Whisper it, says Andrew Sullivan in The Weekly Dish, but “woke intolerance” is finally on the retreat. Two years ago, America reached “peak social justice”: liberals wanted to defund the police; the mainstream media adopted the language of “critical theory”; corporate America shed “any pretence of political neutrality”. But Americans are fed up with being told theirs is a “uniquely evil country” rooted in white supremacy. San Francisco’s district attorney Chesa Boudin, whose lax policies allowed the city to become a “chaotic hellhole”, was ousted by voters last week. Famously liberal New Yorkers now put “crime” ahead of “racial inequality” as their most urgent concern by a ratio of 12:1. Even Hispanics, usually firm Democrats, favour the Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives by a 14% margin.
This is part of a broader cultural overhaul. Last week The Washington Post, the “wokest of woke newspapers”, fired reporter Felicia Sonmez after she launched a vitriolic crusade against her colleagues to dismantle what she said were the organisation’s “oppressive systems”. Netflix, similarly, has finally “grown a spine” and told employees offended by its content to find another job. Democrats need to wake up to this “vibe shift”. They should stop obsessing over pronouns and historical injustices, and start focusing on the things voters actually care about: crime, inflation, healthcare. Because if they don’t, they’ll likely hand the presidency back to Donald Trump. And “if that doesn’t merit a shake-up, what would”?