I do feel like we're reliving the seventies in more than one—among them, crime, inflation, the end of an unpopular war, the rise of social and racial movements, and the Nixonian backlash against them. Biden makes for a very credible Carter, and who is Trump if not Nixon? But while the seventies saw a backlash against the sixties, it was not a defeat for the forces of the new social movements. They regrouped and consolidated their victories in many other ways. They organized minorities and fought for their rights through the courts, they graduated and became the educators of future generations, they staffed the philanthropic foundations, and they entered the culture industry. They accomplished all this despite how much the majorities that gave Nixon and Reagan their overwhelming victories never wanted any of it.
We may have seen the end of the most noisy and obnoxious phase of wokeness, but its aims may very well survive in a more mature and effective form.
We may have seen the end of the most noisy and obnoxious phase of wokeness, but its aims may very well survive in a more mature and effective form.