"Defeating Woke Will Take
More Than Politics."
My interview with
@epkaufm, professor of politics at the University of Buckingham in the Spring Edition of
@EuroConMag. Kauffman is the author of several influential books, including The Third Awokening: A 12-Point Plan for Rolling Back Progressive Extremism, the widely discussed Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities (2018/2019), Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? (2010), and The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America (2004), among others.
AP: You participated in a debate about Trump, in which you argued that the U.S. president lacks a moral vision when it comes to combating wokeism.
EK: Trump has done a lot, politically, to eliminate woke policies from the government; but he has not articulated a consistent vision or philosophy, and the way it is being carried out is according to his whim. For example, if we take the case of Harvard, it comes across as vindictive and arbitrary. There is no principle guiding his actions, and what that means is that nobody is really making the case for the other side in a durable way such that these changes can last for several administrations. ...
AP: What about the disputes with Canada and Greenland? Don’t these policies pose a problem for Trump’s right-wing allies in the
West?
EK: I agree with many of Trump’s policies, but certain nationalist and expansionist foreign policies may antagonize other Western countries, including their right-wing parties. Cultural nationalism is necessary, but political nationalism is different, and there is no vision that unites it with public opinion outside of the United States, so there is no common principled position.
AP: There is another movement that has emerged in the United States, led by figures such as Tucker Carlson, which many call the ‘woke Right.’ Does the woke Right exist?
EK: The term is used very broadly. What I would say is that there is a family resemblance on many dimensions: identity-based grievance, cancellation and purity tests, and those things are held in common with some degree of tribalism. I draw a distinction between woke morality and judging someone as a bad member of the tribe—e.g., if someone denies that the election was stolen, he’s a bad Republican, which is like saying that someone is a bad Real Madrid supporter. In the latter case, it is a question of tribal identity; but for wokeism, those who do not comply with its creed are judged to be bad people who must be expelled from society, and no one should associate with them because they are horrible and their souls are tainted. Wokeism is thus revealed to be a moral crusade and much more far-reaching.
europeanconservative.com/pro…