Donald Trump is trying to label Kamala Harris as woke – why? Photo/Montage: The White House

Will wokeness derail the Democrats?

The presidential race appears to be a dead heat ahead of the United States election on 5 November, but wokeness is ‘an unexploded bomb’.

There has been a steady rise in wokeness in recent years, both in the United States and in much of the rest of the world. However, wokeness is not equally popular among everyone, and for US swing voters, this could be the issue that determines whether they vote for one party or the other.

The Democrats are far more closely associated with wokeness than the Republicans are. This could be a problem for the former.

“There is little doubt that Donald Trump is trying to label Kamala Harris as woke, without using the word itself. He talks about little Jimmy going off to school one fine day, being operated on, and coming home a girl.  Absolute nonsense, of course, but he keeps bringing it up at rallies,” said Professor Espen Moe from the Department of Sociology and Political Science at NTNU.

So why does Trump talk like that?

What is wokeness?

In the beginning, the term ‘woke’ was a call to be aware of racism. However, it now encompasses awareness of perceived social injustice in general and includes everything from feminism, veganism and climate activism to gender fluidity, depending on whom you ask.

In addition, ‘woke’ has now become a derogatory term among people who are tired of political correctness. More often than not, these individuals are Republicans, or become Republicans.

“Gender identity is definitely an issue that creates Republican voters. People who think ‘enough is enough!’” said Moe.

Attention to gender identity creates Republican voters. Illustration: Shutterstock, NTB

So far, however, the Republicans have not succeeded much in making wokeness a major issue in the election.

“I can’t see that the Republicans have managed to harm the Democratic campaign as much as they probably expected to. And Harris has kept her distance from that minefield,” said Moe.

At the same time, the Democrats also attract voters who have a positive attitude towards wokeness, so they cannot completely distance themselves from the movement either.

Elections are not always decided by who gets the most votes

Moe is currently on sabbatical in Berkeley, California. This is right in the heart of the woke movement.

“Let’s just say that wokeness is not considered a problem in Berkeley,” said Moe.

But the Democrats have already won California, and the election will not be decided there.

In most states, the outcome of the election is more or less predetermined. The Democrats are certain to win in Maryland, while the Republicans will take Alaska. The US election is therefore decided in a small number of swing states, such as Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Swing states. The redder, the safer the Republican during the election in 2020. The same with blue for the Democrats. Illustration: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Able to win with fewer votes

In the United States, it is possible to become president without having the majority of the population behind you. It has happened five times, most recently in 2016, when Hillary Clinton had nearly three million more votes than Trump, but still lost.

This is because the president is not elected through a direct popular vote. Instead, voters compete for so-called electors in each individual state. The winner in each state generally gets all of the electors (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska). These 538 electors then cast their votes for their presidential candidate in the Electoral College. They ultimately decide the election.

The idea behind this system is to prevent large states from dominating the smaller ones too much. Smaller states generally have more electors relative to their population size than larger states, giving them proportionally greater power. A vote in California counts less than a vote in Rhode Island, for example.

This also creates a structural bias in favour of the Republicans, as nearly all of the smaller states with the most electors relative to their population are Republican.

Thus, a small number of voters in a small number of states can determine the outcome of the entire election. And wokeness is one of several factors that play a role.

But is wokeness really that important? Maybe not as much as before.

Wokeness in decline?

The renowned magazine The Economist recently stated that wokeness is in decline in the United States.

“It actually feels that way. Comedian Kevin Hart said the same thing a few months ago. The peak has been reached, and comedians are starting to discuss topics for which they would have been cancelled a couple of years ago,” said Moe.

So it may not be as important to assert that you are woke anymore.

“Biden was never particularly woke, and Harris has refrained from flirting too much with wokeness. The problem for the Democrats is that wokeness has been very important for the left, while the centrist faction, which has traditionally dominated, is convinced that they will lose the election if wokeness takes over the party. And therein lies the dilemma. They need to mobilize all Democratic voters, including the voices on the far left where much of the intensity lies, but they also need to appear moderate and sensible,” said Moe.

Joe Biden was never particularly woke. Photo: Official White House photo by David Lienemann

So it is still important.

“Principally speaking, I definitely think we should talk about wokeness, and if I were an American academic, I would certainly be much more cautious about what I said during lectures than I bother to be in Norway. But every day that goes by in the election campaign without it being talked about is a good day for the Democrats,” said Moe.

According to Moe, the upper echelon, which is not particularly woke anyway, is fully aware of this, and those party members who are even further out on the left are taking care not to make any waves.

Israel replacing wokeness

“Currently, the threat Trump poses is disciplining the Democratic Party quite well, but Harris occasionally struggles with rowdy voters at rallies. They no longer want to talk about gender-neutral toilets, but Israel,” said Moe.

Israel, Palestine, and everything associated with the ongoing situation has taken over as the topic that academics in the USA must be most cautious about discussing.

“The war is definitely a problem for the Democrats. Democratic voters on the far left either don’t understand, or refuse to understand, how narrow the American win-set is regarding Israel/the Middle East, and how little the United States can actually do to influence the situation.”

The term ‘win-set’ refers to the area where the interests of the actors involved overlap. In this conflict, this area is tiny, if it exists at all.

Netanyahu, for example, has a clear interest in Harris not winning the election and sees no reason to accommodate the United States at this point.

Harris would lose the election if she embraced either Israel or Palestine, but Trump does not have that problem.

“At the same time, the conflict may possibly also be drawing much of the attention that the far left would otherwise have focused on wokeness and other forms of political correctness,” said Moe.

The warfare in Palestine has perhaps taken a lot of attention away from woke. Photo: Shutterstock, NTB

The Democrats less dependent on wokeness

It is not certain that the Democrats need wokeness as much as they used to. The party already has the greatest credibility in several of the areas that wokeness is associated with.

“It is easy for the Democrats to talk about women’s rights. Variants of it could have been dismissed as woke, but in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, which granted women the right to have an abortion, it is impossible to label the women’s movement as extremism,” said Moe.

The Republicans are now coming with claims that doctors in certain Democratic states are performing abortions on foetuses after they have been born.

“The Democrats have strong credibility on issues regarding racism and ethnicity, and when Trump makes blunders with statements about ‘black jobs’, it is relatively easy to discuss race without it sliding into woke territory.”

The Democrats are talking about Trump and Project 2025. This is a plan for a very conservative Republican dream scenario, which may well scare off swing voters.

“There are more than enough extreme standpoints there to fill an entire election campaign for the Democrats. And the more bad polls for the Republicans, the more extreme it gets,” said Moe.

Individual groups no longer emphasized

Perhaps the Democrats have learned something important from the 2016 campaign.

“I believe Hillary Clinton and the Democrats made a huge mistake by promoting her as the first female president of the United States and breaking the glass ceiling for women, rather than simply presenting her as the best candidate. The fact that she was a woman was used as a huge selling point. Harris hasn’t fallen into that trap, and perhaps the Democrats have learned. She hasn’t marketed herself as a woman, Black, or Indian.”

However, Harris does shift into a different gear than Biden when the topic of abortion comes up.

Hillary Clinton. Woman first and skilled politician afterwards? Mistake, says Professor Espen Moe. Photo: United States Department of State

“But apart from that, she presents herself as a person, as an individual, not as part of a group demanding special treatment or claiming to have been treated unfairly.”

Instead, she scoffs at the ‘same old racist playbook’ every time Trump talks about her as Black or Indian, and leaves it at that.

“I think that is really clever. An individual, competent, with the credentials to back it up, capable of speaking in coherent and consistent sentences, not engaging in smear tactics or insults, except for some manipulative jabs at Trump and his campaign, of course. But none of this is woke, female or Black.”

So, what hope is there if you are a Republican?

The Republicans are struggling to sell their platform

“The economy and immigration are the two major selling points for the Republicans. These are areas where the Republicans have great credibility and support, and they can win over many voters if they manage to focus the campaign on these issues. But Trump is unable to be disciplined or coherent in these areas either. It is possible that Trump might suddenly hit the mark with a lucky shot at some point, and that could change the campaign unexpectedly, but so far, I think he and his team have rather missed the mark,” said Moe.

Why is this the case?

“Obviously, it has a lot to do with the fact that the Republican presidential candidate is likely the least disciplined presidential candidate in history. In addition, there are ongoing scandals involving other Republicans, such as the Black gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson in North Carolina, who referred to himself as a ‘black Nazi’ in a comment section on a porn site about a decade ago, saying he didn’t think slavery was that bad.”

Wokeness is an unexploded bomb – and the outcome remains uncertain

So, will wokeness ultimately harm the Democrats?

“Wokeness is perhaps more like an unexploded bomb that most people on the Democratic side are now trying to steer clear of. While Trump is currently neither disciplined, consistent nor coherent enough to deliver credible attacks that convince anyone beyond his own loyal base. Perhaps wokeness will emerge at a later stage and shift the electoral campaign – after all, the election can be decided by very few votes in just a couple of swing states – but so far, I don’t think it has had a significant influence on the campaign. That doesn’t mean that the election is in any way won for the Democrats, as the Republicans are concentrating nearly all of their resources in the swing states of Pennsylvania and Georgia. And that might just be enough. The Republicans will probably win if they take both these states, and the race really is neck and neck there,” Moe said.