The Democratic Fork in the Road and the Woke Repudiation Imperative

Former President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attend the inauguration of Donald Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson – Pool/Getty Images)

Josh Hammer, a syndicated columnist, is senior editor-at-large at Newsweek and a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation. He also is counsel and policy adviser for the Internet Accountability Project and contributing editor for Anchoring Truths.

Yogi Berra, the mid-century New York Yankees Hall of Fame catcher known for his pithy and often humorous life observations, once famously quipped: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It was sound advice, perhaps, for a traveler on the go and in search of a quick meal. But the modern Democratic Party, rudderless and confused and reeling from a pitiful collective performance during Tuesday evening’s presidential joint address to Congress, now confronts a fork in the road that’s no joke.

On the one hand lies the path of least resistance: doubling down on the status quo—the progressive culture-warring, woke/identity politics-driven agenda that has dominated the party ever since Barack Obama upset Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. On the other hand lies the more difficult but ultimately more promising path: repudiation of that post-2008 legacy and a conscientious return to a politics of the prudential center. Which path Democrats choose from here will go a long way toward determining their relevance as a national political party for the foreseeable future.

Obama’s shocking upset over the madam-president-in-waiting was an inflection point for the institutional trajectory of the Democratic Party. Voters rejected the cultural centrism that was a Clinton-era hallmark in favor of the “hope” and “change” promised by Obama’s “coalition of the ascendant.” Initially, perhaps, that may have looked like a smart bet: Obama trounced John McCain in the 2008 presidential general election. But the one-time “coalition of the ascendant” transmogrified into an identitarian and deeply off-putting “coalition of aggrieved interests.” Culturally militant wokeism eventually reached its pernicious apex during Joe Biden’s presidency—which saw the first explicitly “DEI” Supreme Court justice selection (Ketanji Brown Jackson, after Biden vowed to nominate a black woman) and a diversity, equity, and inclusion vice presidential running mate (Kamala Harris, after Biden was pressured to choose a black woman). […]

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