"the woke right"
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A few key differences, though.
First, language: "Alt right" was relatively neutral (on language, not usage), and just meant "alternative right," and some adopted it and proudly identified as that. Meanwhile "woke right" is a smear, and no one will be adopting it.
Secondly, "Alt right" described a real group of people, and "woke right" is, again, just a smear/attack. It's not as cohesive a term, either, and a bunch of different unrelated things can get you labeled as "woke right." As we see, even being against H-1Bs is apparently "woke right" behavior. Basically, I just don't think "woke right" fits anywhere near as well as "alt right," and by it's very nature makes less sense as an identifier (positive or negative), and is just used as an attack vector. It's ambiguous and fluid enough to be useless.
Weren't basically the originators still the main pushers? No one got ahold of it; this was always how it was meant to be used. They're just incompetents, so it still makes no sense.
Of course, but my point was there is a huge disconnect between people who use it organically to describe something it obviously means ("alternative to the GOP type right" and "Righties acting like the Woke") and the oddly specific definition being pushed as some form of gayop from someone (Bannon's version of the "altright" and this new "Woke Right" that's only about racism somehow?)
Its the same problem at play. A label that gains traction as an informal use that we all just know what is being meant by it being said, and then the "Official Recognition" comes around from Talking Heads and Twitter where it means something not even close to what its been used for.
I can remember it being used offhandedly going back quite some time. The big recent one is that one e-thot (Melonie something) that someone kept spamming here and that entire discussion on how some people on the Right aren't any different than the Woke.
And then "suddenly" in the middle of the entire H1B fiasco, its being used everywhere in a completely different context and meaning as if its always existed like that. Its suspicious in both timing and how perfectly it fits when an Ultra Billionaire needs a name to exile his critics from the party using a word (Woke) that is now associated with "bad" to everyone.
Prior to all this, if I said "woke right" you would know exactly what I was referring to. We didn't need a definition, we didn't need to discuss it. We just knew the type of thing I was getting at and that was it. Same with "alt right" back in the day before it got picked up. Its repeating the same thing.
Also, just for fun, "Woke" used to also be a relatively neutral label that was self-identifying. It came from the phrase "Stay Woke" and was about people being awoken to issues and staying on top of all the ways it gets propagated in culture/society. It actually perfectly fits most of our Jewish Question posters here in the manner it was used and propagated at the time.
But it was mostly used by Tumblr people talking about Far Left nonsense, so it eventually became associated with that and then turned into a smear specifically against that type of Terminally Online Far Leftism. And now that is its only usage, as they've long abandoned it (especially with the obvious ties it has to The Red Pill as a metaphor, its too dangerous for them).
So, ironically, "Woke" went through the same trajectory as "alt right" did just on the opposite side of the aisle.
Kisin has been whining about the woke right for a year or two. He attacked Tucker with the label about a year ago, that was one of the big blowups, then attacked Tucker and Candace Owens months ago.
That's my point; I think the popular usage was always the smear at the more dissident right, by Kisin and Lindsay. Any "organic" usage was almost nonexistent by comparison, although I agree that that usage and the popular usage are at exact opposite ends, essentially.
Fair enough. And I both completely agree and disagree. It's my own mental block, but I just can't really see past that it didn't seem like anyone really was using it organically. It didn't gain traction, is my sticking point. A few uses here and there, but no traction, and "woke right" was never a group, just a concept that was rarely called by those words. There is a woke right (I'd argue woke "right," but that's another topic), but it wasn't really named (although often somewhat haphazardly covered by other phrases like "RINO" or "GOPe.")
Other than that, I completely agree. It got twisted for specific ends by, primarily, Kisin and Lindsay, and no longer means anything close to what it would instinctively mean.
Again, it was used against Tucker a year ago. I think it's just such a badly applied label it never gets traction, even when it does blow up, so it keeps feeling like it's happening for the first time. Tucker was woke. Candace was woke. And I think a few others, not as big. Anyone who speaks up on the issue on the Wrong Side is obviously woke right too. So you did get people like Dave Smith being labeled "woke right" when he called them out on it.
Yeah, good point. Again, I didn't really hear it much, but it's true that, back in time around a year, I'd instinctively know what was meant, if you said that.
Fair enough, I don't keep up with all these Talking Heads and their nonsense because I find it both draining and literally pathetic e-daddy worship how most people do. So the little details of it are always lost to me. So if it was happening back then that's completely out of my knowledge zone.
Well, gaining traction is how things turn out this way ain't it? When I said it myself, I didn't "hear it from somewhere else." I wasn't adopting the language being used by "my team."
I saw something happen and the words formulated on their own as the best descriptor for what I was seeing. Which is why you'd just know what I meant by it, because its a sincere and organic phoneme, if I can call it that in this context.
But it seems like for a lot of people, its all the same "consensus based" nonsense. They wait for the latest Grifter or Influencer to tell them how to feel, and how to label things, and the Newest Outrage Label to smear with and go from there. And that is how it "gains traction" and becomes something completely at odds with what the words literally mean.
I suppose its the difference between those of us on the "Right" through thinking things on our own, and those we seem to live and breathe the latest news from Tucker/Owens/Twitter/etc to pick what new thing to be outraged and mad about today.
This sounds accusatory towards you but I don't mean to point any of it to you personally as it doesn't seem applicable, but we also both know people who it does apply to. Also:
Owens was always woke. Her literal rise to fame was trying to do something so fucking woke the Woke themselves formed rank to destroy her because it would drag them down to. And she "switched sides" entirely out of grudge and ego from that event. She only seems "based" because she is carefully crafting her image to be this perfect icon for the more rebellious Right at any time and always says exactly what you want to hear. Except its from a black woman so its worth more, because identity politics are good if we do them!
That's not really relevant to your point, but I never miss a chance to shit on Owens.