less whether the broader public supported them.

There were people on the left warning at the time that these habits were politically suicidal and intellectually unhealthy. In retrospect, those warnings deserve serious consideration.

I probably would not use the word “crazy” to describe the entire period. “Extraordinarily counterproductive” seems more accurate.

The right’s convenient rewrite of history

The problem with the right-wing response to all of this is that conservatives are now using the excesses of that era to discredit the underlying causes.

There is an enormous difference between saying some activists adopted destructive political tactics and saying the pursuit of racial equality itself was misguided.

Believing that people should be treated with dignity regardless of whether they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is not crazy. Believing police officers should face accountability for misconduct is not crazy. Taking discrimination seriously is not crazy.

Yet the right has an obvious incentive to lump all of those things together with the least popular slogans and most ridiculous social media controversies of the era. If every progressive cause can be placed under one giant “woke” umbrella, conservatives never have to engage seriously with the underlying issues.

That is a dishonest substitution, and the left should not fall for it.

Admitting that some tactics failed does not require abandoning the moral progress that came with them.

What would “woke 2.0” actually look like?

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has also been asked about this debate, particularly because he has moved away from “defund the police.” His response was straightforward: people can change, develop and grow in their political beliefs. He has made clear that he does not support defunding the police and would not do so as mayor.

That seems like a useful starting point for whatever people want to call woke 2.0.

The strongest version would preserve the moral progress of the previous era while abandoning the political habits that alienated people.

That could mean emphasizing universal rights rather than constantly ranking people according to identity. It could mean focusing more heavily on material improvements involving health care, housing, wages and child care instead of chasing symbolic victories understood primarily by a tiny group of people on social media.

It would also require rediscovering a sense of proportion.

An awkward phrase can simply be an awkward phrase. A bad joke can simply be a bad joke. Someone disagreeing with you does not automatically make that person a bigot. People should generally be allowed to apologize, acknowledge a mistake, learn something and move forward without being permanently defined by their worst wording on their worst day.

A political movement that makes ordinary people afraid to speak honestly will eventually isolate itself. You cannot build a durable coalition if participation requires constantly worrying that one poorly phrased sentence will get you excommunicated.

Class matters, but it doesn’t explain everything

There is another temptation on parts of the left that is worth avoiding.

Economic inequality is enormously important. Health care, wages, housing affordability and economic security have direct effects on millions of lives, and any serious progressive political project has to address them.

But class cannot explain every social problem.

There are people who argue that racism, sexism and homophobia are fundamentally products of economic inequality. Improve people’s material circumstances enough, the theory goes, and many of these divisions will disappear.

That goes too far. Giving everyone health care would be an enormous achievement, but universal health care would not magically eliminate racism. Higher wages would not eliminate sexism. Affordable housing would not eliminate homophobia.

A successful political movement has to be capable of holding both ideas at once. Economic inequality demands aggressive action, and discrimination based on race, gender and sexuality remains real.

The left should be able to admit both

So, was woke 1.0 crazy?

I would frame it differently.

There were morally necessary ideas associated with that period that remain important today. There were also cultural and political practices that became destructive, isolating and deeply ineffective.

The left should be capable of acknowledging both without having an existential crisis about it.

You do not have to pretend every slogan from 2020 was brilliant in order to support racial equality. You do not have to defend every online pile-on to believe discrimination exists. And you certainly do not have to adopt the right’s position that because some progressive tactics were ridiculous, the underlying pursuit of equality was ridiculous too.

Justice ultimately requires persuasion, coalition building and political power. Having the morally correct position does very little if your political strategy makes everyone outside your immediate circle unwilling to listen to you.

Maybe that is the useful lesson buried underneath this entire woke 1.0 versus woke 2.0 debate. Keep the principles worth defending, learn from the tactics that failed, and build a political movement people actually want to join.

What do you think? Did parts of the left genuinely lose the plot during the “woke 1.0” era, or has the backlash become an excuse to throw out ideas that were worth fighting for all along?

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