Elon Musk fired the woke enforcers at Twitter and the world failed to stop spinning. Instead, new signups and active users are at all time highs. Across the tech sector, human resources departments and middle managers obsessed with race and sex stand nervously on watch. In the war on wokeness in American businesses, the Twitter acquisition might be the shot heard around the world.
But while Musk has set himself up as a champion of freedom of speech against the censorious scolds of the left, even the wealthiest man in the world is only one man, and one man at one company does not a revolution make. By itself, a restoration of sanity at Twitter, or even targeted trimming across Silicon Valley, will not meaningfully loosen the hold that wokeness has on corporate America.
To replace wokeness, a compelling positive vision must be offered as an alternative. The woke ideological hold on businesses is a moral hold, and only another moral ideal of justice can displace it. Conservatives know how to say what they are against—whether it be ESG, identity quotas, or viewpoint censorship—but now is the time to tell their fellow Americans what they are for. The best way to do that is not by means of a party platform or a new magazine or op-eds like this one, though those can help.
The way to show a deeply divided country that there is an alternative to the wokeness swallowing up our major institutions is to make America a better place to live. A compelling moral vision of a better America must be embodied in a commercial and civil society that is not just neutral, or anti-woke, but positively focused on meeting the needs of the American family and celebrating the excellence of the American individual.
Healthy Red States are a start, representing a minimal shared vision for life in common, and the great migrations out of Blue America into Texas and Florida and Idaho show that people are eager to be a part of sanity. But Red States will not remain red long, safe harbors for patriotic and God-fearing Americans, without a revenue base that allows them to be truly independent of woke-captured industry and finance. We now have the opportunity to build that.
Half the nation knows it is hated by Big Tech and Hollywood alike, and it now knows not only banks but 401ks have been weaponized to enforce wokeness upon the world. Millions of Americans, who as a group would constitute one of the largest GDPs in the world, want alternatives. Professionals in Blue America, too, know things have gone too far, and though well-compensated on their perches in elite society, they are looking for a way out.
Whoever demonstrates competence and generates revenue outside of the woke establishment’s control will have historic levels of talent and experience to draw from. New Founding is dedicated to facilitating that revolution. My co-founder Nate Fischer and I intend to be a part of this transformation at every point, working for nothing less than the renewal of our country. We recently launched a high-level talent network to match the refugees of the elite business world with opportunities in communities and companies that love America. It’s working.
It is easy to forget, in a culture that refuses to celebrate great men, that many of our nation’s Founders were businessmen, men of wealth and influence and competence who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause of self-government. Musk’s economic statesmanship at Twitter is a good start. But we will win the war on woke when we find and celebrate a new Ben Franklin in media or a Gouverneur Morris in trade, when Americans flock to work for men and companies that are betting long on America.
Wokeness stifles innovation. Communities and businesses without it will do better than those in its grip, many of which limp along now only by sheer inertia. But communities and businesses will truly flourish when they have shared objectives to build and innovate for the good of their fellow citizens. Mere neutrality to wokeness was never an option, not only because our laws and culture assume allegiance to identity politics, but because neutrality is only ever a smokescreen. All civilizations require a shared vision of the good life—but this unity is what we are losing amidst our deepening divide. And this is what all who oppose the current madness must now band together to restore.
Matthew Peterson is the Co-Founder of New Founding Org and President of the American Firebrand PAC. He can be reached on Twitter @DocMPJ.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.