What Winning the “Wokeness” War Actually Means

Embracing American greatness is a teleological question, not just a political one.

George Orwell once famously said that with constant overuse, the term “fascism” came to mean nothing more than ‘undesirable.’ It’s easy to think, particularly if you’re disinclined towards culture-war-esque endeavors, that the word “wokeness” has suffered the same fate.

It’s true that the word “woke” has, in some circles, been neutered by overuse. But it’d be a mistake to imagine that the word itself lacks meaning, or that the subsequent “culture war” is a fabrication, simply because overzealous advocates apply them too liberally. On the contrary, their current place at the forefront of many of our hottest debates indicates that these terms carry deep meaning — and represent areas of concern worth taking seriously.

There’s no doubt that our current political climate has, for better or worse, been shaped by Americans’ beliefs about wokeness. The re-election of Donald Trump, and the consequent reordering of our governing elites, are in no small part the product of a large-scale backlash against cultural progressivism’s ascendancy and reign. If it weren’t such a hot-button topic, no savvy GOP governor would describe their state as “the place where woke goes to die.” And yet, they do — the term works, and we should understand why.

Calling out “wokeness” is baked into the modern conservative ethos, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. If you’re already on the anti-woke train, you don’t need convincing that this is true or generally a positive thing. But if you’re skeptical of how, or why, the culture war is a worthwhile endeavor? This is for you.

Wokeness Is An Upstream Problem

Making the case that wokeness is real, and therefore that the culture war is worth fighting, isn’t all that difficult — my professional vocation is just one example. As a corporate engagement professional, my work involves going face-to-face with representatives of America’s largest companies, on behalf of clients ranging from ordinary mom-and-pop investors to state pension funds worth billions of dollars, to push for an end to biased corporate policies. And trust me — it’s the fight of the moment. It only takes a brief evaluation of the increased cultural discourse around issues like woke capitalism, DEI, and corporate bias, to understand how some of the largest corporate actors around us have been ideologically captured, drifted leftward, and given up a traditional understanding of business responsibility in favor of championing environmental and social causes.

Issues like ESG and the intricacies of corporate policy may seem far removed from the ordinary American. Yet, the upstream choice that so many companies have made to reject political neutrality, has run downstream into almost all of our most heated cultural battles. Pushes for so-called “gender affirming care?” Fueled by multimillion dollar activist groups like the Human Rights Campaign, a group that explicitly pressures businesses to cover puberty blockers in their healthcare plan. Anti-energy bias? Fueled by corporate activists pushing energy companies into vague emissions reduction plans/unachievable net-zero commitments with no rationale given. Racism? I could introduce you to so many corporate DEI controversies we’d be here until another 20 companies roll back their commitments to it.

The list goes on. What’s wokeness? It’s when groups like the HRC pressure companies into covering puberty blockers under the guise of “healthcare”; it’s when left-wing political officials pressure companies to dispense abortive drugs; and it’s when the Department of Education shells out more than a billion dollars on DEI programs to achieve nebulous-at-best results. These examples, and countless others, are cases in point of the sort of large-scale institutional drift and trajectory that the majority of Americans (even if a slim majority) are done putting up with.

Righting The Ship

So where do we go from here? The incoming Trump administration has tremendous opportunities to realign the public sector, which in turn can/likely will be a driving force for reforms in the private sector. I’ve written about tactics to do away with corporate bias in many different places, but the basic strategy underpinning many of those tactics is the same:

True greatness means being unapologetic about the thing you do best.

Let me give you an example, again from the corporate world. It should come as no surprise that corporate activists, particularly those of a more environmental, anti-fossil fuel persuasion, aren’t big fans of ExxonMobil. Earlier this year, the company successfully pushed back on demands from activist investor groups, demanding that the company reduce its carbon emissions. The real kicker in all this? Those activist groups were completely fine with the fact that this would shrink the company. They wanted the company to underperform, meaning they wanted the company’s investors to have less of the human flourishing that financial gains help create.

The Philosophy of Unapologetic Greatness

This is what wokeness looks like, firsthand — and it makes clear where exactly we should be going in the next four years and beyond. Conservatives, and free enterprise advocates more generally, have a chance to leverage the influence we’ve been given as customers, as shareholders, as industry leaders, and as the builders and guardians of institutions, to recenter those institutions around their core purposes.

Universities should be the best at higher education, and never apologize for doing so.

Energy companies should be the best at keeping the lights on, and never apologize for doing so.

FEMA should be the best at coordinating disaster relief for Americans, and never apologize for doing so.

The military should be the guarantor of American primacy and dominance, and never apologize for doing so.

These are teleological statements, not merely political talking points.

What has wokeness wrought? Paired with the left’s cultural ascendancy, it’s done tremendous damage to all these and many other institutions, and we’ve been given an imperfect but tremendous chance to move that trajectory upwards, embracing the true potential of all of America’s institutions. The ‘war on wokeness’ isn’t just a cheap talking point. It’s an expression of a sincere, robust, and fundamentally American desire to be unapologetic about greatness and optimistic about the achievements of the future. And if holding to that desire means being anti-woke, we should all aspire to it.

Author bio: Isaac Willour manages shareholder engagement at Bowyer Research, America's leading pro-fiduciary proxy consulting firm. He is an award-winning journalist and frequent commentator on ESG, DEI, and the culture war, with work in USA Today, National Review, The Daily Wire, The American Mind, and the Wall Street Journal. A graduate of Grove City College, Mr. Willour has appeared on shows ranging from Fox to the New York Times Opinion, and can be found on X @IsaacWillour.