It's too soon to say 'wokeism' is dead

Despite its Nov 5 setback, it still has strongholds in places such as universities.

- Adrian Wooldridge

It is easy to conclude that the woke revolution met its Waterloo on Nov 5. The Republicans ran the most unwoke man in America for the presidency and were amply rewarded for it.

A post-election analysis by the polling company Blueprint discovered that the top reason why swing voters eventually supported Donald Trump over Ms Kamala Harris was culture, followed by inflation. Trump lieutenants, such as his Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance and his nominee for secretary of state, Mr Marco Rubio, regard the destruction of the "woke regime" as a top priority.

The Democratic establishment is already blaming the woke wing of the party for the loss. Mr James Carville, former president Bill Clinton's legendary campaign director, has blamed the loss squarely on the party's failure to distance itself from "woke era" politics. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has blamed "white elitists" and their obsession with symbolic politics. "What on earth is Latinx? No Latino person uses the word Latinx, but people spouted this because they felt they had to."

Europeans are taking careful note of this. Middle-of-the-road conservatives such as the new leader of Britain's Tories, Ms Kemi Badenoch, will no doubt intensify their war on woke, while more hard-right figures such as Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni will go into overdrive. And centre-left parties will flee from cultural issues even more rapidly than they will flee from photo opportunities with Ms Harris: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already declared that Britain won't be paying reparations for slavery to former colonies.

But was Nov 5 really Waterloo?

Or is it merely a skirmish in a drawn-out campaign? Is a single election enough to put an end to a cultural movement? Or is it an opportunity for reassessment and regrouping? There are three strong reasons for thinking that the Great Awokening will survive the current setback.