Woke 101: What does socialism have to do with woke?

They are intimately connected.

This article is a part of the Woke 101 series, which will get you up to speed on the basics that they don't teach you when you become a soldier in the culture war.

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Recently, a long-time member of my community asked me, “Karlyn, what exactly does socialism have to do with woke?”

Since she asked it, I thought others may have the same question. So, let’s break it down.

Woke Means Authoritarian

Woke, as I define it, means authoritarian. This definition will upset some people, who insist that woke be defined purely in reference to the political left. I disagree with those people - I define terms based on their practical meaning, or how they functionally show up in and impact people’s lives.

I have always maintained that our battle is not left versus right, Democrat versus Republican, Progressive versus Conservative. It’s authoritarian versus libertarian, people who want to rule over others and those who advocate for individual liberty and freedom.

Woke can, and does, exist on both the political left and the political right. On the right, it comes in the form of white identitarians (yes, those are real), Christian nationalists, and really anyone who demands to force their religious ideology on others. I’m old enough to remember the Satanic Panic in the 90s. The conservative right invented cancel culture, and its first real success was canceling the Dixie Chicks for being against the war in Iraq in the early 2000s. I can look around today and see what some on the political right do to anyone who doesn’t want to legislate their religion. Hell, I experienced it two years ago when I dared talk about my non-Judeo/Christian spiritual beliefs and was smeared by the conservative right to millions of people as retribution for not parroting their talking points. To this day, the worst cancelations I’ve ever experienced did not come from the political left - they came from the political right.

None of that answers the question of how woke is related to socialism, but it’s necessary background. I don’t want to give the impression that I believe that woke is solely the domain of the political left, because I do not.

However, the political left is far more dangerous than the political right.

Woke on the political right is annoying, aggravating, and infuriating. They make the fight against the real enemy near impossible.

And that’s a shame because they have no shot of ever beating the left. Because the left has significantly more power, and is significantly more dangerous because of it.

The right is stupid…but they’re not dangerous.

The left is dangerous…and they aren’t stupid.

The woke left played the long game - they amassed institutional power while the political right was focused on attaining political power.

Institutional power is much stronger than political power, and is virtually impossible to overcome once it’s attained.

I explained the difference between the two in this article in my Woke Mind series:

The difference in the way the woke left gained power - by taking over the institutions - makes them far more dangerous than the political right, because that power cannot be removed by winning an election. The GOP could take over every branch of government and the woke left would still be more powerful because taking over branches of government does not mean you take over institutions outside of the government, or even the agencies within it. Donald Trump found that out when he failed to drain the swamp.

We focus our attention on the political left because they are winning. And it’s not even close. They will be driving the direction of the country for at least the next generation, and likely longer.

On the political left, woke comes from socialism.

If you want a preview of the direction the country is headed in, you have to go to the source.

And make no mistake, the source of the ideas inundating us in the form of critical race theory, systemic racism, gender ideology, transitioning kids, the proliferation of queer kids, attacks on parental rights, etc… all come from one place: Socialism.

In my book Actively Unwoke, I write the following:

I was a Democrat for twenty years before leaving the party in early 2020 when I came to the realization that they had abandoned the values of individual liberty and freedom that I had joined the party for.

I bring this up because when I was a Democrat, and even still today, it drives me crazy when I hear conservatives and Republicans ranting about a socialist/communist agenda in relation to everything the political left wants to do. It’s a default excuse they use to oppose something when they’re too lazy to come up with a real argument or an alternative solution.

However, in this case they’re actually not wrong.

I know that, for some of you, the threat of socialism/communism might seem silly or cheesy but in this case it’s real, and you’ll understand why as this chapter unfolds. For right now what you need to know is that wherever you sit on the political spectrum—left, right, center, or off in the land of the politically homeless—this is not one of those times where you should dismiss the idea of a socialist ideology attempting to corrupt our systems. That’s literally happening in precisely the way Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov told us it would in the 1980s. (Look up those videos on YouTube, if they haven’t censored them yet.)

Three years ago, I started watching long-form woke trainings on my YouTube channel at least once again. I called these streams Happy Hour and we do them on Fridays at 5pm eastern.

Over a year ago, I stumbled upon far-left socialist activists and started deep diving into the further of the far left. This is what became Socialism Saturday, which I stream live on Saturdays at 6pm eastern.

When I study political factions and tribes, I pay very close attention to the patterns in the language that they are using, because it can help you to identify which groups they are a part of and who is influencing them. Conservatives do not use the same language as Libertarians, who do not use the same language as traditional Democrats, who do not use the same language as Socialists.

If you want to know where ideas are coming from, you follow the language. Language is something people don’t give a great deal of thought to, but it gives away the ball game.

When I graduated into far-left dystopian socialism, the first thing that was striking to me was that it was all the same language of the woke left use, but it was on an elevated, more advanced level.

It was almost like the ideas originating from the socialist far-left had trickled down in a subtle game of telephone to the progressives on the left, who they were using as useful idiots to advance their ideology.

Then, those ideas filtered into the mainstream Democratic party.

When we watch far-left socialists from 3-10 years ago, the ideas they were talking about back then are showing up as the talking points of the Democratic Party today.

What that means is that the real far-left socialists are not just these crazy people existing in coffee shops and bookstores, in the dark corners of the internet or in the bowels of college campuses.

They are the ones driving the talking points of the mainstream Democratic party, and thus driving our entire culture.

Socialism is a cult.

I truly believe that. It’s its own ecosystem where the cult members really only interact with people in the cult to have their ideas permanently reinforced and affirmed and are terrified of anyone outside the cult.

And this cult wants to destabilize our entire world to force collectivism on all of us.

Most of the time, people think of cults as things that happen to other people. Not something that impacts their lives in any real way.

The problem is that this particular cult controls what your children are learning in public schools, where they use taxpayer-funded systems to indoctrinate your children into their cult.

So, why do we pay attention to socialists? What does it have to do with woke?

We pay attention because they’re trying to force all of us to join their cult, and the useful idiots in the Democratic Party are helping them.

Socialism is a terrifying preview of what comes next.

Want to learn how to spot the language?

I’m hosting a free event on October 4 to teach you. And if you stumble upon this after that date, you will be able to access it on demand:

Questions?

Let me know in the comments!

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I believe the woke - on the left and the right - are an existential threat to our values as Americans. Some of them know it, most of them are just useful innocents. Regardless, fighting back against this woke cultural revolution is my full-time job. I’m dedicated to exposing the woke ideology in our country, helping people to understand what’s going on, and providing spaces for non-woke people to connect, support each other, and plan ways to fight back.

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