By Rachel Stewart

Last week I spoke about the ‘woke left’, and how the movement wasn’t dying any time soon.

It’s seems only fair then, that having roundly criticised the yin I should also diss the yang. I’m nothing if not an equal opportunity denigrator.

There’s a new entity in town termed the ‘woke right’, and there’s been a ton of pompous intellectual debating going on about whether that’s even an accurate moniker – which feels like a full-on distraction tactic to kind of deny it even exists.

And, as I’m sure you’ve likely worked out, I’m not an academic, and so I have no burning desire to endlessly debate whether it’s best described as ‘woke fascism’ or the ‘illiberal right’ or ‘alt right’ – the latter, gentler term is preferred by its proponents for obvious reasons.

I’m much more interested in whether it’s actually even a thing. And my non-academic, in-built, rural bullshit gauge tells me it is becoming so.

Yes, it’s in the early days of its configuration but once you see it you can’t unsee it. And I’ve being seeing a lot of it online. And it appears to be growing rapidly.

The ‘woke’ part applies to the fact that while its proponents identify as right-wing, their strategy and perspectives mirror those of the ‘woke left’. A bit of cancel culture here, a smattering of character assassination there.

And like the ‘woke left’ the ‘woke right’ is generally defined as victimhood-based identity politics whose martyr groups are whites, Christians, men, and straight people.

Here’s the academic and author James Lindsay – who’s just been in the country on a speaking tour as the guest of the New Zealand Free Speech Union – giving his take on this evolving movement.

While Lindsay’s take is deep and dense, mine is a bit more agrarian. Maybe, just maybe, it’s simply frustration at liberal progressive politics dominating every western institution you can name. I certainly understand that frustration and feel it deep in my bones too.

Yes, the west is built on Christian values and, boy, do we need some of those values now more than ever if we have any hope of saving ourselves.

And, yes, I get that white men feel marginalised in a world that is outwardly hostile to them. Women can certainly empathise. Ask me how I know.

And while I’m not straight, having been in a same-sex relationship for 25 years, we have never once countenanced marriage. Why? Because we both believe that marriage is a male/female construct ostensibly for the purposes of having children. Call us old-fashioned.

And, as we’re technically part of the LGBT blah blah bloody blah alphabet soup we both recoil – along with heaps of other gay folks – from the abomination it has become.

I think most of you will know full well that I’m not a fan of the trans cult, PRIDE parades, or of the perversion of grown men in dresses reading books to children. What kind of parent allows that?

BUT when the ‘woke right’ harp on endlessly about women only ever getting jobs at the helm of a ship, or in the cockpit of plane, or footplate of train because of DEI – and that temperamentally they are not cut out for it, or are lacking spatial awareness because we have a vagina, or that men should have those jobs because they’re men’s jobs, or some other wacky sexist bullshit, they tend to lose me.

And look, DEI should end – even if only so we can avoid this eye-rolling hysteria from the lads. But, aside from that, it erodes trust in people’s abilities. Meritocracy all the way.

Also, when they tell me that as a lesbian it’s my fault that the excesses of DQST or trans or any other sicko crusade is squarely on me “and my army of homos”, I yawn. A lack of cerebral heft tends to bore me.

Another ‘woke right’ clue is ending every tweet or post with “Christ is King”. And HE might well be, but some people also believe that the only true King is Elvis.

A further feature they appear to share with the ‘woke left’ is an aversion to Jews, but for seemingly different reasons. They’re not above bending history around WW2 to suit a certain admiration they hold for German fascism. Does bending history sound familiar to you?

Being charitable, maybe they’re just critiquing the system, or maybe they’re just asking questions around structural unfairness, or maybe they’re trying to get to the objective truth of the world. Sure, I get that, but that’s exactly what the ‘woke left’ would say too.

All I know is this. Something amorphous is beginning to take shape, and these are the signature signs of a pendulum in full swing.

Surely there is a constructive conservative stance that could be adopted as a counter to the insanity of the ‘woke left’ that doesn’t involve throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater?

Because I’m fairly convinced that whatever new iteration of far-right ideology this is shaping up to be, it will be as authoritarian and soul-destroying as what we’ve all suffered through over the last decade or so.

If we want some of the many great things about the west back, this will only achieve more deterioration and at a faster rate.

You can’t force people to believe in God, or women back into the home, or gay people to go straight. If this feels like it’s the only answer to the world’s ills, then you are the polar opposite of the ‘woke left’. They too want to tear it all down and create utopia.

Yet, both methodologies feel like hell to me.

And maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s all been hyped. But that’s what I thought about the ‘woke left’ too. I thought it was a brief moment of madness in time. A bit of insanity that will surely pass.

Until it didn’t.