‘Woke’ is definitely not dead. The now proverbial long march through the institutions did not end simply because Bud Light failed to sell beer in 2023 or Donald Trump was once more elected president of the United States one year ago. Have the thousands of people who have dedicated decades of their lives to infiltrating the institutions of government been removed and replaced? No. It’s both silly and delusional to believe otherwise, as such a view, if it continues to circulate and go unchallenged, will only encourage people to become complacent—something evident during last week’s mayoral electoral cycle.
As Piers Morgan struts around America waving his new book Woke is Dead, New York elected Zohran Mamdani, an Islamic race communist, to become the next mayor of the city, and Jay Jones, a man who fantasised about murdering the children of a Republican politician, won the Virginia Attorney-General race. As Piers Morgan celebrates the triumph of common sense in ‘an age of total madness,’ Zack Polanski is quickly establishing himself as the most popular politician on the British Left.
This all points to one end: the Left views populism as a viable option for achieving its political ambitions. While it may seem ridiculous to suggest someone like Polanski could win a general election, much like the Right, the Left is becoming increasingly hostile to its own legacy parties and is seeking alternatives to the Democrats and Labour going forward.
The Democrats and the Labour Party are not representative of the modern Left. People like the Bidens and Keir Starmer represent a dying breed of left-wing politicians—namely, white boomers. It is, in fact, these people who have been holding back the floodgates. What we are set to encounter is a far more radical coalition, which will not flounder over questions like ‘What is a woman?’ They simply no longer care about these issues. Their lower ranks have been infiltrated by Islamist foreigners and communist radicals, with either zero attachment to the country that they are trying to take over or, worse still, a burning antipathy to it.
Take Mamdani as the leading example of what is to come. A foreign-born radical, who promises to introduce government-owned supermarkets and free bus travel across New York. He aims to defund the police, replacing the NYPD with social workers who will somehow disarm criminals with gentle words about their mental health; abolish prisons, and decriminalise prostitution. He pushes “the end goal of seizing the means of production,” refuses to disavow the phrase “globalise the intifada,” and has an implacable hatred of white people, made evident by statements such as “all of society … must break the stranglehold of whiteness, wherever it might be.”
This is the person whom the media are celebrating as the future of the Left. When they do, believe them, because the voting bloc behind people like Mamdani is not going anywhere. Mamdani’s message resonated most strongly with those who have lived in New York for less than ten years, as well as those who were not born in the city. It only made sense, therefore, that in his victory speech, he spoke of “Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.” What’s worse is that support for Mamdani will only increase as the native and wealthier population of New York moves out of the city and the foreign-born population grows. It will not matter whether Mamdani makes the city dirtier and more violent; his identity is the predominant factor. Sadiq Khan is a clear example of this.
So, please forgive me if I cannot join in the British Right’s derision of someone like Zack Polanski, whose politics are very similar to those of Mamdani, and who is banking on being able to unite the same discontented voting blocks that Mamdani has in New York. Much of the same greed and resentment behind Mamdani’s victory exists in Britain. Perhaps Polanski’s popularity is a passing fad—there is a long way to go until the next general election in 2029, after all—but what will remain is the same underlying tension that merely requires the right person to recognise and exploit it.
What should be concerning is that it is less likely the establishment Left will impede this person’s ambitions. There cannot be an expectation that the Left will turn on itself as it did with Jeremy Corbyn or launch a coup, as it did against Bernie Sanders in 2016. From the current buzz around Zack Polanski—a man who was completely unknown just two months ago—it appears that they will do their best to continue thrusting him into the spotlight.
What is equally concerning is the Right’s lack of preparedness, should that happen. Mamdani’s victory has shown that the Left is learning how to use social media in much the same way as Trump did a decade ago. Trump’s no such thing as negative publicity approach was successfully deployed by Mamdani, who manoeuvred the conversation to where it suited him. Rather than concentrate on Mamdani and how to defeat him, the Right spent far more time discussing whether eating food with your hands is some kind of savage act. This remained a topic of conversation for weeks. One of Trump’s greatest political strengths has been to create the conversation and, thus, always be one step ahead of the Left. Mamdani managed to do the same, and the Right had no idea what to do about it.
The past few weeks must serve as a wake-up call. Now that there has been a sudden emergence of populist figures on the Left, around whom there is considerable excitement, it is important to remind ourselves that our opponents have not disappeared and are learning from their mistakes over the past decade. The Right has not taken the Left seriously of late and has instead become increasingly captious and fractured. Simply because Trump is president and Reform UK is leading in the British polls does not mean there is time to relax or think about a victory party.
