Massive corporations will always only be virtue signaling at best.

Performative "wokeness" distracts from the fundamental economic problems plaguing many, while costing corporations nothing.

For corporations, going woke is a great smokescreen for not paying taxes.

Identity politics became useful to corporations when populism threatened the status quo of exploitation.

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains" - Thomas Jefferson

People play woke to fill their empty lives or to vindicate their virtues....💯

Never trust corporations to stand for change

"You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? They come up with a word like “Latinx” that no one else uses. Or they use a phrase like “communities of color.” I don’t know anyone who speaks like that. I don’t know anyone who lives in a “community of color.” I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in . . . neighborhoods." ---James Carville 27 April 2021

'College educated' doesn't mean what it used to....

Left leaning politician wants to ban/tax/limit sodas in his community. As a response, soda company becomes woke and suddenly shares the same ideals that the politician shares. Then, said politician backs off the anti-soda rhetoric.

Just a way to make cash.

So the Woke-apocalypse is the real Zombie Apocalypse that every zombie writer since George A Romero has warned about.

As long we corporations look woke to the outside world, they can still treat their employees poorly.

Woke is not liberal, although it did mutate from liberalism.

When the woke wake up we will all sleep better

“Yeah we’ll put up a Rainbow Flag up, can we have your money now?”

I'm a progressive & I hate how 'woke' some of my old friends have become lately LOL

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Social media has done this

A state college near me, located in a diverse big city neighborhood, used to have tons of excellent foreign language classes and a rich program for Spanish majors and minors with outstanding profs. It has "had to" grossly cut back on classes. But now they say "Latinx." (They also built a new luxury dorm, that is mostly empty. Coincidence?)

It's all about control, dumbing down the people and turning them into useful tools.

Majority of people on the right also have jobs and responsibilities that they just can’t take the day off to protest.

Woke Capital is capital trying to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement and the movements it catalyzed.

Interesting world we live in when "dumb enough to give politicians your money" means "cares more"

Proof of how successful public education has been at dumbing people down.

This is not the whole story. You act as if these institutions are only superficially woke, but that isn't actually the case. Sure, when it comes to certain corporations, that might be mostly true, but when it comes to academic institutions, media, political institutions, it is most certainly not the case. Harvard isn't woke because it's popular, Harvard is in large part responsible for the creation of and perpetuation of identity politics. Most of these academic institutions are driving this. And even when it comes to the most disinterested of corporations, they're increasingly held hostage, at least do a degree, by their own woke human resources departments, as well as their own woke millennial/gen z work forces.

When Jamie Diamond is down with your movement it’s time for some introspection

There's a guy named Yuri who talk's about how to pull this exact point this guy is making!!

Historical amnesia. This guy's story starts in 1990, as if there is not history before that.

I'd like to know the actual definition of what liberal and conservative is. Those words seem to be names of teams, not action plans.

He keeps referring to 2016 as a turning point in term of activism without ever mentioning what happened that year: Trump got elected. Wouldn’t that explain the huge shifts he mentioned? And wouldn’t that mean that a lot of it might go back to its more even baseline?

The origin of woke is portland Orergon hipsters,I lived there and you wont convince me otherwise

The only reason corporations went woke is because they monopolized or oligopolized their industry. I blame the Fed ultimately, they allowed money to be far too cheap for far too long, allowing for banks to facilitate 3-4 decades leveraged buyouts of competitors & consolidation of industry. Both parties to blame as well, destroying unions, deregulating banks, keeping tax rates low, but politicians had no reason to stop it. The Fed did, they’re the most important institution that needs to be dismantled.

I did a spit take when he said corporations are being forced

“The conscience of a conservative” Barry Goldwater 1960. Citizens know.

It's not just the US that is waking up. It's the whole world that has had enough of being denied the respect of being a human being. It's selflessness over selfishness.

I have a feeling, Irami would call BS on all this.......

anytime a phrase (normally originated by an oppressed group) becomes mainstream, you know the meaning and essence has been diluted. in the 60s or 70s, when someone was woke or invoked the phrase, it was powerful. when I heard it in Badu's song (New Amerykah album maybe? and probably Goodie Mob) in the early 2000s.... that was the signal that a change was coming. And now we are here. I am better than you bc I know these wiki facts about an issue. I dont really care but I totally tout myself as being socially aware bc it gives me access (even if its abstract) to power.

I think using the word “care” in this piece can be substituted with “imposing your way on others or else”. It’s really just another form of control. Exactly what I DON’T want as a college educated conservative.

Donations and protest aren't signs that someone cares more. It means they have more free time and discretionary income. Most working class adults can't take a random Wednesday off to go protest statues.

Protesting isn't a sign of caring more. It is a sign of people with nothing constructive to do.

Corporations are doing this to improve their ESG score.

"Care more" is an interesting way to say "hate more"

being from europe i just don't understand how someone can seriously discus two party system as some kind of democracy

What should be remembered in this conversation is that "woke" ideology at its heart is really about being kind, empathetic and inclusive. Once "wokeness" compells you to manipulate (as in the case of corporate advertising) reject (as in cancel culture) or disenfranchise (as in military/intelligence community) can we still call it "being woke"? We should be able to separate the baby from the bad water when it comes to progressive ideals such as democracy and freedom and even "woke ideology".

What. This guy has 3 wrong statements in his first minute

Woke is the new brain-washed

Conservatives generally don't need to protest the status quo.

I'm only woke when I'm not asleep.

Yes yes remind them they're not virtue signaling narcissists and they "care more".. yess

By boycotting these woke corporations I'm saving A LOT of money. Thank you

Im a liberal but I have lost sight of what being woke is. I live with a conservative right leaning man that voted for Obama but then switch to Trump. Honestly the Internet got him, like it got so many others at the time. I don’t think Hillary Clinton was ever even on his radar before in his whole life, but overnight she became the worst villain that ever lived. He didn’t go as far as believing in things like Pizzagate but he did take weird twisted pleasure in stories like that and it thrilled him that there were people that believed all this craziness. But Instead of getting upset about all this sudden change I became fascinated and curious, and I know I had encounters something I had never experienced in my life, some kind of mass hysteria I had only read about in books (hysteria of the masses) and now a part of it lived in my house and I had to understand and study it. The relationship survived, it got contentious at times, but I kept my cool as much as I could, mainly because instead of resisting it, I used it as an opportunity to study this right wing person in the era of Trump. Strangely, conservatives are also very emotional when it comes to politics, they give the impression of being detached and levelheaded but they are the opposite, just like the woke people on the left are now. The problem is that these people are extremely narrow minded and myopic. They also have a considerable amount of fear and denial. I’ve come to know some of them the older ones on the far right, they seem to have an “innate” fear of some kind of abandonment which is much broader than in context of a personal relationship, as is often though of in these terms, but this kind of a fear that permeates much of their life, they also seem to be unaware of this in themselves. They see the world in black and white thinking. For example Democrats know that Democratic politicians are corrupt and lie to certain extent, but we usually don’t demonize them nor do we put them on a pedestal. We know just like the republican politicians, that they have been bought by people and corporations with extreme power that the politicians gave them and thus given their power away to those entities. We understand that in many cases they honestly do want to do for us what they are saying and promising, but then can’t do it because they sold their power and souls long time ago and often they are in fact decent well meaning people but, just helpless. It’s frustrating, no denial about that. But in the conservative mind these people are only liars. End of story. They don’t have abilities to ponder the complexities of politics nor the relationship that politicians as human beings have to navigate within the complex political realm they are in, be it outside the public and in front of the public. The sad thing is that these leftist woke people are getting to be just the same. This is extremely frustrating for a person like me, that likes to live in the middle of negotiations land. I love to negotiate, it’s just the way I operate in my daily life. For me life it self is a negotiation where various of things have to be taken into consideration. I love taking contradicting ideas and negotiate them in my head, just to see what I can come up with, but maybe it’s because I have a creative mind that likes to deconstruct concepts and ideas regardless of what I like or dislike, it doesn’t matter and then construct it without being bother of the outcome. I or it doesn’t have to be right and I’m not bothered if I’m wrong or if I have to adapt to a new idea or concept that I may not have considered before. I know other people like me, but there seem to be fewer of us in this world. Being wrong about something now, is equivalent of “Being Wrong” it now defines your whole life as “Wrong” and you as “Wrong” ad Infinitum and can even ruin your life these days. It’s bleak and frustrating when hardly no one wants to negotiate anymore. I think I’ve found out why it’s so hard to debate and negotiate with young woke people, they sound judgmental, but in my opinion I think they are suffering from alexithemia and they willingly resort to the victimhood of their own prison of limitations, which in turn makes them a bit tyrannical. They may not have the words to express their thoughts. I have wondered if these people are capable of thinking in words or abstraction or if all their thinking is composed of images. Many of these woke young people under 30 have a maturity leve of 5 year olds, I’m not kidding. Willingly shielding yourself from difficult experience, (even mild ones such as books that explore difficulties, that might trigger you) they are prone to, robs you from meaningful adventure seeking and development of imagination. I’m honestly worried about them. I’ve never been worried about young people before. But these late millennials and early gen Z are mentally and intellectually stunted. Kinda like stuck in Neverland forever.

"There hasn't been a big right wing protest in a decade" I guess Charlottesville and Jan 6 dont count?

brainwashed

So interesting. TY

Gosh. Maybe it's as simple as them being more concerned about their bottom lines. You can dress this up with a lot of statistics (all of which are no doubt accurate and meaningful), but corporations act in their own best interests. Always. And it's no secret that every H.R. department across the country has now to contend with and gird themselves against the onslaught and coming maelstrom of "woke" lawsuits. So all of this amounts to a kind of "smart" and preemptive response as they hedge against the tide.

I protest everyday! When the alarm goes off at 5:15 !!!

'Cares more' Translation: willing to impose upon others.

Yesterday I went to starbucks for the first time in over a year (im not a coffee guy) just wanted a vanilla bean cream cus it was hot, when i entered I was STUNNED to see all of them wearing BLM shirts made by STARBUCKS as a company shirt....I lost my craving tbh for my drink because of how much Ik and how much these kids dont know. This is why I love redbull they said were not getting political we sell redbull lol

Corporations are putting out “Don’t hurt us” messaging. It a CYA preemptive defense so they don’t get sued by their employee or face boycotts. That is the extent of their moral courage.

The country is NOT divided equally between two parties. God, I hate this framing. A third of the electorate is neither Republican nor Democrat. ONE THIRD. We can't vote in many primaries, can't even work polls in certain states, yet our vote is chased every four years, and assumed it is owed. America is NOT a representative democracy. Krystal should know better.

So glad you guys are doing piecez on wokeness. Its so strange to see our society become this woke this fast

It’s just a question of demographics. As the power of capital increases, the psychological need for young people to rebel against it increases, and now capital has so much power over the psychic landscape of millennials and gen z, the key demo, through mass media. It’s capital capturing the revolution against it. Rebelling is hard work, consuming is easy and gives the same buzz.

Conservatives who support the status quo, don't get fired up as much about issues if things are already the way they want them to be. That's not hard to understand. Also, businesses have no problem supporting racial or gender politics as long as it doesn't affect their bottom line, like labor unions would.

We spend way too much money on studying stupidity. It’s a very lucrative career 🙄

I don't buy this. Big critic of woke neoliberalism, but this guy's data/conclusions seem off for some reason.

Interesting, I always thought it was because it's harder to hide ruthless business practices in an online world... and children are who populate most online spaces and drive up the numbers, so to placate to children, companies try to be "cool" and lie to the public about being "down for the cause", but continue to exploit behind a "woke" shield. we also have very, very short memories as a collective contiousness in this country.

LOUDEST CRIY BABIES get the most ATTENTION - THOSE WHO PRETEND TO CARE FROM HIGH CHAIRS - THOSE WHO ARE FOCUSSED ON THEIR LIFE and DO GOOD & even SERVICE, but DONT TALK LOUDLY ABOUT IT.

Large corporations supporting a ultra-authoritarian big government movement. Shocking.

It’s almost like the millennial generation was pushed into colleges because we were told that was the only way to make money since labor was being outsourced. In college we learned critical thinking skills which are antithetical to conservatism. After we graduated we were welcomed by an economic crash, subsequently straddled with debt while being offered entry level wages at jobs well below our skill level. Who would’ve thought these people would become politically active...

This is interesting, but its seems to reductively conflate liberal, neoliberal, progressive, left-wing, and woke.

I do NOT belong to either extreme, although there’s no place for Centrists or Republicrats, this population used to be called. There are more than 3 views in this world but parties seem to matter most, and they seem to see the world in black and white.

Democrats showed they are willing to shut your business down, or sue..

Very interesting piece!

Gee, what happened in 2016 that seems to be correlated with this change? I think it begins with "T"...

Get Woke, Go Broke. An absolute

This idea that corporations haven't been a part of culture is complete bs.

"Research fellow at Defence Priorities" "... Friend of the show..." A perfect storm of glowing 'credentials'.

Excellent interview and questions :)

I'm 62 and I've been in Arts and Entertainment my whole life and I and 90% of the "talent" were always lefty and 70% of the "suits" were usually conservative. IMO public policy and brand management shifted to cultivating the appearance of "wokeness" when the suits realized that the "talent" was going to create content with a left bias regardless so they could get free publicity and a financial free ride by appearing to buy into the value system. I guarantee you that at their heart the upper brass is still fiscally libertarian with no actual invested moral orientation, be that progressive or Christian.

Overthinking all this. Corporate growth is fueled by change. Conservatives are adverse to change.

People are in search of knowledge and truth. That is a good thing.

Really interesting. Thanks for having him on.

Liberals cover a wider demographic of gender, races, beliefs, etc. Meanwhile the right wing mostly just caters to one thing - conservatives. Companies want to appeal to the broadest demographic possible. Not because they are woke but because want to make as much money as possible.

He neglects to mention that people were rising up against the 1% right before we were told race is where we should draw our new dividing lines, not wealth. And that these companies have found a way to commodify your "political ideology" to put more money in their pockets, and when their CEO gets 80M bonuses it's ok because he said the right pre-packaged social idioms.

When most mega corporations agree with the way you vote it's time to self reflect on if you really are the resistance.

This guy likes to talk fast and make a lot of fact free arguments/assumptions.

All institutions are liberal and yet we hear about institutional racism. Then who are the racists? The left or the right?

People are less likely to protest when their team is in power

This change has ignored the environment to promote less worthy causes. Sounds corporate to me.

China

You forgot to mention "independent", a large voting block, but then again, you are beholden to the two party system.

I just watched the cia recruitment vid and we are F*****d!

Very good analysis. Great thesis by that kid

This is very interesting. I’d like to see the “conservatives care more” strong man aswell.

Corporation should stay out of wokeness and politics because they're going to lose half their customers

Institutions being or becoming more Liberal is the result of young Americans fearing their future. Working hard for so many years and then the risk of barely retiring is a fearsome thing. Thence the movement of creating policy for fast tracking to an easy life. This is the reason for the appearance of caring more by being politically involved. Unfortunately this is a blindside. Conservative views look at the longest road, because it keeps the ideology of Tyranny from taking hold of Liberalism. At this point in American history, the forming of a Arostocacy is enevitable. It is a shame the Liberal's are not seeing the class they are constructing that will eventually shut them out of a decent retirement. What good is their protesting going to do then, whilst the Elites are laughing at their pitiful burning cities.

Krystal - “Maybe it’s just the more successful/educated people are Democrat! Did you ever think of that?”

“All institutions are liberal” Imagine being so objectively wrong and yet so confident lol

This guy articulates this observation very well, but tbh, I noticed this stuff by middle and high school years ago. The saying "Get a job!" made by normalized conservatives to liberal protesters is indicative of the fact that conservatives focus on the "necessity" of wealth acquisition and financial responsibility (paying bills), and they don't understand how the protesters marching in the streets have time to do what they do, because all their time is spent working. The reason this current situation (what Hanania is picturing) is only now (last five years or so) becoming the norm is because the country has been mostly socially conservative for the majority of its existence. But I also realized while in school that the social idea of public schools would have a liberalizing effect on the population over time, since having public schools is a liberal idea.

Breaking off a relationship or friendship over someone agreeing w your ideas is NOT about conviction at all. It’s about cowardice, elitism, and the inability to live in an adult world where people don’t always agree with you and you need to deal w it. I still consider myself more liberal and grew up in LA but now live in a much more red state. Without a doubt the most activist liberals I know ars also the most disconnected from the real world and the most segregated physically and mentally from everyone else. Why else would you have multi millionaire producers and lawyers etc living in massive homes behind gated communities, throwing galas to solve homelessness by giving money to encourage friendship amongst the homeless on skid row and solve hunger by teaching families below the poverty line how to cook organic food instead of buying fast food