“Woke is officially DEAD,” Donald Trump announced last summer. That has been a common refrain since the 2024 election: the anti-western, anti-white, pro-transgender ideology is over. The excesses of left-wing radicalism have been rejected. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. We’re all still living under the yoke of woke.
Just look at Chicago. Over the Memorial Day weekend, 38 people were injured by gunfire and two were shot dead. Five police officers were hurt when a car drove into a crowd amid widespread disorder. This happened in a city where the Democratic mayor, Brandon Johnson, promised to defund the police. In the summer of 2020, the then-Cook County commissioner passed a resolution to “redirect funds from policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement that promote community health and safety equitably.”
He has since abandoned the sloganeering elements of the Defund the Police movement; it was electorally toxic. But the underlying policy implications remain. Chicago is in desperate need of more and better-trained police. The City Council has requested another 300 frontline officers. Of course, the mayor has not defunded his own security detail of more than 100 officers.
Those who commit illegal acts are victims; attempts by the state to enforce laws are oppressive
Johnson is not alone. In Seattle, residents of Aurora Avenue have erected barricades to protect themselves from nightly gang shootings, prostitution and drug dealers. The Democratic mayor, Katie Wilson, was another advocate for Defund the Police – which the city duly did. Now, Seattle’s police union estimates that the city is suffering from a shortfall of some 800 officers.
Diversity, equity and inclusion may have failed in the boardroom, but 2026 could prove to be the year that militant extremism enters the Capitol. In Maine, Graham Platner is the presumptive Democratic nominee in the Senate race, a military veteran who has now altered the purported Nazi SS tattoo on his chest so it resembles a cuddly animal. Platner has described himself as a “communist” and rural white Americans as “racist and stupid.” He has also argued in favor of political violence and has said that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”
The Democrats are now a party in which one in five voters believe the killing of United Healthcare chief executive Brian Thompson by suspect Luigi Mangione in 2024 was justified.
In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed is the most likely Democratic candidate for the Senate race in November. El-Sayed is a committed socialist who refuses to say whether he believes Israel has a right to exist, and has called for ICE to be abolished. Again and again, from such figures, we see the same ideological blinkering at work. Those who commit illegal acts are victims; attempts by the state to enforce its own laws are a form of oppression. Arguments over pronouns may have receded, but candidates who want to abolish America’s borders are on the rise.
El-Sayed has campaigned alongside Hasan Piker, an online star among leftist Democrats, who once said “America deserved 9/11.” Piker grew his political following as a streamer, filming himself playing video games for his three million followers. He has found that crass and extreme comments, such as calling Orthodox Jews “inbred” and comparing Zionists to Nazis, bring him lots of attention. Last year, Chinese state television invited him to visit the country. He said afterward that America should “adopt and emulate” the policies of the People’s Republic. Piker is highly influential among very online, very left-wing voters. He is a sign of where American politics could be heading.
The Democrats were once recognizably liberal, prioritizing individual rights, regulated markets and expanded social freedoms, all through incremental change. Today, however, the party is marching towards something more sinister. In Colorado, the 74-year-old moderate Senator John Hicken-looper, a pro-business Democrat, is being challenged by self-described “insurgent progressive” Julie Gonzales. She too wants to see ICE abolished, alongside universal childcare and housing. Such politics still strike the majority of Americans as anathema, although socialism is gaining ground among the young and middle-aged.
Two-thirds of Democrats now have a favorable view of socialism. So-called progressives believe America and the West are fundamentally evil. They want to see jails opened and military bases dismantled. They want to overthrow, not reform, America’s institutions.
Democrats are increasingly calling for wealth taxes, rent controls, anti-incarceration and anti-Israel policies, and an end to immigration enforcement. Analilia Mejia, a former Bernie Sanders staffer who is now a New Jersery congresswoman, wants to see Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito impeached. No Supreme Court Justice has ever been removed in such a way. But current Democrats are willing to countenance revolutionary politics.
What we are seeing is not the end of woke ideology but its evolution from a kind of corporate ultra-political correctness into something more openly dark and extreme. Today, electoral politics is the arena in which the woke project is thriving. Older, established Democrats in Washington have slowly lost control over the party apparatus. A younger, angrier generation is more than willing to take their place.
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