Crackpot theories 4: Fatal distraction – the function of woke

Written 2023-04-21 - “The Ike Street Journal – the weekly diary of the American nightmare”

Let’s start by considering whether the current focus on woke issues is in fact something new. On reflection, I think it’s clear that it is. This may be jarring to some readers, but if we cast our memory far, far back in time – say, to 2007 or 2008 – such Democratic mainstays as Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton considered even a relatively innocuous and straightforward issue like gay marriage as too iffy to endorse. For example, Barack Obama in 2008:

“I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.” - see https://time.com/3816952/obama-gay-lesbian-transgender-lgbt-rights/

So why is the Democratic establishment now boldly storming the ramparts on the most intricate permutations of gender and other woke issues, and why are so many quadrillion electrons per day now being devoted to those issues in our mainstream media?

Here’s a crackpot theory to explain it. It builds on the observation in my previous crackpot theory:

that, at least since the Clinton administration, the Democratic and Republican establishments have been solidly united behind the following pillars of policy:

• Ramping up military spending to ever more extreme/insane levels, and getting involved in an ever-increasing number of wars.

• Concentrating wealth upward.

Moreover, these policy areas are (or used to be) important ones for determining where a party falls on the left-right spectrum.

Let’s add another observation. It’s important to the collective psyche that the main two political parties are perceived to be constantly engaged in an intense, high-stakes left-right battle. It’s a similar situation to a professional wrestling barbed-wire death match (as depicted in the image above) – the combatants must convincingly appear to be locked in a life-or-death battle, although in reality they are both being paid by the same guy (the chillingly evil Vince McMahon, Jr.)

This is where I think woke issues fit in. Sometime in the past decade, it apparently occurred to some enterprising operative in the Democratic establishment that it was possible to be ardently progressive on woke issues without interfering with the two prime directives above (endless war and concentrating wealth upward). In other words, woke issues could fulfill the same role for the Democrats that the war on Christmas or illegal immigration does for the Republicans; they could be the subject of intense battles with the opposing party, while not interfering with the all-important endless-war-and-wealth-concentration program.

And the rest is history …