Woke language for liberals to drown if they want to win

Here's a safe space from microaggressions for those afflicted with white privilege. The culture war is real. Democrats need to adjust.

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What advice would you give the Democrats to resuscitate their brand?

I’m forever, perhaps ad nauseum, reminding anyone within earshot that American elections are won or lost at the margins. A handful of voters in a handful of so-called “purple” states—among them Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona—determine the outcome. The Senate is similarly controlled by the winners in those states. Only about 10 percent of congressional districts nationwide are considered competitive.

That is why cultural issues may be determinant in so many elections. And that is why replacing the “master bedroom” with the “primary bedroom” became part of the negative reaction to woke language. The movement gained momentum around 2020, after the Black Lives Matter protests and the rise of discussions about systemic racism. Hence, the woke police determined that “master,” which as an adjective means herein “principal” or “predominant,” carries a hefty load of baggage. I was unable to find any research that “master” in this context of bedrooms had any connection with slaves—excuse me, enslaved persons— or that it conjured up an image of a male person in power. (Someone pointed out that swapping out “mistress bedroom ” or “madam bedroom” for “master bedroom” probably removes us from talking about real estate anymore.)

The perception of the Democratic Party has become increasingly liberal over the past decade, rising from about half of Americans in 2014 to two-thirds by 2023. The percentage of those who viewed Democrats as moderate fell slightly. This is a problem for Democrats nationally, as the country is, overall, center-right ideologically.

In 2016, the Democratic platform began with a reference to the Continental Congress. However, the 2024 platform began with a land acknowledgment. The Democratic Party’s website is a laundry list of issues, strecthing to find something for everyone, with no integrating, readily coherent theme: climate change, education, economy and jobs, gas prices, gun reform, health care, inflation, LGBTQ+ rights, prescription drugs, protecting and strengthening our democracy, reproductive rights, social security, Medicare and Medicaid, student loan debt, taxes, veterans, and voting rights. What Is the larger vision or overarching principle?

The Republican Party’s website has no list of issues.

In 2021, after the Republicans won the Virginia governor election, Democratic strategist James Carville heaped much of the blame on “just stupid wokeness. … I mean, this ‘defund the police’ lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools. I mean that — people see that.”

There is no single precise definition of what is woke. Rather, it is a catch-all term that, in the current context, refers to the language progressives use to discuss social issues such as race and gender.

Democrats are closely associated with wokeness. Hence, it is no surprise that progressive Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushed back against Carville, tweeting that wokeness “is a term almost exclusively used by older people these days.” Of course, older Americans are more reliable voters, so maybe that’s not a good comeback for AOC. Moreover, Republicans overwhelmingly have a negative view of wokeness, which is likely to have been a factor in discouraging enough Trump-skeptical Republicans from voting for a Democrat in close elections.

There has been speculation that Rahm Emanuel, a former congressman, chief of staff to President Obama, mayor of Chicago for two terms, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan, may be a candidate for Illinois governor or for president in 2028. He’s been vocal in warning Democrats to be more attuned to cultural red flags, calling the party’s brand “toxic” and “weak and woke,” a nod to culture-war issues he thinks Democrats have become too often fixated on and that President Trump has successfully used against them.

Harris for They/Them. Trump is for you

In the final month of the 2024 election, the Trump campaign created an ad that showed Kamala Harris saying that “every transgender inmate in the prisoner system would have access” to sex reassignment surgery. The tag line was “Kamala is for They/Them. Trump is for you.” It was run an estimated 55,000 times, more than half of those in the swing states. The Democratic super PAC Future Forward said it was one of Trump's most effective attack ads, shifting the race 2.7 percentage points in his favor among those who saw it.

In further reinforcement, a strategist working for the Democrats found that swing voters in battleground states in the last election said the most persuasive argument against Harris was that she was too focused on cultural issues, such as transgender rights, rather than helping the middle class. Whether accurate or not, that was their perception.

With progressives fixated on pronouns, Emanuel wants to redirect the Democrats’ message to what he believes matters more to voters. On education, for example, Emanuel said the Democratic Party should focus on higher standards because giving young people what they need to succeed is at the heart of boosting the middle class, Meanwhile, progressives elevate equity.

“I’m empathetic and sympathetic to a child trying to figure out their pronoun, but it doesn’t trump the fact that the rest of the class doesn’t know what a pronoun is,” he said.

Identity and Social Justice in woke vocabulary

Politically, one of the most contentious terms is that of “privilege,” or specifically, white privilege. This is supposedly the unacknowledged benefit white individuals often experience when navigating societal structures, such as finding it easier to obtain housing, jobs, or navigate interactions with law enforcement without facing discrimination based on race.

The modern articulation of white privilege likely dates back to “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, ”a 1989 paper by the feminist academic Peggy McIntosh.

It has become embedded in universities in the form of critical race theory and whiteness studies – a recent conference at Edinburgh University on “Resisting Whiteness” banned white people from speaking – and is the central pillar underpinning America’s $8 Billion-a-year “equity, diversity and inclusion” industry. Employees of public bureaucracies across the Anglosphere are forced to undergo regular “unconscious bias” training where they’re bombarded with a tsunami of gobbledygook, all revolving around the idea that white people have privileges no other ethnic group enjoys, sometimes at enormous expense to the taxpayer.

I have no doubt this may be a significant component souring many white Americans on the Democrats' brand. Some may be struggling, yet they see the BIPOC¹ cohort being favored, regardless of merit, in affirmative action, competitive college admissions, and most recently in the $18 billion DEI programs. The issue for them isn’t in denying that historically, blacks have been discriminated against. Rather, is that why any white person, regardless of circumstance or merit, should now be discriminated against? “This wasn’t my fault. Why should I pay?”

DEI: Flawed and Maybe Ineffective

Speaking of BIPOC, for all our supposed privilege, in 2016, at $67,865, white Americans had a lower median household income than Indonesian Americans ($71,616), Pakistani Americans ($72,389), Malaysian Americans ($72,443), Sri Lankan Americans ($73,856), Filipino Americans ($84,620), Taiwanese Americans ($90,1221) and Indian Americans ($110,026).

It’s accurate to point out that whites are doing better than blacks by some yardsticks. For instance, it’s true that African-Americans continue to face discrimination in the housing and labor markets, although that discrepancy has been steadily narrowing.

My point here is not to adjudicate whether there is a white privilege that provides every white person, regardless of circumstance, a leg up in life over a black individual at birth. I’m talking perception. And there are many struggling white families who don’t see themselves with any privilege (again, regardless of reality) who resent being told they are privileged and they should be passed over in favor of those who are deemed, again, regardless of circumstance, not white.

"Privilege" oversimplifies complex social dynamics, dismisses individual hard work and merit, and creates guilt or resentment based on immutable characteristics rather than actions.

Along with privilege is “systemic racism,” which elevates racist institutional structures above individual attitudes, which minimizes progress made over the last 60 years in shrinking legal racist barriers, such as Jim Crow laws and redlining.

The list of the cultural attitudes that I think disturb so manyAmericans include being called out for “microaggressions,” limiting speech due to carving our “safe spaces,” fear of being accused of "cultural appropriation," and having to be lectured that equality of outcome, regardless of merit, that is, “equity,” should take presedence over “equality” of opportunity.

Dealing with Gender and Sexuality

I’ve already mentioned how the issue of gender identity is a substantial political force. Research confirms that, on the one hand, a majority favor laws that would protect transgender individuals from discrimination in jobs, housing, and public spaces. However, 60% say a person’s gender is determined by their sex assigned at birth, up from 56% in 2021 and 54% in 2017. On this, Trump is with the mainstream. Drilling down, Pew Research has found that while just over a third of Americans say we haven’t gone far enough in accepting people who are transgender, slightly more hold that society has gone too far. That’s a sizeable portion of the electorate.

We are also dealing with accusations of “toxic masculinity."Meanwhile, “cisgender” has been foisted on society as an unnecessary labeling of what most people consider the biological norm, which leads to the performative role of the proliferation of “pronouns,” which, for many people, is a denial of biological reality.

Language and Communication

Then there is the eye-rolling, made-up "Latinx,” which was given to us not by the evolution of native Spanish speakers but via academics, seen as their clumsy attempt at addressing cultural imperialism. It gained traction within academic, LGBTQIA+, and non-binary (another term I could have added above) communities as a way to be more inclusive of those who identify outside the gender binary. Spare us.

Being “unhoused" is euphemistic language that presumably helps the “homeless” think more positively about their situation. And a “birthing person” presumably explains the phenomenon of what might seem to be a man who is nonetheless looking rather pregnant.

Winding down, “addiction” or drug habit has been replaced in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders with “substance abuse disorder.” Apparently, “drug habit” is out, as this has been said to imply that a person is choosing to use substances or can choose to stop. That may be true in many cases. But in the vernacular, if one does something repeatedly, even when one knows it’s bad, it’s a habit, which the Oxford Dictionary still defines as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.”

And, finally, “differently abled,” a gentler version of “handicapped,” which, returning to the handy dictionary, means “having a condition that markedly restricts one's ability to function physically, mentally, or socially.” Personally, I don’t think that if I lost my sight or hearing or a limb, I would feel better about myself because I was now differently abled. Going through life, any of these or other disabilities would restrict my ability to function.

Language shapes thinking

Our preferences for what may be termed woke language likely reflect much of our underlying worldview. Purging the language need not require modifying the underlying concepts.

• Individual vs. collective focus. Do we lean towards personal responsibility or systemic explanations? "Marginalized" invokes assumptions about individual agency and responsibility, seemingly absolving individuals of personal responsibility for their circumstances while placing blame on systemic factors.

• Free speech concerns. How salient is our worry about language policing and compelled speech? Does a “safe space” trump uncomfortable discussions?

• Merit-based thinking. Do we believe that outcomes should reflect effort and ability: the equity vs. equality dichotomy?

• Traditional values. To what extent do new frameworks undermine established social structures?

• Practical skepticism. Ultimately, do these concepts lead to tangible improvements in the real world?

These criticisms often reflect deeper philosophical differences regarding human nature, the role of government, individual versus collective responsibility, and the process of social change.

Include me in the Practical Skepticism camp

By this point—or long before—you have sensed that I am a skeptic about much of these linguistic gymnastics in the service of supposedly less biased thought. However, my starting point was politics. Whether you find woke terminology an improvement is besides the point. I suspect, based on the result of empirical data, a smattering I’ve cited here, that there are voters who, at the margin, have a negative reaction to these attempts at telling them what is acceptable social language.

To be sure, the Trump regime is also concerned with relabeling language (e.g., any judge Trump dislikes is a radical left Communist). But that’s for his base. The Democrats need to peel off enough center-right voters who are leery of MAGA but recoil at AOC and the progressives who are disproportionately visible relative to their numbers in the party.

There is one term that might help my self-image: Instead of having a golf handicap, perhaps I can just be viewed as being a differently abled golfer.

1. Another woke term that aggregates “Black, Indigenous, People of Color."