Fergus Finlay: Attack on 'woke' left misses the point on danger of extremism

Social democracy has allowed itself to be marginalised and it needs to fight back, writes Fergus Finlay

People pose for a photo as supporters of President Donald Trump attend pro-Trump marches outside the Supreme Court building in Washington. Picture: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

There is a real need, not just in America but all over the democratic world, to figure out what led to the election of Donald Trump four years ago, and why he managed to hold on to so many adherents. 

Is it the case that Trumpism was a flash in the pan, as I suggested here last week, or has the rise of the far-right only been temporarily halted by the election of Joe Biden?

I was accused of over-simplification last week when I asserted here that Trumpism won’t survive Trump. 

Some of my critics were very harsh, starting off by suggesting I need to read the odd history book. 

In their view the fascism represented by Trump has not yet reached its height, and people like me are turning a complacent blind eye.

Other gentler critics suggested that I had missed the deep divide between people who genuinely feel, and often are, dispossessed. 

The divide between urban and rural, between people who feel they are forgotten and dismissed and those who regard themselves as liberal and progressive. 

One comment I read, from someone I admire greatly, said that America is divided between those who shower before they go to work and those who shower after their day’s work.

In announcing the death of Trumpism I may have overreacted. It may well be the case that if the Democrats fail to address that divide, Trump, or someone worse than Trump, will be back.

But it is also a fact that for America, this is a moment of opportunity. The Biden election is a chance to turn the tide back. 

President-elect Joe Biden. Picture: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

If Biden and the Democrats get that, then Trumpism will die. If they don’t rise to the occasion then the rise of populism, authoritarianism, even fascism, will continue to engulf the world.

In order to succeed, the Biden administration will have to project a strong and different set of values. But it will also have to compromise on practicalities. 

Its own will have to learn to recognise the difference and to accept that not all compromise involves betrayal of values.

That’s the lesson for the world. There are too many places – including here - where social democracy has allowed itself to be attacked and marginalised.

And one of the easiest and most insidious lines of attack is to accuse the left of being “woke”.

Woke is a catch-all phrase for a set of ideas – broadly speaking, left-wing ideas. The term has its origins in history, springing way back when from groups of young Americans – young white men, let it be said – marched in support of Abraham Lincoln in the fight against slavery. They wore black capes and hats, and were called the Wide Awakes.

In more recent years Wide Awake re-emerged as part of the anti-racism movement in America, and the term changed from awake to woke. 

Along the way, it became a term of abuse for everything you might think of as liberal or progressive.

Like any set of ideas, Woke-ism is frequently made fun of. Writers like Brendan O’Connor frequently have a laugh at some of the nuttier bits of political correctness that emerge from what we now routinely call the woke culture.

That’s healthy – there is no political idea that doesn’t deserve to be made fun of when it goes to silly, as opposed to dangerous, extremes.

Doing away with cribs at Christmas so as not to upset non-Christians – that sort of thing. It’s nearly as silly as wearing a red baseball cap to demonstrate your political allegiance.

And it’s always great fodder for attention-seekers who like to provoke. Take this quote from columnist Larissa Nolan in the Irish Independent this week, in a column headed “With Trump gone, it’s time we had a wake for the woke”. 

Among other bits of over-ripe cheese, she said “It’s been four long years since you could hardly open your mouth without being labelled a predator or a racist, or failing that, an apologist for either”.

None of that has happened to me in the last four years, nor, as far as I know, to any of my fellow columnists in this slot. And we’ve all opened our mouths a fair bit.

But in her description of woke culture, she paints a world which, in her own words, fits into models of authoritarianism like the Chinese Cultural Revolution (which was responsible for the deaths and incarceration of millions): “a merciless world of zero tolerance, constant judgments, witch-hunts, cancellations, good versus evil, guilt by association, grievance-seeking, victimology and, most disturbingly of all, pleasure through punishment of others”.

It’d keep you awake at night, wouldn’t it? I know the Catholic writer David Quinn hasn’t slept a wink for worrying about the wokes and their awful influence. 

After the last general election here he said the reason FF and FG (imagine!) had lost support was because of all their “pandering” to the woke agenda. (Apparently that was because they had both supported referenda which also, oddly enough, had overwhelming support among the Irish people.) 

But nothing stops this stuff. After Trump lost, but the Democrats didn’t do as well as they could have, another columnist, Chris Johns in the Irish Times, knew the answer. 

“In the US, and probably closer to home (I love that bit), progressive, lefties and liberals need to acknowledge that many of their fellow citizens find them preachy, naive and joyless. ‘Woke’ politics are a turn-off for many people who just see political correctness on steroids.” 

So now wokeism accounts for every bit of Democratic failure (and none of its successes). 

And according to the economist and writer Dan O’Brien, probably for Trump’s re-emergence too. 

This is what he put up on Twitter only this past weekend: “The past four years in US politics has been about the threat the reactionary right posed to American democracy. 

"The next four years will be about the threat posed by the reactionary left, as well described here.” 

The past four years in US politics has been about the threat the reactionary right posed to American democracy. The next four years will be about the threat posed by the reactionary left, as well described here. https://t.co/hfP8kWkXV5

— Dan O'Brien (@danobrien20) November 15, 2020

In support of this rather odd proposition, he attached a clip from the American comedian Bill Maher, who gives a number of examples of mad woke behaviour.

You’ll find Bill Maher easily enough on the internet if you put his name alongside the word woke. 

You’ll discover that O’Brien is talking through his hat. Because Maher wasn’t talking about the “threat posed by the reactionary left”. 

Instead, he talks about the threat to liberal ideas by the endless use being made by the right of some of the nuttier examples of woke-ism. His alternative – fight for the ideas, and deploy common sense in pursuit of them.

I’ve only quoted Irish commentators – but there are hundreds in the US making the same points.

In every movement for change, there are extremes, and some of them do silly things.

The absence of common sense on one side of the argument bears no comparison to the dangerous groups on the other. 

People insisting on political correctness are never going to be in the same league as gun-toting militias. 

But if lazy or attention-seeking writers keep being allowed to make that equivalence, they’re the ones who will keep the door open for Trumpism again.