Axios: Democrats Beginning to Worry About Being Too Woke

In Search of the Anti-Woke Democrat

This was an interesting tidbit in one of Axios’s newsletters. True, Axios is still a lefty mainstream media site, but they get more right than other outlets. Low bar, I know, but I must give credit where credit is due.

Here is how it begins:

A growing number of Democrats are ringing the alarm that their party sounds — and acts — too judgmental, too sensitive, too “woke” to large swaths of America.

• Why it matters: These Democrats warn that by jamming politically correct terms or new norms down the throats of voters, they risk exacerbating the cultural wars — and inadvertently helping Trumpian candidates.

Inadvertently? They’re practically pushing votes rightward with a bulldozer with the woke insanity.

The gist of the article is that many Democrats are just noticing the problem, which is laughable. The far-left, ultra-woke territory was staked out by all Democrats years ago. They can’t suddenly act like it’s only the fringe that feels this way and the mainstream Dems aren’t on board with the madness. Virtually every Democrat of note has been slobbering all over chances for woke posturing for years. There has been pushback but they’ve been dismissive of it, resorting to their boilerplate “RACIST!” retort each time.

More:

Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan wrote this week in the Wall Street Journal (subscription) that she believes the left is misreading its position and “overplaying its hand.”

• She cited a new essay by Kevin Drum, formerly of Washington Monthly and Mother Jones, who wrote: “[T]he truth is that the Democratic Party has been pulled far enough left that even lots of non-crazy people find us just plain scary — something that Fox News takes vigorous advantage of.”

I’ve frequently noted since January that the Democrats are overplaying their hand. It’s something that I hope they keep doing, as it will make next year a good one for the Republicans. We will see the political manifestation of “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

While watching the Democrats go mega-woke — especially this year — I’ve wondered aloud whether any of the party’s Beltway elite have recently had a conversation with a Democrat in flyover country. It would seem not.

It’s not unthinkable that Dems running next year would do a temporary 180 on wokeness in an effort to dupe people into voting for them. In recent weeks, we’ve seen them pretend that it was Republicans who wanted to defund the police and also try to convince the public that they’ve always been fans of voter ID. If they’re now worried about the extremely woke look on top of those two issues, the internal polling must really be rattling them.

Honestly, I don’t see how Democrats can uncouple themselves from the woke train they enthusiastically hooked themselves up to so long ago.

Related: The Cancel Woke Bullies Are Getting Pushback and It’s a Lot of Fun to Watch

I’m not the only one who thinks things will go badly for them if they keep heading down this path:

What we’re hearing: Moderate and swing-district lawmakers and aides tell Axios’ Margaret Talev and Alayna Treene that the party could suffer massive losses in next year’s midterms if Democrats run like Sen. Elizabeth Warren is president.

Day in and day out we see how tone-deaf Democratic leadership is. If Republicans are lucky, that attitude will keep rubbing off on the rest of the Beltway Dems.