Wokeness & Social-Justice Politics: Poseurs and Redistributors Battle

What is the goal of the new social-justice politics that emerged in 201 4 and gained steam during the Trump years?

One school holds that the virtue-signaling and grievance politics are a kind of moat that the upwardly mobile are creating around their class. It gives them an excuse to eject the deplorables from the community of man. In a very perceptive essay at UnHerd, Matthew Crawford writes that social-justice politics enables the moral and political secession of elites from their natio n. “Very simply: if the nation is fundamentally racist, sexist and homophobic, I owe it nothing. More than that, conscience demands that I repudiate it.” As we’ve written in this space, this secession of elites is aimed at dissolving the moral and political restraints on self-seekin g. That’s why anti-nationalist politics are so often anti-democratic, even when they claim to speak for democracy.

About the Author

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

Featured Tags

What is the goal of the new social-justice politics that emerged in 201 4 and gained steam during the Trump years?

One school holds that the virtue-signaling and grievance politics are a kind of moat that the upwardly mobile are creating around their class. It gives them an excuse to eject the deplorables from the community of man. In a very perceptive essay at UnHerd, Matthew Crawford writes that social-justice politics enables the moral and political secession of elites from their natio n. “Very simply: if the nation is fundamentally racist, sexist and homophobic, I owe it nothing. More than that, conscience demands that I repudiate it.” As we’ve written in this space, this secession of elites is aimed at dissolving the moral and political restraints on self-seekin g. That’s why anti-nationalist politics are so often anti-democratic, even when they claim to speak for democracy.