Michelle Goldberg correctly notes that 2020 was the high-water mark for wokeness. It has been all downhill since then. Will we miss it, as she suggests, and why is it on the run?
There are several reasons for its apparent demise. The most popular platform for the communication of woke views, Twitter, now belongs to a man who despises the far left. Some woke views, particularly on gender, never resonated with the center left. Others, such as “defund the police,” backfired both practically and politically in the real world. The best explanation, however, is that Trump’s outrageous behavior drove the center left into a stronger alliance with the woke warriors; when he left office, the alliance evaporated.
Wokeness isn’t going away completely, however; it is just in hibernation. If Trump wins the election, it will be back with a vengeance. Even if it doesn’t, demographic changes make it likely that a relatively woke candidate will be the Democratic nominee in 2028.