Woke Hasn’t Died. It Has Regrouped.

Editor's Note

In a cold civil war, electoral victories can create the appearance of resolution without producing structural change. A shift in administration and a rollback of visible policies do not dislodge an entrenched governing ideology whose strength lies in institutions, culture, and personnel rather than in a single office.

This essay from Peachy Keenan argues that the current moment should be understood as a phase within a longer contest over the character of the American regime — one in which temporary reversals do not settle the underlying struggle.

Last night, Donald Trump stood before Congress and declared the American revival underway. He spoke of a secure border, renewed law enforcement, economic strength, and a country rediscovering confidence. He spoke of restrictions on transgender procedures for minors and framed the past year as a turning point away from progressive excess. The fever, he suggested, had broken.

And you could almost believe it. For a brief moment after 2024, it felt like the rainbow fog had lifted: the regime had blinked. The American flags are back. Corporate Pride campaigns feel more subdued than they did at their peak. Universities speak more cautiously about “merit.” Hollywood has taken financial hits for some of its more ideological projects. Trans surgeries on minors have been banned in many states. A detransitioner recently won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against her surgeon. Even Disney executives now talk publicly about returning to “family” content.

But the power of the Destructive Left doesn’t evaporate that easily; its power retreats and recalibrates. The institutions were never surrendered — the people who ran the machine are still sitting at the controls, and they’re already moving again. 

In fact, they began to redouble their offense — this time with a little extra violence and a lot more public support from every woke sector of the state. In Minnesota, what started as tireless paramilitary crews of fanatical white communists grew into a full-scale woke uprising against federal deportation operations. Tens of thousands poured into the streets in subzero temperatures; public-sector unions, DEI-bloated NGOs, mainline clergy with rainbow stoles, and college kids with “Abolish ICE” tote bags all linked arms in a statewide “shutdown” that shuttered businesses and schools in the name of justice.

After two protesters died in confrontations, their faces were instantly canonized on murals and candles, turned into hashtags and land-acknowledgment-style speeches at every rally, and the entire episode was packaged by the press as proof that ICE itself was a white-supremacist death squad. Pro sports teams issued statements, pop stars dedicated songs, and local officials raced each other to denounce federal agents as bigots. Faced with mass woke protests, hostile woke authorities, and a national media that treated basic immigration enforcement as a hate crime, the Trump administration quietly pulled most of its deportation presence out of the state. Total woke victory.

The battlefield in the streets is a consequence of the culture that shapes what Americans are taught to cheer for. And, in this, the woke Left isn’t even attempting to be subtle.

This awards seasons, the movie set to sweep in nearly every category is “One Battle After Another,” a wildly-celebrated tale of a left-wing terrorist fighting the racist white American government and military. Upcoming epic “The Odyssey” from Christopher Nolan has stretched the limits of color-blind DEI casting by casting an African actress from Kenya as Helen of Troy. On TV, the hottest blockbuster show for women is a soft-core gay pornographic romance called “Heated Rivalry.” 

At the top of the pop hierarchy, the catechism is the same. At this year’s Grammys, Billie Eilish accepted Song of the Year and used her speech to declare that “no one is illegal on stolen land,” earning cheers and glowing coverage for scolding ICE on live television. All around her, the industry’s clergy wore little white “ICE OUT” pins, from Justin and Hailey Bieber to Bon Iver and Kehlani, literally pinning their demand to abolish immigration enforcement to their sequined jackets. Bad Bunny did one better, opening his own acceptance speech with “ICE out!” to a standing ovation. This is how the faith is taught: in slogans shouted from the biggest stages in America.

The Super Bowl Halftime Show, traditionally some all-American entertainment by anodyne superstar pop acts, was turned into a “F*ck ICE” protest with an all-Spanish show. Bad Bunny performed in a simulated sugar cane plantation next to an ethnically-accurate bodega with an EBT sign. He was surrounded by gay background dancers simulating anal sex at the 40-yard line. This was not just a “woke” protest. It was a victory celebration by the ascendant third world.

And at the Winter Olympics, the dismally unpatriotic U.S. freestyle ski team announced to the media that they were deeply dismayed about their own country and had “mixed feelings” about representing the United States on the global stage. These are pampered 21-year-olds who spend their entire lives traveling from ski resort to ski resort. They get paid millions by ski brands and smoke weed in the off-season. But they’re very upset that some Americans don’t want to continue paying billions of their tax dollars to fund Somali daycare and healthcare scams.

While these kids were partying in hot tubs in Whistler and Park City in après-ski chalets, middle-class U.S. citizens were being forced to support a giant population of some 50 million foreign-born people in this country.

Make no mistake, these cultural statements have serious consequences. The destructive Left has used the backlash to Trump’s immigration policies to activate nationwide sleeper cells of neurotic white women chasing cops and blowing rape whistles, rampaging mobs of Hispanic teens in L.A. starting brawls with armed federal officers, CNN reporters storming Christian church services with BLM communists, and the one-man army known as Gavin Newsom. 

The numbers at the moment do not bode especially well for our side. Democrats still dominate among the two most severely brainwashed demographics: Gen Z and Millennials.

So no, “woke” is not dead. In fact, it is the undead — a zombified ideology that will not die or go away. It will simply continue to mutate and infect new generations of young people.  By the end of 2024, Democrats were defeated and demoralized. Their voting blocs shattered and scattered to the wind. In 2026, they are wasting no time regrouping and gathering strength.

History is littered with majority coalitions that went back to sleep after the victory party. A right-wing movement that has grown visibly triumphalist gives the Democratic base exactly the galvanizing narrative it needs. It is important, therefore, to make it clear to people exactly what we stand to lose if the open-borders party wins in 2026 and 2028. 

First, they will certainly re-open the border and redouble efforts to empty Central and South America and Africa into the last Red states. They will give everyone who was deported by Donald Trump a free first-class ticket back to the United States. For good measure, they will finally give all 20 million illegal residents immediate citizenship. They will ban voter ID in all 50 states. They will make trans surgeries on minors legal again. They will do Europe’s bidding and commit thousands of U.S. soldiers to fight and die for Ukraine. The Supreme Court will gain a bunch of justices who make Ruth Bader Ginsburg seem reasonable and centrist. 

The executive orders of the last year will be cancelled. Federal tax increases, too, will be imposed, along with ruinous inheritance and step-up-in-basis laws. These changes would reset any American family that owns a business or has managed to save some money to pass on back to zero balance. Equity will be back on the menu, and it won’t just be billionaires they come for. It will be the American kulaks: the middle class. 

Woke isn’t dead. It’s gathering momentum as we speak, mustering their army, and preparing to strike. 2026 looms. Gavin Newsom draws his revenge plans against us. Stay frosty.