I’m working on a companion piece about dealing with the “woke right” – right-wing movements that have adopted many of the same tactics as the woke left. Should be out next Sunday. If that sounds interesting, feel free to subscribe.
Excellent piece, insightful and amusing on point as always. I'm glad you differentiated between the old left and the new lot because they are totally different things. I'm not even sure right and left make sense anymore. We need new and better names. Woke was useful for a bit, and progressive didn't always used to be derogatory, but they've made it so.
Thanks, Alice. I agree, our political vocabulary of 'left' and 'right' no longer does the job, at least not in a way that adequately explains what’s going on. Certainly, the progressive left bears little resemblance to the traditional left of the past.
Increasingly, it feels as though the divide is less ideological and more epistemic –between those who still care about truth and are willing to defend it (however uncomfortable or complex that may be) and those who align with tribes and defend them regardless, truth be damned.
"This is the dirty secret of the progressive class. They’re exquisitely sensitive to symbolic harm and remarkably indifferent to actual suffering when that suffering is ideologically misaligned."
Thanks! Yes, so much of it is just posturing. There are exceptions, of course, but it's becoming very easy to tell the difference. Events in Iran have exposed the moral fraud of Hollywood leftists, professional activists, Greta et al., like nothing I've seen before.
Excellent piece! More and more I find myself refusing to even engage with people on the left who are so invested in various delusional beliefs that there is no point trying to reason with them. They use all of the rhetorical moves that you mention (and more) while avoiding all of the inconvenient facts and counter-arguments pertaining to their positions. They are not interested in truth or even reality.
Thanks – yes, that’s exactly it. Intellectual dishonesty isn’t unique to the progressive left, but the combination of assumed moral superiority and a disregard for truth is distinctive. Once narrative becomes more important than reality, the argument collapses. All that's left is power, which is why this ideology is so dangerous.
“This is the dirty secret of the progressive class. They’re exquisitely sensitive to symbolic harm and remarkably indifferent to actual suffering when that suffering is ideologically misalign”. You nailed it. Moral fraud.
You publish this piece quoting a tweet from Millennium Woes (Feb. 2025) saying, “It’s amazing how much leftist discourse consists of pretending not to understand what’s plainly being said — thus making discourse impossible.”
January 14, 2026:
Leftist doctor in a Senate hearing refuses to give a straight answer to the question of whether men can get pregnant.
‘Western feminists who should be first in line to declare solidarity with women struggling against theological tyranny abandon them because it complicates a fashionable narrative about Islam’
Umm they are not feminists in any sense of the word, us old feminists are now called TERF’s by these radical, left, progressive women, they beat us up! Ask Posie Parker and JK Rowling. They think men can wear woman face and change their sex if they wish, it is the opposite of feminism it is .. well mental instability for sure but also a form of misogyny which fits nicely into their Islam sympathies that they so happily align themselves with. But it is not feminism.
I’m working on a companion piece about dealing with the “woke right” – right-wing movements that have adopted many of the same tactics as the woke left. Should be out next Sunday. If that sounds interesting, feel free to subscribe.
Update:
Here's the "woke right" piece, as promised:
https://www.gadflynotes.com/p/how-the-right-went-woke
Excellent piece, insightful and amusing on point as always. I'm glad you differentiated between the old left and the new lot because they are totally different things. I'm not even sure right and left make sense anymore. We need new and better names. Woke was useful for a bit, and progressive didn't always used to be derogatory, but they've made it so.
Thanks, Alice. I agree, our political vocabulary of 'left' and 'right' no longer does the job, at least not in a way that adequately explains what’s going on. Certainly, the progressive left bears little resemblance to the traditional left of the past.
Increasingly, it feels as though the divide is less ideological and more epistemic –between those who still care about truth and are willing to defend it (however uncomfortable or complex that may be) and those who align with tribes and defend them regardless, truth be damned.
"This is the dirty secret of the progressive class. They’re exquisitely sensitive to symbolic harm and remarkably indifferent to actual suffering when that suffering is ideologically misaligned."
This is it in a nutshell. Brilliant work!
Thanks! Yes, so much of it is just posturing. There are exceptions, of course, but it's becoming very easy to tell the difference. Events in Iran have exposed the moral fraud of Hollywood leftists, professional activists, Greta et al., like nothing I've seen before.
Excellent piece! More and more I find myself refusing to even engage with people on the left who are so invested in various delusional beliefs that there is no point trying to reason with them. They use all of the rhetorical moves that you mention (and more) while avoiding all of the inconvenient facts and counter-arguments pertaining to their positions. They are not interested in truth or even reality.
Thanks – yes, that’s exactly it. Intellectual dishonesty isn’t unique to the progressive left, but the combination of assumed moral superiority and a disregard for truth is distinctive. Once narrative becomes more important than reality, the argument collapses. All that's left is power, which is why this ideology is so dangerous.
“This is the dirty secret of the progressive class. They’re exquisitely sensitive to symbolic harm and remarkably indifferent to actual suffering when that suffering is ideologically misalign”. You nailed it. Moral fraud.
January 10, 2026:
You publish this piece quoting a tweet from Millennium Woes (Feb. 2025) saying, “It’s amazing how much leftist discourse consists of pretending not to understand what’s plainly being said — thus making discourse impossible.”
January 14, 2026:
Leftist doctor in a Senate hearing refuses to give a straight answer to the question of whether men can get pregnant.
The quote comes to mind multiple times a day now, but the example you give is the perfect expression of it.
Yep! Totally agree on all of this. I have walked away from many of “conversation”.
Brilliant.
‘Western feminists who should be first in line to declare solidarity with women struggling against theological tyranny abandon them because it complicates a fashionable narrative about Islam’
Umm they are not feminists in any sense of the word, us old feminists are now called TERF’s by these radical, left, progressive women, they beat us up! Ask Posie Parker and JK Rowling. They think men can wear woman face and change their sex if they wish, it is the opposite of feminism it is .. well mental instability for sure but also a form of misogyny which fits nicely into their Islam sympathies that they so happily align themselves with. But it is not feminism.