Want to Save the West? You're Woke Right

Last October, I wrote an essay in the Critic on the uselessness of the fast-and-loosely defined term, Woke Right:

Altogether, Woke Right seems to mean: adopting contrarian opinions to mainstream narratives, and adopting identity politics in a defensive posture against the progressive attack on the history, culture, and statehood of the peoples of the US and Europe. Both transgress upon liberal principles in different ways. But clickbait and bad takes are neither the monopoly of Woke, nor the Right. And, left to our own devices, nobody would want nor need to play identity politics. However, when the (former) First Minister of Scotland is decrying how white, and therefore evil, all institutions are, it is perfectly legitimate to call this out as an act of anti-white racism. Were he to say such a thing about Jews, then Kisin, Carlson, Lindsay and I would all be appalled in unison.

Without a clear definition, Woke Right begins to look like an attempt by yesterday’s Left to tone police, gatekeep, and redefine the Right. That way, heterodox liberals position themselves as the sensible centre between two extremes, and maintain their positions of intellectual credibility no matter how far the Overton Window shifts. Antagonism will arise from left-behind-liberals seeking to rearrange the furniture on their new political side, without examining how their first principles rendered them vulnerable to Woke subversion in the first place.

Now, according to Axios, if you want to save Western civilisation, you're Woke Right.