So Woke is dead. What’s next?

Just don’t expect Left/Right politics.

A recurring theme on this site has been the redefinition of “the right” as anti-woke. In fact just about every (prominent) right wing think tank, commentator, media organisation has launched a crusade against lefty-woke. Similarly, “the left” and liberal establishment has been redefined as the chief protagonists for woke. Books have been written about it - by the team at Spiked, for example - and the podcast bros of “the new Right” are fond of highlighting the more grotesque, parody-like extremities of “the Left”. “He/She can’t even say what a woman is…etc”. You get the idea.

This is a relatively recent phenomenon. I used to describe myself, for example, as socially Left and fiscally Right. But this wouldn’t work any longer. To be socially Left has been redefined as being supportive of gender diversity and puberty blockers and weird pronouns. Meanwhile, fiscally right means nothing really. No-one on “the right”, it appears, has anything to say about public debt spiralling out of control, or proxy wars, or NHS spending on Palantir’s snooping and surveillance systems.

In effect, “bread and circuses” diversionary tactics are being used to bedazzle the middle classes in the same way that a constant diet of media trivia is used to keep the apolitical stupid and compliant. It’s the, “Oh look, a cat video…” approach to politics and social control.

Two supremely wonderful examples of this hit social media yesterday: the ‘TriggerNometry’ interview with the ‘rent-a-lefty’ Steven Fry; and the ‘exit stage left holding face in hands’ reaction to Farage’s bromance with Elon Musk.

Let’s start with Konstantin Kisin’s interview with Fry (Kisin does have a side-kick “comedian” interviewer with him on his Trigger podcast, but he rarely says or asks anything). Now, I must admit that I haven’t watched this podcast in full. I’m relying on a clip that has been doing the rounds on Twitter. In this clip, Fry admits his concern about the re-emergence of “the Right” (presumably like Trump and the podcast bros) but admits that “the Left” is largely to blame for this - presumably for not taking a greater stand against woke bullshit.

Now this is very handy. Kisin has now managed to extract an admission from celebrity gay-darling Lefty Fry that the root of the demise of “the Left” is a failure to debunk Tranny nonsense. Meanwhile prominent lefties jump at the opportunity to applaud Stephen’s common sense.

And there we have it. The Left should be less woke. And, suddenly, Left/Right politics is game on again.

Now, is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the woke/lefty Labour Party pretty much nodded through every draconian, authoritarian and coercive measure that the Conservative government dictated during the fake pandemic? And now that they’ve taken over control of the tiller the Labour government seems remarkably similar to the Conservative administration. The deficit is worse under Labour than it was under Sunak (quite a feat). Labour’s tacit support for the carpet-bombing of Gaza looks very similar to the Conservatives’ tacit support. Which looks very similar to the Trump cabinet’s overt support. The Labour Party has talked about a fiscal black hole - but it’s not the (ever-growing) £2.7 trillion of public debt, but something else that no-one quite understands. And, meanwhile, Starmer supports all the same things that the Conservatives supported (e.g. the Ukrainians’ fight for freedom, the sanctions against nasty Russia and Net Zero yada).

Meanwhile, in Mar-a-Lago, Nigel Farage is schmoozin’ around with his new woke-rejecting and NeoCon chums, including the President (Elect)’s Chief Bro, Elon Musk.

Now this is interesting because Farage clearly is the only UK political leader who leads with the same single issue that Trump and Musk led with on the campaign trail: the threat from border crossings of illegals. Indeed, Farage has no discernible interest in politics apart from his fanaticism about boat-people. During ‘the vaccination’ he was happily coerced into the obligatory photo being jibby-jabbed. He praised vaccine roll-out and the UK’s success at jabbing the population ahead of the EU nations. His Deputy Leader was photographed somewhere in Ukraine supporting (in a safe place) the Zelensky regime.

Farage leaves it to his fellow MPs (well, Rupert Lowe) to say the things he appears unwilling to say about the extent of UK debt, or MHRA corruption, or the dumping of Ammonium Nitrate in the English Channel. Because Nigel needs to maintain the illusion that he’s a saviour politician, helping to restore “the Right’s” supremacy by sucking-up to Corporatist billionaires outside of UK sovereign territory.

Andrew Griffiths, the Conservative Party apparatchik, and former Economic Secretary to the Treasury, was seriously miffed, of course, when it was suggested that Farage’s Reform Party (what’s it reforming exactly?) might be recipient of some serious dosh - presumably paid using Howard Lutnick’s Tether stablecoins. Griffiths made the point that the Conservatives would be better at doing the stuff that the weeny Reform Party is doing. Probably with woke-rejecting bells on.

Farage’s sucking-up to the NeoCon Corporatists in Mar-a-Lago, let’s face it, is little different to Starmer’s sucking up to Gates and Fink in Downing Street or Kemi’s appointing various hedge fund managers to her “senior team”. It’s all the same, corporatist snout-in-troughing that has defined politics in the US and the UK for decades, possibly centuries. There is no Left/Right. There is merely one brand of corporate ownership - and fleecing of taxpayers - or another. Take your pick.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that our political leaders will never bite the hands that feed them. An obliging mainstream media or pandering alternative media has no interest in upsetting the organised crime cartels that control our civil society to suit their own ends. America and the United Kingdom are terminally indebted economies that are almost wholly controlled by corporations that cannot let voters know too much about the enslaving financial systems they have created.

Many working people can barely make their monthly salaries cover their outgoings. Young professionals in London, and New York, have no prospect of buying into the property market given the levels of residential property inflation and corporate ownership of property assets (by companies like BlackRock). Inflation is on the rise again and will soon return to double-digit levels - as Central Banks print more money to pay the interest charges on ever-rising debt or more NATO inspired theatres of war. Meanwhile the US Treasury will jump on board the bitcoin pump and dump scheme - to provide some short-term impetus to the 2025 version of the Tulip Bulb Market Bubble.

If Woke is dead, grifting isn’t. The Trump administration presents a somewhat different cast of characters but, behind the scenes, are the same corporate money grabbers that need to keep the market demand for trivia at full tilt. Farage may get his digital shekels from Musk. He might even end up leading the biggest and most popular political party of “the right” at the next general election - which might be sooner than you might expect. But nothing much is going to change apart from the colour of the logo and the roster of corporate celebrities visiting Downing Street.