The Right's Wokeness Problem

Paul Graham’s recent essay on “wokeness” is useful—not because it offers an entirely sound analysis, but because it provides a fascinating case study in ideological blind spots. 

Graham's central argument is that wokeness is a moral purity movement driven by prigs—self-righteous enforcers of social dogma. It's not a terrible definition. While he acknowledges that these figures exist in every era, he frames "wokeness" exclusively as a left-wing pathology. He doesn’t pause to consider how Trump’s MAGA movement, the conservative anti-woke crusaders, and right-wing culture warriors exhibit the very same behaviors he critiques.

If wokeness is, as Graham defines it, “an aggressively performative focus on social justice” that manifests through moral purity tests, public shaming, and rigid ideological policing, then Trumpism and the contemporary right are just as “woke” as their leftist counterparts—perhaps more so. They too have their own sacred dogmas, their own purity tests, and their own cancel culture. 

In the interest of fairness, we'll discuss both, but before we dive into that, I'll let Paul speak for himself at length:

The word "prig" isn't very common now, but if you look up the definition, it will sound familiar. Google's isn't bad:

A self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others.

This sense of the word originated in the 18th century, and its age is an important clue: it shows that although wokeness is a comparatively recent phenomenon, it's an instance of a much older one.

There's a certain kind of person who's attracted to a shallow, exacting kind of moral purity, and who demonstrates his purity by attacking anyone who breaks the rules. Every society has these people. All that changes is the rules they enforce. In Victorian England it was Christian virtue. In Stalin's Russia it was orthodox Marxism-Leninism. For the woke, it's social justice.

So if you want to understand wokeness, the question to ask is not why people behave this way. Every society has prigs. The question to ask is why our prigs are priggish about these ideas, at this moment. And to answer that we have to ask when and where wokeness began.

The answer to the first question is the 1980s. Wokeness is a second, more aggressive wave of political correctness, which started in the late 1980s, died down in the late 1990s, and then returned with a vengeance in the early 2010s, finally peaking after the riots of 2020.

This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely used in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one. What does it mean now? I've often been asked to define both wokeness and political correctness by people who think they're meaningless labels, so I will. They both have the same definition:

An aggressively performative focus on social justice.

In other words, it's people being prigs about social justice. And that's the real problem — the performativeness, not the social justice.

Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one. I don't think any reasonable person would deny that. The problem with political correctness was not that it focused on marginalized groups, but the shallow, aggressive way in which it did so. Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the politically correct focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong words to talk about them.

Now to mirror Mr. Graham, let's be clear: the self-righteous liberal activism Graham defines as “wokeness” is a real problem, but it's not on the scale that the anti-woke believe it to be. Any reasonable person would surely agree. I and many on the left see the unhealthy dynamics of these behaviors and advocate for a different kind of activism rooted in solidarity and persuasion, not in divisive forms of identity-based activism, shaming or canceling. Our goal after all, is to win new allies, not create more determined opponents.

One reason we do occasionally see governments and corporations embrace “wokeness” is precisely because it is unthreatening to the system's continued operation. Empire and capitalism can tolerate more diverse representation among its ranks, but it cannot tolerate a movement that works to flatten hierarchies and empower the entire working class. 

That is a central criticism you will hear from the left: Rather than confronting the architects of oppression—those who hold economic and political power—much of what is labeled “cancel culture” ends up policing individuals who lack institutional influence. This is not to say accountability is unimportant, but when the full weight of public condemnation falls on those with little ability to shape society, while the powerful remain largely unscathed, we have to ask: who benefits from this tactical focus? It's punching sideways, down and perhaps punching those right above us, but it's not punching high enough.

There are many important exceptions, but in my experience, “cancel culture” too often targets those low on the power scale rather than individuals or systems that represent true power. 

Contrast strangers saying something dumb and racist on the internet versus a sitting senator openly advocating for authoritarian measures, a billionaire funding political campaigns to erode worker protections, or a media empire systematically spreading disinformation to manipulate public opinion. The disproportionate focus on individuals with no real structural influence—rather than those who shape laws, control economies, and dictate foreign policy—reveals the limits of so-called cancel culture. It too often functions as a form of social policing aimed at easy targets, rather than a meaningful challenge to entrenched systems of power. It's understandable, in many ways - conflicts with people we know or people online are tangible and immediate, whereas challenging systems is incredibly difficult. Most activists are ordinary people pissed off by injustice (whether progressive or conservatively defined). They're not trained organizers. Hell: we all grew up in a culture rooted in “power-over” dynamics, where shame and bullying were commonplace growing up. We shouldn't be surprised to see bullying crop up among social justice warriors and status quo warriors alike. 

With all that said—phew!—the right has vastly overstated the threat of wokeness to society. Rampant inequality, government corruption, empire, war, environmental pollution, poverty, for-profit healthcare and about 100 other problems sit higher on the molehill to mountain scale. 

College kids and online activists may be annoying at times—I've seen first hand the sort of unhealthy movement dynamics that harm our own efforts and splinter activist communities—but let's get real: they're not in the drivers seat of this civilization. They don't control the police, the military, the government or even the mass media. Conservatives, neoliberals and corporations do. 

For all the complaints and consternation among the anti-woke, there is a big difference between the moral authoritarians on the left and the right, but the biggest difference of all is power: College students, protestors and online activists that engage in cancel culture are employing social pressure, leveraging reputational consequences rather than state violence or institutional control. This is not to dismiss the excesses of moral policing in activist circles, but to put them in perspective. The machinery of coercion—police forces, intelligence agencies, courts, and corporate media—does not answer to college students or Twitter users. It answers to power: entrenched economic elites, corporate interests, and the political class that serves them.

To conflate student activism or left-wing cultural enforcement with real authoritarianism is to misunderstand the nature of power itself. The suppression of labor movements, the dismantling of social safety nets, mass surveillance, and the state-enforced criminalization of dissent—these are the tools of systemic control, wielded by those who actually shape the conditions of life and death. The anti-woke fixation on campus radicalism or online discourse is, at best, a distraction. At worst, it serves to reinforce the very hierarchies that ensure inequality, war, and ecological collapse continue unchecked.

This manufactured panic over “wokeness” serves a clear function: to distract from the real sources of power and misery that the status quo upholds. 

While the right paints progressive activism as an existential threat, it conveniently ignores its own deeply entrenched authoritarianism. The same voices decrying “cancel culture” are often the ones most eager to silence dissent, punish ideological opponents, and consolidate control over every aspect of public life. 

To illustrate, here are ten examples of how MAGA, the GOP, and the anti-woke movement embody the very traits they claim to despise.

1. The Cult of Patriotism: Obey or Be Ostracized

The right has turned nationalism into a sacred ideology. If you don’t stand for the national anthem, wear an American flag pin, or declare that America is the greatest country in the world, you risk social and professional exile. Colin Kaepernick’s career was obliterated for kneeling in protest of police brutality—a crime against the purity of patriotism. If political correctness means being socially punished for ideological nonconformity, what do we call this?

2. The Policing of Language: The Right’s Own Speech Codes

Graham mocks leftist linguistic evolution, but the right is equally obsessed with dictating language. They’ve banned the use of “Latinx” in government documents, passed laws controlling how gender and race can be discussed in classrooms, and demonized terms like “systemic racism” and “white privilege.” If changing pronouns is a sign of left-wing authoritarianism, what do we call Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” which censors discussions of history and identity in schools?

3. The War on Books: Right-Wing Censorship

The American right has become the leading force in book bans, pulling works from libraries under the guise of “protecting children.” From banning The Handmaid’s Tale to erasing any mention of LGBTQ+ people in public schools, conservatives have built an entire censorship industry. If college students protesting a speaker constitutes left-wing authoritarianism, how is this any different?

4. Cancel Culture, but for Conservatives

Trump and his movement claim to oppose cancel culture, yet they routinely “cancel” anyone who deviates from their ideological orthodoxy. Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment were excommunicated. Liz Cheney—a lifelong conservative—was ousted from the GOP for not showing sufficient loyalty to Trump. Entire businesses are boycotted if they express even a hint of disagreement with conservative dogma (see: Bud Light, Target, the NFL). If enforcing ideological purity is “wokeness,” the right has perfected it.

5. “Protecting the Children” as a Moral Panic

Graham argues that wokeness is defined by priggish moral policing. But what is the right’s entire obsession with policing LGBTQ+ people if not performative moral enforcement? The drag bans, the accusations of “grooming,” and the relentless legislation targeting trans youth—all of it follows the exact pattern Graham describes: an exaggerated moral panic that justifies the public punishment of the impure.

6. The Veneration of Donald Trump as a Moral Purity Test

For years, Trump supporters have demanded absolute fealty to their leader, treating any dissent as heresy. Once-loyal Republicans who criticized him—Mitt Romney, John McCain, Adam Kinzinger—were branded traitors. If the left’s “woke mobs” excommunicate those who violate social justice orthodoxy, how is the MAGA movement’s loyalty tests any different?

7. The Conservative Victimhood Industry

Graham ridicules the left for claiming oppression, yet conservatives have mastered the art of grievance politics. The entire right-wing media ecosystem—from Fox News to Ben Shapiro—thrives on constant outrage over imagined persecution: Christians under attack, white people silenced, straight men oppressed. If “wokeness” is performative victimhood, then conservative media is its own version of Tumblr in 2014.

8. The “War on Christmas” and the Fragility of the Right

For two decades, conservatives have raged about Starbucks cups and department stores saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” If wokeness is about exaggerated sensitivity to cultural slights, then the right’s perpetual outrage over Christmas is its most ludicrous example.

9. The Religious Right’s Thought Police

The right accuses the left of moral authoritarianism, yet evangelical conservatives have spent decades policing personal behavior. They want to dictate who can get married, what women can do with their bodies, what children are allowed to read, and what people are allowed to say. If moral dogma enforced by social coercion is wokeness, then the Christian right was the original woke movement.

10. The Right’s Own “Diversity and Inclusion” Tests

Graham mocks DEI statements as a sign of ideological purity, but conservatives impose their own ideological litmus tests. Florida is requiring teachers to promote “patriotic education,” Texas mandates that books must reflect “positive” views of American history, and Trump himself demands “patriotic education” to replace what he calls “woke indoctrination.” If requiring ideological compliance is woke, then Ron DeSantis is the wokest governor in America.

The Real Problem: A Culture of Power-Over, Not Power-With

Graham’s essay is wrong because it treats wokeness as a pathology of the left rather than as a universal phenomenon of culture and ideology. Moral purity policing isn’t a leftist problem—it’s a human problem. When we see “power-over” dynamics in the dominant culture, we should expect to see that manifest in mirror behaviors across the political spectrum, from those who want to overthrow the dominant order to those who fight to defend it, even when it doesn't serve them.

The problem isn’t wokeness. The problem is an ideological culture—on both the right and the left—that rewards outrage, punishes dissent, and prioritizes performative purity over substantive justice. The right isn’t fighting wokeness. They’re just replacing one set of dogmas with another.

A genuine opposition to wokeness wouldn’t demand new speech codes. It wouldn’t call for banning books, firing teachers, and enforcing ideological purity. It would champion open discourse, pluralism, and intellectual freedom. But that’s not what the anti-woke movement wants. They don’t oppose wokeness. They just want their own version of it.