I think that's fine as a criticism of red-brown "homophobia is the real leftism/anti-imperialism" types like Infrared (which seem to descend from Stalinist social conservatism), but historically broader complaints about "woke capital" probably descend from 1/ the 2016 Democratic primary, with Hillary supporters using 'SJ' rhetoric about "Bernie bros" against the progressive/socialist-ish wing of the party, 2/ performative statements of support for 'SJ' causes or use of 'SJ' language from established institutions ('pinkwashing', 'DEI', etc.) which probably peaked around 2020. I don't think any of this is remotely relevant in 2025 tho.
Not exactly to the main point of this article, but I feel this somewhat conflates the ideas of "imperialism" and "America, specifically, taking military action outside its borders." This difference is sometimes relevant, as one may see people like Noam Chomsky decrying American interventions but defending things like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
At the end of this post, you note that the woke imperialists tend to actually be fairly moderate Democrats and that this fits into your model. This seems correct to me, and I think leftists would generally agree with this and would also agree that genuinely woke people and intellectuals are usually not interventionist.
As for whether the Democrats are different than the Republicans on foreign policy, I think you overstate the case. Yes, Obama signed the JCPOA. But Biden didn’t even try to redo the deal! And Harris actually said in an interview that Iran was the country that posed the greatest threat to the United States (which is insane). My take on why Dems largely opposed Trump’s attack on Iran is that it has way more to do with negative polarization and less to do with an opposition to interventionism.
"Now, perhaps the narrative is just that the Democratic party, despite talking a big game about social liberalism, really is just the mirror image of the Republican party on foreign policy—albeit with more pride parades."
Sorry, the way I put it (you noting this) is not accurate.
Re the Democrats and intervention, I'm just claiming that it's not really clear they are any less interventionist, and I don't think opposing the Iran strikes ought to necessarily be interpreted as reflecting a less interventionist stance than the GOP.
I think maybe a better framing is that those making claims from the left about dems loving imperialism are pointing that accusation not at fellow “wokies”. The accusation is from your commie/tankies who hold the genuine belief that liberals are just actually conservatives (insane albeit). At least, from the left, it’s an “anti-lib” not “anti-woke”.
Woke imperialists want foreign policy directed at the most obviously 'right wing' enemies. In the past, they clamored for the destruction of the German empire and then the Nazis. In the present, they want Russia dismantled and broken up into a few dozen states. They would be pro Arab-spring movements, but have some queasiness about how often those turned into ISIS jihadi cesspits.
Specifically in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding suburbs, I think the reverse is real. That is, if you find out someone works for an organization involved in bombing foreign countries, you should think it more likely they support LGBTQ rights.
Sort of a “man bites dog” story because arms manufacturers, the military, and intelligence organizations all need to employ thousands of typical college-educated professionals with typical views.
One place where the “woke imperialism” thing was real was the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. Hillary used various woke arguments against Bernie Sanders while being much more interventionist than Bernie Sanders. I don’t think Bernie ever pointed out that Hillary’s appeals to social justice were ridiculous considering how much unnecessary bloodshed she’d used her powerful positions to promote, but he should have.
I also think excessive wokeness tends to divide and weaken antiwar movements, leading to more wars, but that’s a different thing from woke people actually supporting wars.
You did not parse the sentence structure of Butler's quote (which I have never seen before) correctly. Indeed, the move away from a structuralist account, in which capital is understood to structure social relations (in relatively homologous ways), is not particularly subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation. Rather, there is a view of hegemony in which *power relations* are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation, and the move away from a structuralist account is also a move towards that view of hegemony.
I also believe you misunderstand (or have constructed a straw man replacing) the allegation of imperialism you so easily refute. The American "empire" is one of cultural domination; the strength of the imperial hold corresponds to the embrace of American "values." It is very easy to find evidence that the idea that leftists want to use the armed forces to promote queer acceptance around the world is false, but harder to show that they do not want to export the values of queer acceptance around the world, period—and it is leftists themselves who usually identify "cultural imperialism" as a form of, well, imperialism.
You only talked about US-based woke. In my country, Romania, and I guess in many other European countries, the woke tend to be more hawkish. Also, I observe that people tend to be less hawkish the farther they are from the center. You will find many anti-interventionists on the *cultural* (and, sometimes, economic) right. On domestic issues, of course, I find the centrist usually far more reasonable. But on foreign policy I prefer annoying leftists with weird pronouns rather than mere liberals who like rainbows and rainbow-language, and I prefer right wing pundits from the manosphere, rather than moderate evangelical capitalists who love wars in the Middle East. There's also a divide in the topics that trigger hawkishness. Liberals tend to go berserk when they hear about Russia, and that was the case even before 2022, and they are a bit less hawkish when it comes to the Middle East. Conservatives tend to be a hit less hawkish against Russia in the US (they still associate it with the USSR) - though they tend to be extreme hawks in Europe - but they are very hawkish against Iran or China.
Infrared is MAGA communist and MAGA communists are like Nazbols or something. They aren't actual, serious communists. What serious communists say about rainbow capitalism is that - capitalism (whether rainbow or not) will necessarily lead to imperialism because when monopoly capitalism (think of big businesses, big banks, corporations, big private firms) rises in a country, it starts to bribe or lobby politicians and tells them to do certain things - such as - "Hey look, we want that oil from another country cheaply alright.... we don't want to give more money for that... so, don't let those communists or socialists nationalize or socialize their major industries which would mean more expensive deals for us rather than cheap deals that we want. We shall give money to a small group of sellouts or fascists in those countries (give them a few million or even a few billion and tell them to give us cheaper or better trade deals for us, but that would still be overall cheaper for us than if socialists did the socialist stuff in their countries)"
When I saw the title I thought it would be about whether far left people tend to justify Russian (and perhaps some other non-Western) imperialism. That at least sounds like a plausible claim
A case of "woke imperialism" that comes to mind is the infamous Ana Mardoll / Lockheed Martin drama. Not sure about the exact details of the political justification here, however.
I think that's fine as a criticism of red-brown "homophobia is the real leftism/anti-imperialism" types like Infrared (which seem to descend from Stalinist social conservatism), but historically broader complaints about "woke capital" probably descend from 1/ the 2016 Democratic primary, with Hillary supporters using 'SJ' rhetoric about "Bernie bros" against the progressive/socialist-ish wing of the party, 2/ performative statements of support for 'SJ' causes or use of 'SJ' language from established institutions ('pinkwashing', 'DEI', etc.) which probably peaked around 2020. I don't think any of this is remotely relevant in 2025 tho.
Not exactly to the main point of this article, but I feel this somewhat conflates the ideas of "imperialism" and "America, specifically, taking military action outside its borders." This difference is sometimes relevant, as one may see people like Noam Chomsky decrying American interventions but defending things like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
At the end of this post, you note that the woke imperialists tend to actually be fairly moderate Democrats and that this fits into your model. This seems correct to me, and I think leftists would generally agree with this and would also agree that genuinely woke people and intellectuals are usually not interventionist.
As for whether the Democrats are different than the Republicans on foreign policy, I think you overstate the case. Yes, Obama signed the JCPOA. But Biden didn’t even try to redo the deal! And Harris actually said in an interview that Iran was the country that posed the greatest threat to the United States (which is insane). My take on why Dems largely opposed Trump’s attack on Iran is that it has way more to do with negative polarization and less to do with an opposition to interventionism.
Wait sorry where do I note that.
As I said, the Democrats support various kinds of intervention, but the Republicans support *more* kinds of intervention.
This is what I was referring to:
"Now, perhaps the narrative is just that the Democratic party, despite talking a big game about social liberalism, really is just the mirror image of the Republican party on foreign policy—albeit with more pride parades."
Sorry, the way I put it (you noting this) is not accurate.
Re the Democrats and intervention, I'm just claiming that it's not really clear they are any less interventionist, and I don't think opposing the Iran strikes ought to necessarily be interpreted as reflecting a less interventionist stance than the GOP.
Disagree but seems hard to say much more about this.
I think maybe a better framing is that those making claims from the left about dems loving imperialism are pointing that accusation not at fellow “wokies”. The accusation is from your commie/tankies who hold the genuine belief that liberals are just actually conservatives (insane albeit). At least, from the left, it’s an “anti-lib” not “anti-woke”.
But the liberals and woke aren't generally the same people.
Woke imperialists want foreign policy directed at the most obviously 'right wing' enemies. In the past, they clamored for the destruction of the German empire and then the Nazis. In the present, they want Russia dismantled and broken up into a few dozen states. They would be pro Arab-spring movements, but have some queasiness about how often those turned into ISIS jihadi cesspits.
Specifically in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding suburbs, I think the reverse is real. That is, if you find out someone works for an organization involved in bombing foreign countries, you should think it more likely they support LGBTQ rights.
Sort of a “man bites dog” story because arms manufacturers, the military, and intelligence organizations all need to employ thousands of typical college-educated professionals with typical views.
Good article.
One place where the “woke imperialism” thing was real was the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. Hillary used various woke arguments against Bernie Sanders while being much more interventionist than Bernie Sanders. I don’t think Bernie ever pointed out that Hillary’s appeals to social justice were ridiculous considering how much unnecessary bloodshed she’d used her powerful positions to promote, but he should have.
I also think excessive wokeness tends to divide and weaken antiwar movements, leading to more wars, but that’s a different thing from woke people actually supporting wars.
You did not parse the sentence structure of Butler's quote (which I have never seen before) correctly. Indeed, the move away from a structuralist account, in which capital is understood to structure social relations (in relatively homologous ways), is not particularly subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation. Rather, there is a view of hegemony in which *power relations* are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation, and the move away from a structuralist account is also a move towards that view of hegemony.
I also believe you misunderstand (or have constructed a straw man replacing) the allegation of imperialism you so easily refute. The American "empire" is one of cultural domination; the strength of the imperial hold corresponds to the embrace of American "values." It is very easy to find evidence that the idea that leftists want to use the armed forces to promote queer acceptance around the world is false, but harder to show that they do not want to export the values of queer acceptance around the world, period—and it is leftists themselves who usually identify "cultural imperialism" as a form of, well, imperialism.
The claim is usually something closer to the Woke are in favor of things like:
* defending Ukraine.
* more aggressively blocking China/Taiwan reunification.
* Engaging in a Manichean "Democracy vs Authoritarianism" that one saw in the Biden years.
* More culturally imperialist---using things like USAID or Radio Free Asia to try to topple nonliberal governments.
I'm not saying these claims are correct, but I think that's a more accurate version of the original claim you're arguing against.
You only talked about US-based woke. In my country, Romania, and I guess in many other European countries, the woke tend to be more hawkish. Also, I observe that people tend to be less hawkish the farther they are from the center. You will find many anti-interventionists on the *cultural* (and, sometimes, economic) right. On domestic issues, of course, I find the centrist usually far more reasonable. But on foreign policy I prefer annoying leftists with weird pronouns rather than mere liberals who like rainbows and rainbow-language, and I prefer right wing pundits from the manosphere, rather than moderate evangelical capitalists who love wars in the Middle East. There's also a divide in the topics that trigger hawkishness. Liberals tend to go berserk when they hear about Russia, and that was the case even before 2022, and they are a bit less hawkish when it comes to the Middle East. Conservatives tend to be a hit less hawkish against Russia in the US (they still associate it with the USSR) - though they tend to be extreme hawks in Europe - but they are very hawkish against Iran or China.
Infrared is MAGA communist and MAGA communists are like Nazbols or something. They aren't actual, serious communists. What serious communists say about rainbow capitalism is that - capitalism (whether rainbow or not) will necessarily lead to imperialism because when monopoly capitalism (think of big businesses, big banks, corporations, big private firms) rises in a country, it starts to bribe or lobby politicians and tells them to do certain things - such as - "Hey look, we want that oil from another country cheaply alright.... we don't want to give more money for that... so, don't let those communists or socialists nationalize or socialize their major industries which would mean more expensive deals for us rather than cheap deals that we want. We shall give money to a small group of sellouts or fascists in those countries (give them a few million or even a few billion and tell them to give us cheaper or better trade deals for us, but that would still be overall cheaper for us than if socialists did the socialist stuff in their countries)"
When I saw the title I thought it would be about whether far left people tend to justify Russian (and perhaps some other non-Western) imperialism. That at least sounds like a plausible claim
It's the 'anti-woke' ones (like the aforementioned Infrared) doing that.
A case of "woke imperialism" that comes to mind is the infamous Ana Mardoll / Lockheed Martin drama. Not sure about the exact details of the political justification here, however.
Democrats: bombing their way to a more inclusive world since 1965 😆