The 'Woke' nightmare

After too much time reading the news, I recently felt the need for a pick-me-up. But little did I dream that it would come in the form of an extensively researched 10,000-word article in the very left-wing outlet The Intercept.

After Democrats won the trifecta — the presidency, House, and Senate — reports Ryan Grim, the advocacy organizations that form the party’s ideological infrastructure ceased to function. That’s the good news.

The reason for that paralysis is enough to make one fall on the floor laughing: No one can work with the young “woke” employees of these organizations. Almost all the organizations’ time has been spent in “virtual retreats, slack wars, and healing sessions” caused by “tensions over hierarchy, patriarchy, race, gender and race.”

Executive directors are too terrified of their employees to be quoted by name, but one told Grim that 90 to 95 percent of his time is taken up with internal strife. The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported that progressive foundations are having unprecedented difficulty hiring executive directors, and senior staff are fleeing in droves.

Things got to the point that Bernie Sanders ordered his 2020 campaign team not to hire any more activists, but only those interested in actually doing their jobs. One executive director commented that his primary concern in any hiring interview is: Will this person blow up my organization from the inside?

Neither radical bona fides acquired over decades nor one’s race and/or gender will protect senior staff from being labeled “racists.” Mark Rudd, one of the founders of the radical Weathermen, was ousted from an organization he founded, as a racist, for disagreeing with a non-white activist about the organization of a demonstration. One Black executive director who dared to discuss performance with an employee was accused of “facilitating white supremacy.”

Young woke workers have mastered the use of social justice to their benefit in traditional management-employee disputes. After the death of George Floyd, Heather Boonstra, vice president of public policy at the Guttmacher Institute, the premier pro-abortion research organization, called a meeting to discuss how Guttmacher’s work could counter systemic racism. But the employee suggestions focused on “loosening deadlines and more proactive and explicit policies for leave without penalty” (specifically for employees of color), along with additional racial equity training. When Boonstra suggested the staff were being a mite self-centered, the staff was appalled and quickly went public with her remarks.

After the release of Justice Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs, when the pro-abortion community should have been fully mobilized, the energy at Guttmacher was centered on forming an employee union. When management agreed to recognize the union, but insisted on a limited no-strike clause and a “no public disparagement” provision, the workers rejected the offer.

The divide, writes Grim, is between older executives who want to make the world a better place, and younger ones whose focus is on making their organization a better place. The younger workers are accused of refusing to brook any compromise and of a complete inability to form coalitions with anyone who deviates even slightly from their Manichean division of the world into good and evil, each permanently locked in.

No wonder that progressive organizations have failed entirely to have any legislative impact. And at that point, the younger employees’ attitude becomes: “Maybe I can’t end racism by myself, but I can get my boss fired.” When told that inner turmoil is destroying their organizations’ mission, younger workers pay no heed.

One veteran of the progressive movement sums up: The right-wing could not have come up with a better plot to paralyze progressive leaders than by “catalyzing an existing culture where inner turmoil and micro-campaigns are mistaken for strategic advancement.”

Here’s wishing the young “woke” employees continued success.

Jonathan Rosenblum is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post and Israeli director of Am Echad.