Does/will Europe have a big “anti-woke” movement as the United States does right now?

33 comments

1. It already has? In a lot of countries across Europe, there are movements which can be described as “anti-woke.” It should be noted, that the term “woke” itself, has lost practically all meaning, and basically means “whatever the people complaining about ‘woke’ doesn’t like.”

   In Denmark, this movement, in particular, has been spearheaded by the liberal politician Henrik Dahl (MF, _Liberal Alliance_,) and the national-conservative Morten Messerschmidt (MF, _Dansk Folkeparti,) though generally other politicians from the liberal and conservative parties, have tapped into the rhetoric. From the centre-right to the furthest parliamentary right (and, ofc., beyond.)

   Recently it reached a new peak, where Henrik Dahl and Morten Messerschmidt went “mask off” and used the neo-nazi conspiracy theory term: [“Cultural Marxism,”](https://www.information.dk/debat/2023/08/morten-messerschmidt-henrik-dahl-lgbt-danmark-copenhagen-pride-gjort-kampen-seksuelle-minoriteter-sekterisk) but in many years, they’ve campaigned against what they termed ‘woke-ism,’ which was a variation of the neo-nazi conspiracy—leftist academics out to destroy western values through progressive politics—scrubbed of the blatant antisemitism, though still related, somewhat, to the other neo-nazi conspiracy theory of “the great replacement.” It even went so far, that they named specific reaserchers from the podium in parliament, who they believe to be part of this movement.

   In general, a thing I’m often wondering, when we get these sorts of questions, is if Americans think that these things, what can be colloquially called “the right-wing resurgence,” started in the US, particularly if they tie the start to Trump’s first presidential campaign? Because the facts of the matter is, that it’s the other way around. The contemporary populist right is a European phenomenom, which only with Trump really entered mainstream American politics, while it in Europe has been a thing since the nineties, in some countries even longer!

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3. I mean there are plenty of right wing people with varying levels of extremeness, but generally it’s not nearly as accepted or widespread as the “anti-wokeness” group in the US.

   Usually people like that are pretty quickly pegged for what they are, out of touch extremist conservatives and anyone under 50 doesn’t take those kind of arguments seriously.

4. Not that much, the american woke stuff hasn’t really made it into the national politics. On social media more so but it’s not real.

5. It is stupid to try to assume thay political and social movements are confined to certain regions of the world

   While in some they might have more or les intensity, culture is truly global

   The let it rot Chinese wave of 2021 was the quiet quitting of the US

   The anti woke movement of the US is the fascist adjacent movement in Europe

   The gay pride culture is celebrated almost identically in India as in Poland

   Very few NEW cultural and political movements are isolated

6. It’s a “very big thing” among the Americans who call themselves the “silent majority”, who are neither silent nor the majority.

   For the vast majority of the US population, it’s not a “very big thing” at all, it’s just whiny Trump supporters with nothing better to do making noise

7. We don’t really use the word “woke” in many countries were English is not widely used in the public discourse, so I don’t think reactionary views will call themselves “anti-woke”.

   But, we have quite a few old school fascists if you want to trade.

8. Yes, just look at the currently ongoing Conservative party conference to see a bunch of war on woke talking points being talked about. Sadly its all taking place amongst a Conservative party thats facing electoral collapse here in the UK and such talking points are gonna be framed as a party dying but yeah its a decent size. Not sure hoe large the conservative support is in the UK though tbf

9. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “woke”. My understanding is that it originally was a term used by some black communities. I think the first time I even heard the term was in a anti-woke context, so at least to me, the counter/kneejerk movement is just as old as the movement itself. That’s after crossing the atlantic of course. And the same locally. Some people were upset about something they thought was going on. Maybe it was. It wasn’t in my circles.

10. Hmm, let’s see how the UK Government are doing today:

    [Rishi Sunak says misgendering trans people is ‘common sense’ in Tory Conference speech](https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/04/rishi-sunak-tory-conference-speech/)

    [Tory ban on trans women on hospital wards ‘unlawful and impractical’ say legal experts](https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/04/conservative-steve-barclay-trans-women-hospital/)

    [Top gay Tory ejected from Braverman speech accuses home secretary of ‘bullying’ LGBTQ+ community](https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/03/top-gay-tory-braverman-bullying-lgbtq-community/)

    [Suella Braverman says trans women ‘have no place’ in women’s hospital wards](https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/03/suella-braverman-says-trans-women-have-no-place-in-womens-hospital-wards/)

    Yeah… we aren’t nicknamed ‘TERF Island” for no reason.

    This is such a non-issue for most people, but seems to be the last gasp priorities of a Government that is clinging to power.

    Gotta appease the older voters by:

    * railing against Trans people (many who feel their very identity is now under threat from the Government).

    * [banning mobile phones in English schools](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/oct/02/gillian-keegan-plans-to-ban-mobile-phones-from-english-schools) (when most schools *already* have sensible policies on this).

    * [Cancelling the bulk of a high-speed rail project](https://news.sky.com/story/hs2-rishi-sunak-confirms-northern-leg-from-birmingham-to-manchester-will-be-scrapped-12976382) that would have brought our aging rail infrastructure well into the 21st Century.

    * [Railing against small boats crossing the Channel](https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-sunak-vows-do-whatever-is-necessary-stop-cross-channel-migrants-2023-10-04/). Yes, immigration is a concern for many people, but not to the degree that most people think of these boats constantly.

    * [Complaining about a ‘war on drivers’](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/29/rishi-sunak-plan-for-motorists-would-limit-travel-choices-campaigners-say), all because an entire nation (Wales), recently [lowered urban speed limits to 20mph](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-66961977).

11. Europe or at least some European countries have been having it for as long as the US. The tories in the UK are actively campaigning on culture war issues and have been for a while. They are constantly bringing up gender identity and immigration because they haven’t got anything else. For other countries I’m not an expert but if you’re saying that the anti wold movement is against left wing policies and social progression than quite a few countries have rising right win movements.

    France have had le pen come second in the running for president the last few times and she’s classed as far right/nationalist candidate.

    Italy is run by a right wing populist party and I they’ve been introducing laws around abortions and same sex marriage but not 100% sure.

    Germany has been in the news recently with right wing groups rising in popularity but I’m not sure the reasoning behind this.

    That’s just the 4 biggest countries I read about I’m sure there’s plenty of others with there own issues in the matter. Right wing populist candidates didn’t start in America or with trump they’ve been around for as long as politics is around. The big difference is how ingrained the culture war seems to be in America. People have taken politics to be their whole lives in way that I don’t seem to see as passionately in Europe or at least Western Europe. Also the culture war anti woke laws are harder to implement in many European countries because subsets of the countries don’t have as much power as the states do in the US. The US states have a lot of power in making laws so they can do they shape politics on a local level easier whereas in day the UK you have to bring in laws for the whole country so while maybe a part of the country is more anti woke they can’t just make laws for themselves they have to try and implement them for the whole country which is a lot harder. Also a lot of Western Europe is starting form a different starting point in the discussion about wokeness. Religion plays less of a role in politics.

12. In Germany it takes the particular form of being anti-Green Party (as in, opposing the Greens is the rallying cry), which, in my observations in my area of residence in practice means being against trans people, against climate change mitigation reforms, and inconsistently against immigrants (I say inconsistently, because so far everyone seems to make a distinction between the immigrants they know and get along with versus the abstract concept of them – but they do not make that distinction for trans people, for example).

    It’s a very prominent political current right now.

13. I may be a bit optimistic here but i don’t think the “wokeism” from the anglosphere is gonna stick here in Italy.

    The reasons could be many, but certainly the demographics plays a role. We are a very old country, and old people don’t like change. They don’t care much about LGBTQ++ non-binary or asexual people because they don’t understand what’s going on (and many of them have more important issues to deal with as inflation).

    Another reason could be that we italians are simply too buffoonish to take anything like that seriously.
    Since the late middle-ages we were always divided in small provinces or city-states (Florence, Venice, etc.) and we took of course the habit of waging war against each other every now and then.
    So mocking your fellow italian neighbor after winning a battle against him became like a national sport.
    We mock and joke about anything, we just LOVE regional and national stereotypes and every idiot can – and will – yell around the most offensive slurs he can think of about anyone.
    And we could never tolerate restrictions on language or forced ways of talking (pronouns etc.)

14. Obviously the term “anti-woke” has many interpretations, but from my point of view, European society is a lot more openly anti-woke than the Americans. I say that as I live in the US. I find Americans more socially progressive somehow but i might be a minority.

    Edit: my exposure is only to inhabitants of large cities. So im mostly referring to New Yorkers and Bostonians vs residents of Amsterdam, Stockholm, etc.

15. In Spain, so far when I’ve heard or read someone mention the word “woke”, it was 100% of the times a complete idiot.

    They exist, but they’re a very small minority. It’s not really a subject, you won’t hear people talking about it, nor politicians. But we’re very much into a gender equality war, it’s a hot subject at the moment.

16. Oh sure there are always people who are annoyed at something. I can sort of count myself into that bracket too as i really don’t give a shit and it’s kinda annoying how it’s pushed down my throat. Same for the Anti woke people too.

    Most people here make their political decisions based on “who is the least likely to f*ck up” and then vote for someone else the next election because they lied.

    Most people just truly want people to stop nagging, focus on the issues that need to be solved and then eat potatoes.

17. I see a few people (less than 10) trying to copy it when it comes to leaving comments on news articles on facebook. Luckily most people are more normal thinking here so it’s not really a thing outside of the few idiots’ comments.

18. In Slovakia there wasn’t any liberal movement until early 2010s but because this liberal movement is growing each elections it is more talked now than in early 2010s because only libertarian party existed in 2012 and they got 6% of vote but rigth-wing conservatives viewed them not as a threat to them but they treated them as a partner againts left-wing conservatives despite obviously diffrent social policies but in the last elections libelar parties got about 25% of the vote and conservatives both left-wing and right-wing did some campaing againts them like ‘rarther mafia than 72 genders’

19. Keep in mind that maybe except France and the UK black populations are tiny and consist mostly of people who immigrated to Europe recently, so “wokeness” and “anti-wokeness” will focus on slightly different things than the US.

    But yeah in general any right wing party may be considered antiwoke because they oppose migration, political correctness and feminism.

20. Not near to the extent in the U.S., but right wing/populist and conservative parties that have zero solutions to complex problems fall back on these issues because they have little of actual substance. These parties simply do a copy/paste from US Republican platform, which is driven as well by a Russia.

21. Yes the far right has been on the rise across Europe in the past 10 years.

    Hungary has been a far right maffia state for the past 13 years where the main ideology of the governing party for the past 20 years has been “say and do the exact opposite of what everyone left of us says”.

    A nationalist party just won the elections in Slovakia too running on an anti-woke and nationalist nothingburger platform.

    The accusations and attacks here are a bit more old fashioned though and use less dogwhistles. In my own country of Hungary the government enacted a bunch of anti-gay legislation under the guise of “protecting children from pedophiles”.

    At least this whole nonsense with pronouns and “gendered words” doesn’t affect me because the Hungarian language is completely gender neutral by default.

    Edit: Behold Exhibit A, see with your own eyes in these very replies an ideologically possessed troglodyte regurgitating its kind’s favourite word salad!

22. While legislation for trans people probably could need some improvements, Switzerland is very “live and let life (as long as you clean your yard and aren’t too loud)” so it’s not that big of a thing. Our right (and left) parties tried to play it up for some time but it just didn’t really reasonate…

    So the right went back to hating on immigration and the left to climate change.

23. The government in the UK has tried to stir up anti “woke” sentiment and largely failed. In France it is a non issue currently (not on anyones radar in any meaningful way it appears). Cannot speak for the other countries in Europe.

24. One common denominator for all “anti-woke” people is they can’t explain what they are “anti” about. They just mimic what they hear/see on (social) media, and want to make sure they are part of the group following the leader.

    “Woke” also means being able to make an informed decision based on facts.

    I can understand certain types of extremists can’t have that. Just imagine. A population able to think for itself…

25. There’s the Sweden Democrats. They are copying the American anti-woke playbook. While SD is pretty big, their anti-abortion stance fizzled. Their popularity even diminished, so they aren’t against abortion anymore. Their anti-trans stance has been very critiziced and I don’t think they’ve attracted new followers with this.

26. Among the terminally online, it’s a thing. But in everyday discourse, I don’t hear as much about it.

    Part of the reason that it’s limited is that there isn’t a left-wing movement in the Czech Republic to respond to. Can’t have an anti-woke movement if there’s no woke movement. The closest thing to it (Pirati) got wiped out in the last election. So the main talk is about the center-right (ANO) and other center-right (SPOLU) now.

27. Problem is, the woke movement makes more harm than good dealing with the real issues. Racial discrimination and minority rights are the real issue, but they focus on things that may have absolutely nothing to do with these. In entertainment industry for example, a decade ago it was fresh and welcomed that genders and different ethnicities were introduced, but then it turned into gender and race quotas to the point it did not serve it’s original purpose anymore. Even films based on historical facts have been tampered.

    Protest voting plays a huge role in here. People who don’t even care about politics see something that annoys them and go vote anyone who says they’ll oppose it.

    There are plenty of people who have neutral or positive stance on minorities for example, but the woke movement provokes them to the point they will vote anyone who opposes them, and as minority rights are not a matter of criticality to them, they are willing to sacrifice them along the way. Most of the people I know are to some extent like this, and this, along with certain other things, is one of the major reasons why right wing parties are gaining significant support.

    In the US, you have to choose between cancer or aids for the two parties in essence, so people will choose their stance based on relatively small nuances and this allows the far wings of both to grow and gain legitimacy.

    Consensual policy should be the way to go, but people seem to be more interested in cherry picking and defending their own interests to the point it only provokes the opposition.

28. Europe is not just some countries in North-West part of the Europe. In large parts of Europe there is no big “anti-woke” movement as there is no significant “woke” movement in the first place, so of course there is not a real internal polarization. References to “woke” thinks are usually just about things happening outside the country, so you might hear people or politicians accusing others that they want to import to the country various “woke” things.

    The social dynamics are also very different, especially due to the communist influence. You have old people that are either very right-wing as a reaction to communisms or ones that are more leftist, but leftist in the sense of “it was better in the past, capitalists still all the money from hard-working people”, so still very socially conservatives. Younger people, the equivalent of Millennials in the US, are also very likely to be anti-left, for sure economically, but also on a lot of social issues.

29. For France if by woke idea you mean the gender stuff. Then i d say we got somewhat of an antiwoke sentiment.
    But the gender thing is harder to proselytize here cause our language is already gendered.
    I d also say most people here aren’t woke so🤷🏻‍♂️
    Also our politics are currently divided in 3 blocks of pretty much equal size which makes binary discourse harder.

30. In the Netherlands there has always been a negative concept. While some ideas are certainly adopted, the term itself has almost always been seen in a negative light. Usually when they talk about woke it’s how things have gone too far. The Netherlands is still very much a liberal country that is left wing, but I have never heard any speak about wokism on a positive note. (also I study in Utrech university and that’s pretty much a left wing bubble, and they also use woke in a somewhat negative light.)

31. I just don’t care at this point. If people don’t want to help themselves, then idk. I can just stare and wonder. All I can hope for is that there won’t be another Hitler who will kill leftists or disabled people.

    People doing single issue voting while not considering other issues is very annoying and dangerous.

32. Yes there is already since long time. People that don’t want to change anything, aka conservatives ,but I propose to baptize them Slept people . You aren’t woke ,very well ,so you probably are slept,or in the middle…

33. There has always been anti-American sentiment and Woke is American. Americans might believe that 5 centuries of European world dominance has led up to them electing Obama and re-inventing the wheel as in woke, from the perspective of progressive country the USA has always been particularly backward in the concerning cultural apects. So the idea that this American movement should lead the world is of an arrogance that requires a lot of ignoracen.

    Woke is anti-racism that isn’t anti-racist, but leaves the racial and racist thinking intact. It just replaces one hate with another, but keeps declaring dna, ancestry and skin colour the measure of all things.

    Woke is pro LGBTQ+ but in a homophobic and prudish way. It’s binary towards trans and intersex, it’s compulsively normalizing because it can’t deal with the freedom to be abnormal, and it’s intolerant to those who don’t want to fit in.

    It has traces of the bible belt all over it. It’s basically the small minded, bigoted, anti gay, prudish, anti-intellectual, anti-science racist America with a twist. A 180 degree twist, but still a twist on the same thing. I just think it’s stupid, I know it’s stupid, most people see at least some of it’s stupidity, but brainless conformism didn’t die out.