Peak Woke is Over

Peak woke is over; Trump’s return to the presidency has all but guaranteed it. On Trump’s first day in office, he signed two key executive orders that spelled an end to the federal propagation of woke values. The first ended diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes, which discriminated in favour of so-called ‘disadvantaged groups’ on the basis that they allegedly faced greater institutional barriers to entry but whose actual effect was to discriminate against heterosexual white men. The second sought to reinstate the conventional view on gender—that there are two genders, male and female, as determined by biology. These two policies are a reversal of the very cornerstones of the woke policy agenda, and their removal signals a clear end to the federal propagation of their values.

Republicans now control Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court, so there is little standing in the way of Trump’s enthusiasm to eradicate ‘woke’ from state institutions. Trump will benefit from this favourable political situation until at least November 2026, when the congressional elections may shift the current balance of power out of his favour. Currently, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is a mere three members, whereas in the Senate, the Republicans have a larger eight-member majority. It is also entirely possible that this upcoming election could be an opportunity for the Republicans to push their advantage even further, depending on their perceived performance in the run-up to the election.

The political climate is also shaped somewhat by the fact that more politically astute Democrats are distancing themselves from the increasingly marginalised ‘progressive’ caucus and will likely not interfere with Republican efforts to limit wokeness in a fully unified manner. They have not suddenly become bipartisan overnight, of course; this will be a pragmatic move to sanitise their party’s image as public enthusiasm for ‘woke’ policies wanes and the backlash gathers momentum. Thus, it is entirely possible that Trump can use his full term in office, rather than just his first two years, to combat wokeness in all its forms.

Trump’s election has also made waves outside of government, in the private sector, where hopeful CEOs bent the knee and willingly aligned their policies with Trump to curry favour with the incoming president. The best example of this is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who announced that his companies, Facebook and Instagram, would align their values more closely with Trump; Zuckerberg cited Trump’s election explicitly as the reason for this.

The incentive for private companies to align with Trump is twofold. Firstly, it is a risk-averse move to glide along on the prevailing wind and avoid the perception that they are aligned with controversial beliefs that might interfere with their raison d’être: the generation of revenue. Secondly, it is a strategic effort to cultivate the perception—particularly in Trump’s eyes—that they are allied with him, granting them greater access to the machinery of governance. The advantages of this are clear: legislation might be shaped in ways that serve their business interests.

This can be seen most clearly in the fact that some of the most powerful businessmen in the world—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple leader Tim Cook, and Google chief Sundar Pichai—all attended Trump’s inauguration. Representing the technology sector, who rely on government backing to break into new markets abroad and fight damaging regulations in Europe. As such, these companies view the removal of woke policies from their businesses as a price well worth paying in the pursuit of business advantage.

Whilst it seems apparent that woke is winding down at home, the Trump administration will also reduce its influence abroad. The Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, has made extensive cuts to the USAID department. The department acted as a force for ‘woke imperialism,’ spreading these values abroad inorganically by providing extensive funding to various programmes. Here are just a few examples:

• $20,600 for a drag show in Ecuador through the State Department.
• $47,020 for a transgender opera in Colombia through the State Department.
• $32,000 for an LGBTQ-centered comic book in Peru through the State Department.
• $3,315,446 for “being LGBTQ in the Caribbean” through USAID.
• $16,500 to foster a “united and equal queer-feminist discourse in Albanian society” through the State Department.
• $8,000 to promote DEI among LGBTQ groups in Cyprus through the State Department.
• $1.5 million to promote job opportunities for LGBTQ individuals in Serbia through USAID.
• $425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly through USAID.

It is clear that the removal of government backing and the uprooting of the vast networks financing the spread of woke ideas will lead them to wither. Of course, there will still be holdouts of true believers, and perhaps even a slight resurgence if conditions are right, but these ideas will never again reach the hegemonic heights of influence they once held. Despite this, there is a deeply worrying and often overlooked aspect of wokeness that speaks to a dark facet of human nature—one that is near-impossible to eliminate. This foundation in human nature suggests that another ideology, similar in essence, may take its place. However, to discern the dark omens that point to the future, one must understand both the specifics of woke ideology and the deep psychological motivations driving its propagation.

Both advocates and critics of ‘woke’ politics agree that it has been heavily influenced by the concept of intersectionality, and in many ways, the two terms could be used interchangeably. Intersectionality is a framework originating in the academic work of Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1989 book Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex. Crenshaw defines intersectionality as:

“A metaphor for understanding the ways that multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves and create obstacles that often are not understood among conventional ways of thinking.”

In simpler terms, intersectionality proposes that a person’s identity—such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and ability—intersects and interacts to create unique experiences of discrimination or privilege. The ideological roots of intersectionality can be traced to Critical Theory, developed by the Frankfurt School in interwar Weimar Germany. Prominent figures like Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer argued that systemic power relations shape social structures. Critical Theory asserts that society must be analysed through the lens of power struggles between dominant and oppressed groups. All of these ideas, taken in sum, mean that how you are treated by the government and society is determined by the characteristics of who you are, and if you are treated poorly, you must shift power from the top to yourself—a belief that is stated explicitly in woke ideology.

Although superficially political in appearance, intersectionality, and therefore wokeness, in practice is almost entirely economically focused; it seeks to extract resources from the dominant population. The moral claim underpinning ‘wokeness’ suggests that certain groups are inherently privileged, and their resources should be transferred to historically disadvantaged groups. These resources are more material (money, jobs, and access to education) than symbolic (respect, tolerance, and compassion). This is best illustrated by the real-world manifestations of woke/intersectional ideology.

Calls for reparations for slavery are almost always financial and resemble outright calls for wealth redistribution, which are also voiced on their own terms. Another clear example is DEI, which grants access to higher-quality educational courses and, ultimately, better-paying jobs. Even campaigns such as ‘defunding the police’ were framed as “transferring money to the community.” The reality, being less high-minded, is that defunding the police led to massive increases in theft—an obvious outcome, and still a direct example of a means of transferring resources. One can also look to the Black Lives Matter organisers and co-founders for examples. The Black Lives Matter co-founders purchased four mansions, three in Los Angeles and one in Atlanta, for their own personal use, thanks to their role as political activists. This self-serving use of moral social claims was mirrored across the Atlantic in one Black Lives Matter organiser in Britain who used money raised to buy “a new iPhone, hair and beauty appointments, clothing, Amazon orders, and taxis,” and was later imprisoned for fraud. These real-world examples, although compelling on their own, are also supported by a fledgling body of psychological literature that seeks to better understand the motivations of those who engage in woke politics.

This month, a research team from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, published a key piece of research replicating the results of a pioneering study, published in 2021, on the psychology of those with woke beliefs. It is crucial to recognise that woke ideology has not existed long enough to develop a comprehensive research programme—such programmes typically take decades to form. However, these early pioneering studies have proven both comprehensive and revealing in equal measure. The picture that has emerged is alarming. The research paper that the Scottish team sought to replicate operated under the theory that “victim signaling” is fundamentally about non-reciprocal resource extraction from institutions or individuals more resource-rich than oneself. In essence, people signal their victimhood to society in order to be granted resources without providing any in return. This theory received strong support from their subsequent experiments.

The research revealed a worrying connection between these ‘victim signals’ and certain personality traits, specifically those associated with the Dark Triad: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy. These traits are marked by characteristics such as grandiosity, ruthless self-interest, and a lack of empathy. Narcissists, for instance, thrive on admiration and attention; Machiavellians are driven by manipulation and moral disregard; and psychopaths exhibit impulsivity and antisocial behaviours. Across six experiments, the researchers demonstrated that individuals who frequently signal both victimhood and virtue are significantly more likely to extract resources from others, whether in the form of financial support or social capital. The data also indicated a strong link between high Dark Triad scores and an increased tendency to engage in these behaviours as a conscious strategy to acquire resources. Most revealing, however, was the discovery that those who engage in virtuous victim signaling are also far more willing to resort to other ethically dubious tactics—lying for financial gain, making exaggerated claims of harm, or even showing a greater willingness to purchase counterfeit goods. The researchers do emphasise that there can still be virtuous victims, but these moral claims, in the hands of those with manipulative tendencies, become tools of exploitation, designed to extract benefits while sidestepping any expectation of reciprocation.

The future will not bring an end to the exploitation of moral appeals for personal gain, only a change in how it is done. Both real-world examples and psychological research have demonstrated that individuals are willing to present themselves as victims of the prevailing social or political order in a calculated effort to extract resources from others. This tendency is not random; it is largely influenced by personality, which itself is significantly shaped by genetics. As such, the instinct to use morality as a means of wealth and power transfer will persist, merely taking on new forms as circumstances change.

The rise of woke politics was, in essence, a heist—an organised raid on the private property and financial security of ordinary working people. It is clear why someone who has little material wealth, and a willingness to exploit others, might hedge their bets with such an ideology in an opportunistic way, but no strategy is repeated indefinitely. Those inclined to do so will adapt, and devise new strategies to encourage people to part with their money. Right now, we are in a transition period, with the mechanisms of control shifting. Given the recent prominence of race and gender as a societal fault line, it is unlikely that these criteria will be exploited so flagrantly again. 

The best strategy for hopeful resource-extractors today would be to highlight growing economic inequality. It is true that during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, there was one of the largest resource transfers in human history from ordinary people to the financial elite. This, in many ways, is a legitimate reason to feel discontent with the political system—such a time should not be one in which others are taken advantage of. At the same time, people are still feeling the financial strain from this period, exacerbated by poor governance, and would, therefore, be receptive to such rhetoric. However, in practice, the wealthiest will use their political influence and ownership of media organisations to gently guide discourse away from specific wealthy individuals and companies. These efforts of resource extraction might prove much more fruitful—and therefore damaging to them—if they are directly targeted. Instead, they will direct the conversation toward more abstract systemic explanations. Western political and economic systems are so complex that they are difficult for many to comprehend. As a result, specific demands that might have less socially damaging outcomes will be misdirected to calls for reforming the system in a direction that extracts resources from the somewhat wealthy, somewhat comfortable middle class, rather than the elite. This would, of course, be a highly destructive outcome both socially and economically, and would spell a revival of an old enemy of the American empire: socialism. Whether, in its revival, it will assume its old form or meet with success, only the future can tell. Nevertheless, we must remain ever vigilant for new strategies of extracting resources from us by those who wish us harm, as it is not a question of “if” but “when.”