Political coalitions often carry the seeds of their own destruction.
In the 1830s, for instance, Americans with different interests and values came together to form the new Whig Party. They had solid principles and won electoral victories, but the coalition lacked something essential. In less than a generation, it collapsed, and the Whig Party vanished.
Today’s “anti-woke” coalition parallels the 19th-century Whig experience. Modern anti-woke types also have solid principles, and these could produce short-term electoral victories. Yet the anti-woke coalition lacks the same essential ingredient that doomed the Whigs.
To understand the parallel, one must first understand what united the Whigs — as well as what did not.
By 1832, President Andrew Jackson had done something no American president had yet done. He had rallied the disgruntled, disaffected and despised masses behind both his personal leadership and the rhetoric of emerging democracy. In short, he became the first president of the “common man.”
Jackson’s presidency represented a curious blend of Unionism, aggressive racist expansionism and anti-elitism. Democrats under Jackson became the party of “white man’s democracy.” Jackson governed by the force of his personality.
Not everyone approved.
For instance, Jackson’s decision to veto a bill re-chartering the Second Bank of the United States in 1832 imperiled economic nationalism. Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky and Sen. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts had pinned their hopes on tariffs and internal improvements.
Likewise, when Jackson threatened to use force unless South Carolina abandoned its 1832 Ordinance of Nullification — a favorite idea of Jackson antagonist and sitting Vice President John C. Calhoun — the president made enemies of many who believed in what they called “states’ rights.”
Meanwhile, Jackson’s push to resettle eastern Indian tribes west of the Mississippi roused indignation. Rep. John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts called it “a perpetual harrow upon my feelings.”
Above all, anti-Jackson men objected to the president’s personal style of rule. They mocked him as “King Andrew.” To highlight their anti-regal sentiments, they adopted the name “Whig” from 17th-century English opponents of unrestrained monarchy.
Calhoun did not join Clay, Webster and Adams as Whigs, but other Southerners did. Gen. William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, both of Virginia, formed the Whigs’ first winning presidential ticket in 1840. Eight years later, Gen. Zachary Taylor — another Virginia military man — carried the Whig standard into the presidency.
A young Abraham Lincoln also joined his hero Clay and became a Whig.
Thus, the Whigs built a multi-sectional, anti-Jackson coalition and did many things right. In fact, had Clay not narrowly lost New York’s 36 electoral votes in 1844, the Whigs would have swept that decade’s presidential elections.
By the early 1850s, however, the Whigs had vanished altogether. No one could have predicted it in the 1840s, but the Whigs had done one thing wrong.
They failed to notice the simmering.
When Democrats built a national party around the idea of a “white man’s democracy,” they abandoned the aspirations of equality and natural rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
In so doing, Democrats effectively ensured that the institution of slavery would destroy the country.
The “white man’s democracy” meant that Democrats had no choice but to divorce slavery from all moral considerations.
Southern Democrats sought to expand slavery westward. Calhoun called it a “positive good.”
Northern Democrats adopted a “care not” policy. If white men voted for slavery, then they must have slavery. Democracy demanded it.
Whigs hoped to ignore slavery. They responded with milquetoast compromises designed to save the Union and preserve the Whig coalition. Those compromises succeeded in doing neither.
As long as slavery merely simmered, the Whig coalition thrived. When sectional animosities over slavery boiled to the surface, however, Whiggery evaporated.
Today’s “anti-woke” coalition has Whiggish qualities.
For one thing, it attracts people with different interests and values and unites them against authoritarian narcissism.
The parallel appears not in the object opposed but in the union of strange bedfellows. Jackson did have authoritarian impulses, but he deserves credit for attacking the Second Bank and the nullifiers. Wokeness, on the other hand, has only repellent aspects.
Thus, woke narcissists have roused and united an opposition.
Traditional conservatives such as Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson of the Daily Wire have resisted woke madness. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has done likewise and forged a strong gubernatorial legacy.
Former President Donald Trump also has espoused strong anti-woke views. So has Tucker Carlson. Indeed, anti-wokeness unites supporters of both DeSantis and the more populist Trump movement.
A few former Democrats have turned conservative in part over wokeness. This short list includes commentator Dave Rubin and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.
Would you describe yourself as “anti-woke”?
Yes: 100% (5 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
Finally, some traditional liberals and leftists with large audiences have blasted wokeness. Bill Maher, Russell Brand, Joe Rogan, comedian and YouTuber Jimmy Dore and the atheist actor Stephen Fry all have resisted the woke infection.
This constitutes an impressive coalition, but does it have electoral staying power? And what happens when the conservative cultural reaction buries wokeness?
In short, what simmers?
Recall that the Democrats’ embrace of slavery represented a betrayal of the nation’s Founding principles.
A similar feeling of betrayal haunts us today. One senses a palpable ferment because of it.
We cannot fix our attention on a single grotesque institution such as slavery. Instead, we have a number of institutions unrelated to wokeness, and all are telling us the same thing.
This is not the country we thought it was.
Those of us who grew up believing that the United States represented a force for good in the world have had our illusions shattered.
For one thing, the fusion between the Democratic Party and federal agencies has politicized and corrupted our justice system. Federal intelligence and law-enforcement agents make no pretense to objectivity. They and the Democrats serve the deep state.
Likewise, with the help of establishment Republicans, Democrats and the deep state push war profiteering and empire. Wealth flows from the hinterlands to the imperial capital, enriching the military-industrial complex and its agents.
Globalists seek to impoverish and even eradicate the individual. Censors silence dissent.
All of these illusion-shattering developments highlight concentrations of power in a parasitic ruling class.
Arguments over rainbow flags and critical race theory will unite us for a while. And we will win because we have truth on our side.
But what do we do about the simmering?
Anti-wokeness gives us no answer. Maher, for instance, still believes that the Democratic Party stands for democracy and that Trump threatens us with fascism. No durable coalition can survive on such nonsense.
On the other hand, anti-woke stalwarts such as Gabbard, Brand, Rogan and Dore have also detected the simmering. In various ways, they have spoken against deep-state authoritarianism, endless wars and war profiteering, globalism and censorship.
In short, a durable coalition must remain anti-woke, but it also must unite adherents against a parasitic ruling class.
It must not ignore the simmering issue that threatens the republic.
It must not go the way of the Whigs.
