The Enemy Within
Woke Progressives Seek to Destroy America from within. We Need a Counterrevolution Committed to Restoring America's Ideals.
We want our country back.
A nefarious “woke” ideology has seized control of American culture, rejected American morality, deconstructed American language, and debased American law. What we’re fighting is neither a political battle nor a culture war. It’s a moral struggle with cultural and political dimensions.
The chasm dividing America from woke progressivism (or progressive wokeism) is stark:
And those are just selected headlines. Wokeism operates across the full scope of American culture, society, and government. Woke progressives have cleverly seized control of our language and redefined words to cloak their true intent: Enshrining a moral code far outside the Judeo-Christian—hence the American—tradition.
They’ve already defeated us on nearly every front. Every important American institution has been compromised. Wokeism writes the rules for preschool playgrounds and the curricula for K-12 education. Wokeism controls our universities, dominates our media, and owns our social media. Wokeism reigns supreme in Hollywood and in Silicon Valley. Wokeism runs Wall Street, the legal profession, the civil service, federal, state, and municipal agencies, and the judiciary. Wokeism eviscerates small businesses and bullies major corporations into compliance. Wokeism terrifies individuals into self-censoring and hiding their true beliefs. If there’s an avenue for writing a rule, teaching a lesson, or communicating a message, wokeism owns it, controls it, or dominates it.
In our collective struggle to turn back this mortal threat to our national, intellectual, economic, cultural, and spiritual welfare, election integrity may be America’s last stand—which is why the woke are fighting it so passionately. In 2016, wokeism narrowly lost a reasonably free and fair election. America gained a bit of breathing room—and squandered much of it. President Trump ran on two great slogans. From 2017-19 he proved that he could indeed Make America Great Again. In 2020 he demonstrated that far from Draining the Swamp, the swamp had rolled him. Trump the developer had forgotten to check the foundation before building. His beautiful glass-and-gold American skyscraper sank rapidly into the swampy terrain of pandemic shutdowns and devious electoral procedures.
It’s unfair to blame Trump, though. He achieved far more than many imagined even possible. He ran at a moment that called for his unique skill set: A leader capable of grabbing America by the lapels, getting in it’s face, and shouting “WAKE THE F*CK UP!” On that, he delivered fully. But those of us now awakened—the polar opposite of being woke—didn’t exactly do our parts. Rather than building an institutional or organizational infrastructure capable of reclaiming our great nation, far too many “trusted the plan.” Why do anything when the President’s got it all in hand?
That inaction was disgraceful—far less excusable than Trump’s loss to the swamp. Presidents can’t win moral struggles. All they can do is create space in which a moral culture can develop, evolve, and stand strong. We did far too little with the space he bought us. The woke are now empowered and ascendant; every decent American is suffering.
Wokeism is a Perversion
Wokeism is a perversion of everything for which America has ever stood. It draws upon a history of home-grown rejectionist movements and a collection of anti-Western philosophies developed and nurtured among the radical Western intelligentsia of the past two centuries. It’s an American-born anti-American ideology out to eviscerate our great nation. In the twenty-first century, it has become the dominant American intellectual and cultural movement—verging on becoming America’s established faith.
Wokeism is America’s enemy within. But—and this point is critical—that’s not the same as saying that “the Democrats,” or even that all the people who call themselves “progressives” are our enemies. Like all ideological movements, wokeism operates in concentric circles. At the center, a deeply committed ideological woke core seeks to undermine America and the Judeo-Christian ideals it embodies. Those ideological progressives are indeed anti-American enemies. Moving outward from that core, however, are plenty of people who’ve simply been misled. They may be aiding our enemies at the moment, but they’re capable of better—and they want to be better. We need to win them back.
To win, we’ll have to achieve three related goals. The first is to steel America’s resolve to stand strong for our excellent, deeply rooted moral code. The second is to reveal ideological wokeism for the evil it is—and to show how it works its destructive magic. The third is to awaken the sleeping masses who have slipped into wokeism.
It’s easy to sympathize with their error. Wokeism is deeply seductive. It promises personal and professional benefits, along with a deep sense of smug self-satisfaction. Millions of proud Americans have been seduced by this twisted ideology into supporting what they wish to oppose and opposing what they think they support. Millions of minority and immigrant Americans have swallowed enough of the progressive horror stories to become terrified of America; they cower behind their progressive abusers wondering why the American dream seems out of reach. Millions more across the country have simply accepted woke claims without paying much attention to what they mean or how they fit together. Many woke stories sound plausible until you begin to question them. That’s why so many woke progressives become apoplectic at the sound of a follow-up question.
So what is wokeism? Simple.
Of course, woke progressives don’t like to depict themselves as frail, ego-driven elitists out to justify their obscene exploitation of the bumbling masses they hold in such contempt. Instead, they claim to be fighting for social justice, championing the needs of historically oppressed people, clamoring for a more equitable distribution of income and wealth, and saving the planet from selfish corporate despoilers.
Maybe you’ve bought onto parts of their delusional self-image. Maybe you think of progressives as people acting with the best of intentions, even if they get a bit overzealous at times. If that’s what you believe, you’ve fallen into the trap. You stand on the brink of seduction.
Before you fall into that abyss, ask yourself one question: Could a movement that commands the overwhelming majority of America’s educated, professional classes, and that rules public opinion only in America’s most expensive, most exclusive enclaves, be anything other than an elitist movement? Really? Do you feel that they’ve been making an honest effort to serve your best interests? Do you feel that they even care what interests you?
To ask such questions are to answer them. In fact, because woke progressives control the elite, our elite institutions all work overtime ensuring that no one notices their elitism. Ideologically woke progressives may be many things, but they’re neither dumb nor lazy. As the vanguard of an ideology popular almost exclusively among Western elites, they know that they can’t do very much without allies and coalitions—at least not as long as the systems within they operate retain elements of democracy—and no part of the masses wants to serve the interests of the elite. The elite ideologs have thus done yeoman’s work building coalitions big enough to be deadly.
The Progressive Coalition
The millions of Americans—and other Westerners—the woke have seduced through their campaigns of lies are the useful idiots of wokeism. These “social progressives” would reject almost every aspect of ideological wokeism if they knew what it was. They consider themselves progressives because—using the linguistic deconstruction at the heart of wokeism—the woke ideologs have convinced them that “progressive” is a synonym for “decent.” Few social progressives even try to explain what they think “progressive” means. They know, however, that being a progressive is good for their personal and professional lives, that it lets them feel good about themselves, and that it gives them the right to look down on their less-progressive neighbors. And as progressives, they see themselves as far less radical than the truly woke. So they champion puppet candidates—like Joe Biden—lacking a reputation for ideology, then slip back into a comfortable denial in which they have held their radical allies in check.
Millions of minority Americans form the blind, angry, compliant peasant army of wokeism. Ideologically woke progressives have convinced these minorities that America, rather than wokeism, threatens their well-being, their social and economic mobility, and their glorious advances of recent generations. Woke radicals have found leaders from within each community far more interested in stoking resentment, expressing rage, maintaining hatred, and fighting history than in improving the welfare of their own communities. Wokeism welcomes these “community leaders” into the elite, and showers them with money, privilege, prestige, and power. They, in turn, keep their communities down, angry, and supportive of progressive agendas that most oppose at a personal level, and that are deadly at a community level.
Globally, the most important ally of ideological wokeism is ideological Islamism. The Muslim world—roughly twenty percent of global population—is having a hard time digesting the vast changes of the past few centuries. Important, mainstream movements within Islam differ greatly about which elements of Islamic tradition to emphasize, which elements of modernity to embrace, and how to synthesize the two. The tension among these Islamic movements is so significant that it generates frequent violence and bloodshed. The most violent of these movements also turn their rage outward, threatening to unleash terrorism across the planet. “Islamism” is one important branch of mainstream Islam. It’s an umbrella term covering all Muslim movements that draw upon Islam’s earliest conquests as a model for contemporary politics, and elevate this belief above all others. Islamists are intolerant, brutal, violent, and fiercely committed to their faith-driven, warlike, imperial view of the world.
Because no one can stand idle while a fifth of the globe is engaged in such internal warfare, everyone outside the Muslim world must find allies within it. In the twenty-first century, it’s practically impossible to be “pro-Muslim” or “anti-Muslim,” because there are Muslims on nearly all sides of nearly all issues. The question for those of us who are not Muslim is thus where within Islam we find our allies. Wokeism has chosen to ally itself exclusively with Islamism and Islamist organizations—most prominently the (Sunni) Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the (Shia) Islamic Republic of Iran, most recently the Taliban—and their Western apologists. America has plenty of its own Muslim allies, but because they’re more focused on their own personal and national development than on imperial conquest and genocide, progressives tend to deride them as “less authentic” than their enraged, brutal Islamist competitors.
Such “authenticity” is key. In wokeism, the only legitimate voices for any group deemed oppressed are the voices of entitlement and rage. Voices coming from within those communities preaching self-improvement, mobility, cultural change, hard work, personal responsibility, and integration are shunned. The radically woke Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley put it best: “We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t need Muslims that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don’t want to be a queer voice.”
Those concentric circles form the main elements of the progressive coalition. The hard-core woke ideological progressives may be a relatively small part of the coalition, but they’re firmly in control. They set the agenda and the tone. Most importantly, they define the morality. Enlightened elite opinion is the sine qua non of progressive morality. The moment that elite opinion shifts, so too does progressive morality. Witness their ability to turn on a dime and demonize unvaccinated health care workers mere months after lionizing them as selfless front-line workers in the battle to contain Covid.
This rapidly evolving morality explains one of the elements of wokeism that causes the greatest confusion outside the ideological core. Just because something was moral in yesterday’s slightly less enlightened world doesn’t mean that it’s still moral now that the elite has transcended to today’s enlightenment level. That’s precisely what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton meant when they explained that their views about gay marriage had “evolved” in office.
With enlightened elite opinion defining progressive morality, the combined might of core ideological progressives, seduced social progressives, terrified minorities, and Islamists is large and potent. It has taken over much of Europe and the Democratic Party in the United States. It is a deadly threat to the future of America, the future of the West, and the future of freedom.
Restorationism
What can we do about it?
We have only two choices: We can let go of America or we can defeat wokeism.
American Restorationism is a new counterrevolutionary movement committed to the fight. That we need a new movement with a new name should be obvious. Conservatism failed to conserve much of anything—and the conservative temperament is poorly suited to the challenges of counterrevolution. Standing athwart history and yelling “stop” will freeze in place a woke culture, corrupted institutions, an authoritarian leadership, and a self-loathing that will quickly destroy all that true Americans value and revere.
It’s time to fight for America. It’s time to fight for our values. Restorationists and progressives operate under conflicting moral codes. We disagree about the meaning of “good” and “bad.” In fact, we disagree about the meanings of most words. In such an environment, we must each deploy our greatest strengths toward that noble cause. Because I arrive at this battlefield as a humble essayist, strategist, and troubleshooter, those are the weapons I’ve committed to the cause. Deployed wisely, an essay series can indeed be a weapon—particularly when the enemies greatest victories have emerged through the channels of language and narrative.
The restorationist strategy is simple: Retake our language first, our culture second, and our country third. No other sequence can work.
That’s it. That’s the grand strategy. Deploy it, and we win. We reclaim our great American nation. We restore our shining city on a hill. Continue as we’ve been going, and all bets are off.
We’re Americans. We want to win. Join the counterrevolution. Become a restorationist.
For more information about Bruce D. Abramson & American Restorationism, visit: www.BruceDAbramson.com
To learn more about how America’s elites destroyed the republic, see: The New Civil War: Exposing Elites, Fighting Utopian Leftism, and Restoring America (RealClear Publishing, 2021).
To learn more about the ideology driving today’s anti-American leftism, see: American Restoration: Winning America’s Second Civil War (Kindle, 2019).