The New Wokeness of the Right
with Daniel Bessner
For decades, progressive speech codes have been one of the right’s prime targets. I should know—I’ve been a loud, proud critic of these practices since the 1980s. But now that the right is exercising power within institutions, like universities, they’re practicing their own brand of wokeness. What’s behind the right’s ironic adoption of left-wing culture war strategy? Historian Daniel Bessner and I have a couple theories.
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This is the part of the episode I found confusing. I take it Glenn is basing his contention that "the right is woke now" on two issues: (1) The Israel-Palestine conflict; (2) Trans.
Taking the second first, men-to-women trans athletes is a concrete problem, and one which seems to have finally been corrected, in the US and elsewhere. It was ruining the joy of girls sports and a lot of mothers and fathers were shocked that it was allowed to go on as long as it did. Other than sadism or misogyny, what reason would anyone have to go along with that that Pretend Land nonsense? As far as the schoolbooks, that's a matter of inappropriate adult material being foisted upon young children. Keeping graphic sexual depictions out of grade school libraries seems a pretty easy call. Pushing for such books strikes me as Westboro Baptist Church-level messed up. If people cheer "trans rights" activists choosing grade school library books, would they also cheer Westboro Baptist doing the same?
As for the Israel-Palestine conflict, I suppose Glenn means some of the sketchy deportation attempts and the campus unrest in general. Granted, that issue is not on the first page of my list of Things I Follow, but is that something the right in general is up-in-arms about? Maybe the DC legacy politicians with great interest in PAC money, but my take is that most on the right want to stop US money going to the conflicts in both Ukraine and Israel. I would agree with Dr. Loury that the pro-Palestinian protesters should be allowed to speak their minds. That said, giving scheduled speeches in university auditoriums is one thing. Threats and violence against students is another. And some of the "protesting" does go too far. Recently pro-Palestinian protestors took over Grand Central and locked the doors, halting subway access at that facility. That should not be tolerated. Does saying that make me "woke"?
Glenn, are you talking about wokeness as a philosophy or a political tactic?