They’re Not the Woke Right — They’re the New Left

Expose the Trojan horse: left‑wing radicals posing as conservatives.

It’s Time We Give the Left Back Their Radicals, We Don’t Want Them

Friday, April 18th, 2025: by Walter Curt

There’s a problem on the Right that can’t be tip‑toed around any longer. Commentators whisper about a so‑called “Woke Right”—personalities who claim the MAGA banner yet sound, organize, and agitate like the radical Left. The phrase has caught on, but it misleads voters, masks the ideology at work, and hands the Left a propaganda gift.

You cannot be woke and be right. The moment you swallow Marxist grievance politics—even wrapped in a Stars‑and‑Stripes profile picture—you’ve stepped off the conservative field. These influencers are not a post‑establishment vanguard or a “new conservatism.” They are the same poison we fought in the 1960s—the New Left, rebranded. Treating them as a “Right” faction is like welcoming a Trojan horse through the city gate.

Ask yourself why legacy media stay oddly silent while this fringe grows. They understand the tactic: let the liability fester inside our camp, then accuse all conservatives of its excesses. Why lend the Left that weapon? The smarter move is to give the radicals back—label them what they are and make the Left own its own offspring. No more muddying the MAGA waters; no more letting Marxists don red hats and quote Bible verses while they peddle the same collectivist creed. Reject the “Woke Right” fiction, brand them the New Left, and shut the gate.

Why the Label Must Change

Politics is downstream of perception, and perception is driven by branding. Donald Trump’s genius for nicknames—Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Little Marco—proves that a label must click the first time a voter hears it. The phrase “Woke Right” never passes that test. Tell the average MAGA rally‑goer that “there’s a woke faction on the Right,” and the reflexive answer is, “Impossible—if you’re woke, you’re Left.” That instinct is healthy, but it also means the term disintegrates on contact; listeners dismiss the warning before you finish the sentence.

Even the term’s champions admit the problem. James Lindsay, who popularized the phrase, concedes that he spends “half his airtime” explaining that yes, there really is such a thing as right‑wing wokeness before he can mount his critique. If a concept requires months of footnotes, the branding has failed. Complex explanations are kryptonite in mass politics. By the time you’ve unpacked the oxymoron, the audience has changed the channel.

That failure has strategic costs. While conservatives puzzle over an awkward label, the radicals enjoy a free incubation period: they spread post‑liberal manifestos, court evangelical voters, and mainstream authoritarian economics—all without the wider movement noticing. The Left is happy to let “Woke Right” stand, because every time the phrase is used it subtly suggests the rot is internal to conservatism, not an external ideological infection.

Re‑branding them the “New Left” solves all three problems at once. It snaps into place instantly (“Oh—same radicals, new costume”), it pins the ideological tail where it belongs, and it arms grassroots activists with a term that needs no seminar to decode. In a media war fought at meme‑speed, that clarity is priceless. Call them what they are, and the battle for hearts and minds starts on ground the Right can hold.

The Leftist Playbook: Alinsky and Marcuse on the Right

Their tactics give them away: they follow the playbook of left-wing radicals like Alinsky and Marcuse.

Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals taught activists to use any means necessary – ethical or not – to achieve their ends. We see this today in how these faux-right agitators operate. They will readily engage in cancel culture, personal smears, and even lies if it helps them gain power. As James Lindsay observes, they “do cancel culture, smear people, [and] lie” to push their agenda. This ruthless, ends-justify-the-means approach comes straight from Alinsky’s leftist manual.

Herbert Marcuse, a Marxist philosopher of the New Left, argued for “liberating tolerance” – in plain terms, tolerance for left-wing ideas but intolerance for ideas from the Right. He believed that silencing “oppressor” viewpoints was necessary to free the oppressed. Today’s New Left on the Right clearly embraces this mentality. They divide the world into oppressors vs. oppressed (just with different players) and conclude that their side must silence the other in the name of virtue. Free speech and pluralism take a back seat to their notion of the “common good” – exactly the kind of repressive logic Marcuse advocated.

In summary, these self-styled conservatives are copying the worst habits of the woke left. They’ve adopted the left’s grievance-driven identity politics and Alinsky’s shameless tactics. It’s a mirror image: a movement that calls itself right-wing while behaving exactly like a faction of the radical Left.

Leftism Masquerading as Conservatism

Concrete examples illustrate that these folks are ideologically on the Left despite their right-wing branding. Here are three major themes that prove the point:

1. “Family-Friendly Socialism” – Big Government by Another Name: Many in this camp champion economic ideas that sound more like Bernie Sanders than Barry Goldwater. They favor heavy government intervention in markets – tariffs, industrial planning, welfare expansions – as long as it’s directed toward their preferred ends (often under the banner of helping “traditional” families). It’s essentially socialism wrapped in family values, and critics have nicknamed it “family-friendly socialism”. Pushing centralized economic control and entitlements is a hallmark of the Left, no matter how it’s packaged.

2. Christian Nationalism and Identity Politics: Another plank of this movement is Christian nationalism – defining American identity in strictly Christian (and sometimes ethnic) terms, and seeking to meld church and state. In extreme cases, they define “the nation” by blood and creed exactly as Marxist theorist Stalin did in 1913 (simply swapping in Christianity). This is leftist identity politics by another name. Instead of class or race struggle, they posit a struggle between Christian conservatives (as an oppressed in-group) and secular or minority groups (cast as the oppressors). It’s the same divisive, collectivist approach the Left has long used – just with the roles reversed.

3. Post-Liberal, Anti-Constitutional Ambitions: Perhaps most alarming, this faction openly rejects core American principles of individual liberty and limited government. They argue that classical liberal democracy – with its First Amendment freedoms and checks on power – has “already failed” and must be replaced. These self-proclaimed “post-liberals” even suggest that Americans have “too much freedom”, which leads to societal dysfunction. Accordingly, they want to override constitutional limits and install authorities to enforce a new moral order. This is a revolutionary vision far closer to left-wing authoritarian regimes than anything in the American Right. It’s no wonder James Lindsay bluntly calls them “post-liberty”. A group that would throw out the Bill of Rights to impose its will is not conservative in any meaningful sense.

   

Stop Handing Marxists a Conservative Mask: Brand Them the New Left

Granting these agitators the label “Woke Right” is political malpractice. It stamps a conservative seal on militants who preach identity collectivism, state‑managed economics, and speech suppression—the uncut DNA of the Left. Every time we repeat that misnomer, we legitimize their infiltration, confuse the grassroots, and gift progressives a cudgel for guilt‑by‑association smears. Enough.

Call them what they are: the New Left in camouflage. Strip away the red‑hat cosplay and their program is unmistakable—big government for “the common good,” group‑based grievance hierarchies, and Alinsky‑style power at any price. Those ideas are toxic to constitutional liberty, and they have no claim on the conservative brand.

Reclaiming our language is the first line of defense. When pundits try to fold these illiberal crusaders into the Right, correct the record—loudly. When a candidate flirts with post‑liberal statism, name it and shame it. Make the boundary bright: constitutional conservatism on one side, New Left illiberalism on the other.

Draw that line and the fog lifts. Voters see the impostors for what they are, the Left loses its Trojan horse, and the Right stands guard over the principles that made America free.