After sweeping the swing states and winning the popular vote in 2024, President Donald Trump took office with a sense that he occupied the center and had dealt the cultural left a grave blow.
asserted
he → sweep → blow
Non-aligned or heterodox voices in the podcasting world and media had gravitated toward him, alienated by the illiberalism and exotic concerns of contemporary Democrats.
Significant elements of Silicon Valley swung his way.
asserted
elements → gravitate → Valley
Trump won the debate over trans policy, and he made mass deportation — once considered outlandish — a mainstream issue.
asserted
deportation → win → policy
Sensing which way the wind was blowing, corporations begin ditching their DEI programs.
asserted
corporations → sense → programs
There wasn’t the immediate backlash against Trump’s election the way there had been the first time around, and he enjoyed some cultural cachet — NFL players, for instance, did on-field versions of his YMCA dance.
asserted
players → be → dance
All of this was referred to as a “vibe shift,” and it seemed a punctuation mark on what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now calls Woke 1.0.
asserted
Cortez → refer → what
Today, though, the vibe is bad again, and bears resemblance to the environment prior to Trump’s return to the White House.
asserted
vibe → bear → House
Once again, the elite culture is in the grips of a mass hysteria, this time about an alleged gang rape at a college campus rather than a fatal police interaction with a black suspect, whether Michael Brown or George Floyd.
asserted
culture → allege → suspect
But the triumph of narrative over fact, and the abiding belief in the systemic repression of a victim group, are the same.
asserted
triumph → abide → group
Once again, a comedian saying supposedly offensive things has led to widespread condemnations — of the same Shane Gillis who was dumped as a “Saturday Night Live” cast member during Woke 1.0.
asserted
who → say → Woke
Once again, people are being hunted down and cancelled for dumb things they said long ago: The Portland Trail Blazers fired their new TV announcer immediately upon learning that he posted a couple of offensive things on social media as a 15-year-old.
asserted
he → hunt → old
The culture is unlikely to reach the same level of insanity it did after the death of George Floyd, when seemingly every major institution in American life instantly adopted a DEI mindset — but the woke fever has dissipated, not broken.
asserted
fever → reach → mindset
The most consequential political leaders tend to pull the other party in their direction.
asserted
leaders → tend → direction
This is what Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher did with the Democratic and Labour Parties, respectively (via Bill Clinton and Tony Blair).
asserted
Reagan → do → Clinton
We won’t know how Democrats ultimately decide to react to Trump until 2028 or perhaps 2032, but the party is radicalizing at the moment rather than trying to retreat to a relatively sensible center.
asserted
party → know → center
This creates the possibility of an even more inflamed, DSA-inflected Democratic Party taking unified control of Washington in 2028, and allying with — and supporting via policy decisions — the woke forces in the culture.
asserted
Party → create → culture
Trump’s standing will have much to do with whether such a thing happens.
asserted
thing → have → much
Right now, 2024 feels like a long time ago, when Trump positioned himself as the common-sense candidate more in tune with everyday concerns and sensibilities than his opponents.
asserted
Trump → feel → opponents
He’s currently underwater on nearly every issue, and many of his interests — building projects, naming disputes — aren’t those of the public.
asserted
many → ’ → public
The same Trump who has been a check on cultural radicalism could, as his second term enters its third and fourth year, become an accelerant on it.
uncertain
term → enter → it
Now, it might be that Democrats don’t have the blow-out midterm that they expect, in part because the party is still radioactive.
uncertain
party → have → part
And it’s always possible that the woke ideology is too extreme to regain its ascendancy.
But the power of this point of view never depended on public persuasion so much as having allies in positions of influence, and bullying fence-sitters and cowards to go along.
asserted
power → regain → sitters
What we know is that this tendency hasn’t gone away, and it could be set to flow again rather than ebb.
uncertain
it → know → What
The vibe isn’t what it was in 2020, a year of mass irrationality, but it’s disquieting all the same — with the potential to get much worse.
asserted
it → disquiet → potential
The Aporia
