Welcome to the Great Awokening

You may not realize it, but we are living in the Great Awokening — a shift in thinking that views life primarily through the prism of social justice and "institutional racism."  In this awokening, the forces of racial bias, not an individual's work ethic and character, are the prime determinants of destiny. 

The Great Awokening is an outgrowth of Barack Obama's campaign to "fundamentally transform" our nation. After Trayvon Martin was shot (2012), Obama said, "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon." Actually, President Obama, if you had a son he would look like... you. (And if you wonder why your teenage son wears a hoodie everywhere, it's Trayvon.) In 2014, Ferguson, Missouri, and the Mike Brown shooting happened. This appears to be the tipping point when the Great Awokening began to take hold.

Today, the Great Awokening has exploded on our national consciousness in the aftermath of the George Floyd tragedy. But it's important to understand that this movement didn't begin in 2020.

Plain and simple, we are living through an advent of Cultural Marxism, which is the root of all evils of the "woke" movement that seems to have cast a spell over large factions of society -- at least the loudest factions of society. New Discourses defines woke/wokeness as:

The notion of “getting woke” (or staying woke) is defined as being acutely aware of racial and social injustice—not just awareness and acknowledgement of isolated incidents, but awareness from a position of understanding systemic and institutional racism. … The notion of getting woke encapsulates the first stage of becoming an accomplice in addressing the system of racism… White accomplices should strive to be woke enough not to call themselves woke and instead strive to embody this state of being by building with people of color. … Be in a perpetual state of learning and be woke enough to know you are never woke enough.

The Great Awokening has taken shape in recent years in a dramatic move to the left on social and race issues by white liberal Democrats, who are now more radical on racial issues than blacks. They are "woke" and now we must be woke or face the label of "racist."

To further understand the advent of the Great Awokening:

  1. Read VOX's backgrounder on the Great Awokening (written in 2019)
  2. See the 2014 "tipping point" in polling
    1. in 2014, majority no longer believe society has done what is needed for racial imbalance
    2. Democrats become radicalized in view that racism is "main reason black people can't get ahead"
    3. Republicans in recent history did not agree with "institutional racism" claim
  3. The Great Awokening and the Second American Revolution
    1. "Is there any way to resist the woke steamroller that’s trying to iron out American distinctiveness?"
    2. " The best the centre-Right can aim for is to resist the demonization of established traditions, and rebalance the teaching of history to de-centre the narrative of oppression, according it a weight proportionate to its role in a balanced pedagogy: one of several vantage points on the national story."
  4. The Geopolitical Risk of the Great Awokening (National Review)
    1. "Without that moral clarity, the United States is unlikely to triumph in the next major clash of civilizations."
  5. Our Great Awokening and France's Great Terror
    1. "Any confidence that the American Founding has something to teach the world is considered an instance of what Marxists call “false consciousness.” References to reason, evidence, rule of law, or the West’s Jewish and Christian heritages are viewed as the language of someone hopelessly in thrall to “Eurocentric” outlooks."

The intellectual debate is far from over! In fact, we believe a CounterWokening has already begun. Find out more here.