>The reductionist choice of the author and the way things are phrased seem like they're fact and argument based but are just a sugar coated simple and dull opinions.
The article was in reply to an economist article, which does define what "woke" means, at least in the context of the article.
>The term woke was originally used on the left to describe people who are alert to racism. Later it came to encompass those eager to fight any form of prejudice. By that definition, it is obviously a good thing. But Democrats seldom use the word any more, because it has become associated with the most strident activists, who tend to divide the world into victims and oppressors. This outlook elevates group identity over the individual sort and sees unequal outcomes for different groups as proof of systemic discrimination. That logic is then used to justify illiberal means to correct entrenched injustices, such as reverse discrimination and the policing of speech. It is this sort of “woke warrior” that Republicans love to lambast.
>Our analysis subsumes both the advocates and the denigrators of woke thinking, by looking at ideas and actions associated with this sort of activism, for good or for ill. It measures, for example, talk of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) in the corporate world, regardless of whether it is being invoked as a way to correct the under-representation of women and racial minorities or as an example of pious window-dressing. Some of the yardsticks we use apply only to the more doctrinaire form of woke activism, such as the number of drives to censure academics for views deemed offensive. Others capture only the more positive aspects of the movement, such as polling data on the proportion of Americans who worry about racial injustice. Either way, the results are consistent: America has passed “peak woke”.
Yeah, but Cofnas provides counterarguments to this. Young people are much more woke than older people, who are still often in positions of power. As the generations shift, ideologies that are more prevalent among the young take hold. Moreover,
> The argument that we are “passed peak woke,” which recently got a boost from articles in the Economist and the New York Times, misinterprets the consolidation of the woke victory as a decline in the ideology’s power (like Crusaders buying fewer swords in the year 1100).
He goes more into detail in the article.
Democrats stopped using that word likely because seldom anyone actually used it in any significant way before it got co-opted by rhetoric that uses it to denigrate their critics. I seen it on twitter in the past but never on mainstream political discourse before it came out of Trumps mouth (in a way that crossed the Atlantic at least). Just being critical of issues that are not even controversial in Europe is enough to be tagged as infected by the woke mind virus on X/Twitter.
Coming from an "outside" view of American politics, the American left is incredibly conservative, both economically and morally so these labels are at best distractions and used by people to reinforce the duality of something that should be plural. This is a guilt that both democrats and republicans are carrying. Is just that Republicans are particularly nonchalant about what I view as anti democratic discourse.
I've seen something very similar in Brazil with the conservative parties in there adopting the "Petralha" (as in someone sympathetic to the Workers Party) or Communist as a way to denigrate any non conservative view independent of actual affiliation or opinion. Its not meant to be accurate, just mean to group all criticism together, because if you can do that, then its easier to use the stupid criticism (from radicals as you pointed out) as a reason to classify any criticism coming from "that kind of people" as stupid.
From the article shared (no the economist one) its clear that the definition adopted of woke by the author is cherry picked to be inflammatory. Likely real from some people but certainly not something that is shared among mainstream Democrats and I would bet not even a sizeable minority. Parts of it do resonate with the majority but thats part of the allure of using it, you create something obviously controversial that no one believes in full to tie everyone in the same bucket.