Woke culture is dying. The backlash is bringing swastikas back into the Western mainstream

About six months ago, prominent British presenter Piers Morgan declared the death of woke culture. The term, coined by African Americans as early as the 1930s, was originally used as a call for awareness of racism, under the familiar phrase “Stay Woke.”

In the 2010s, it gained enormous popularity on social media and expanded to encompass broader awareness of social inequality, racism and LGBTQ issues.

Later, the idea was pushed to an extreme, becoming a rigid system that divides the world in binary fashion into oppressors and oppressed, in which the white Westerner is always the oppressor. This worldview shattered the idea of meritocracy — the aspiration to advance in life through hard work and ability — and replaced it with the engineering of enforced equality.

When they ran out of causes: The generation of activists that found Israel

Some 200 years ago, Black people and their allies fought against slavery, since without partners, a minority will remain oppressed forever. A century ago, women fought for the right to vote around the world. In the 1940s, they entered the labor market; the 1960s brought civil rights for minorities; the 1970s brought feminism; and more recently, LGBTQ campaigns secured same-sex marriage.

Subsequently, the idea underwent a radical shift into a rigid system that divides the world dichotomously into oppressors and oppressed, in which the Western white person is always the oppressor. This perception shattered the idea of meritocracy—the aspiration to advance in life based on hard work and skills—and replaced it with the engineering of forced equality.

Previous generations saw unprecedented progress: poverty and hunger indicators have fallen over the past 50 years at a historic pace, alongside a surge in overall well-being. In a world where everything is accessible and documented within minutes, a paradox emerged: the current generation, the one with a phone in its hand, was raised to be a “justice warrior,” but the great causes have already been won.

Into this vacuum, and against the backdrop of millennials’ economic frustration, entered the Palestinian element. The events after October 7 proved that this was no spontaneous awakening; already on October 8, before the IDF had acted in Gaza, streets in the West were flooded with organized protests that had been waiting for the right moment. This infrastructure jumped on the woke bandwagon and turned it into a tool for laundering modern antisemitism: you are not antisemitic, the Star of David on the synagogue simply reminds you of the Israeli flag.

This is where the academic concept of “intersectionality” comes in: the idea that an activist committed to one cause is obliged to fight for all of them, because “no one is free until everyone is free.” This confusing idea allowed radical elements to hijack youthful energy and channel it in negative directions. The fact that students today openly praise Hamas and the Houthis shows the depth of the ideological hole facing the next generation.

The antisemitism trap and the laundering of hatred

In this equation, Israel found itself caught right at the center of the battle of perceptions. Although Jews are a historically persecuted minority, Israel is seen as a powerful and wealthy force. That success was projected onto Jewish communities around the world, leading some of them, not least the 35% of New York Jews who voted for Israel-hater Zohran Mamdani, to adopt “not in my name” positions toward Israel in order to win the protection of woke culture.

This culture has seeped into newsrooms and paved the way for antisemitism in the name of the oppressed. A clear example of this is the BBC network, which, among other things, translated a documentary from Gaza and changed derogatory terms referring to Jews to the word "Israelis" in order to whitewash the hatred, for the useful idiots in the West.

Facts do not interest progressives; academia developed theories claiming that minorities cannot be racist at all, while ignoring the fact that tribal slavery still exists in Africa. The combination of this brainwashing, the policy in Judea and Samaria that has frustrated even the current administration in Washington, and the events of October 7 led to a low point in support for Israel on both the right and the left.

The day after: “Influ-Nazis” and the backlash

Now, as woke culture collapses, so do the restraints it imposed on the public sphere. Cancel culture died with it, and everyone is allowed to say anything on social media. And while harsh slurs such as “retarded” are returning to the mainstream, the thing that has caught on most is blatant antisemitism. Are you a chauvinist influencer? Then you need to slip a little Nazism into your podcast. Are you a children’s influencer? Of course you are expected to publish a post about the children of Gaza — and so on.

Woke is a trend that returns in waves, and when it disappears, it leaves behind a violent backlash from a vocal minority tired of language policing. Every day, we are exposed to more and more antisemitism on social media, but also to open anti-Muslim hatred, chauvinism and homophobia.

In this reality, the picture is the opposite of what one would expect from a liberal society. Social media platforms now promote a frightening tolerance for jihad and terrorism, which is also emerging as a cynical response from the new counterculture. The space is flooded with Hamas flags, swastikas and open admiration for Hitler, which have become a “cool,” edgy trend among young people in the West.

This phenomenon operates from both ends of the spectrum, meeting at the antisemitic point. On the far right, the “Influ-Nazi” trend has emerged, led by Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson, legitimizing racist discourse under the guise of free speech. On the other side, among the radical left, the discourse translates into shocking celebrations on social media following the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, or in response to the assassination attempts against Donald Trump.

These two poles prove that the death of woke culture has not restored sanity, but rather removed the barriers against total violence, and above all, against unrestrained Jew-hatred.