Counter-Currents
“Wokeness” is Now Almost as Dangerous as “Racism” for Politicians & Businesses
David M. Zsutty
1,722 words
Editor’s Note: The results of the Homeland Institute‘s (website, Telegram) first poll have been released.
The results are intriguing, to say the least. For example, the accusation of wokeness has almost 70% of the power of an accusation of racism in terms of respondents’ willingness to actually follow through with boycotting a business.
Another major finding is that among white Republican voters, an accusation of wokeness being leveled against a candidate was almost twice as damaging as the charge of being racist.
But the most interesting finding was that 7.2% of white Republican respondents said that an accusation of racism would actually make them more likely to vote for a political candidate.
The full report is below.
Politicians and businesses cower in fear of being accused of racism. As we saw during the George Floyd riots, a racism charge is perceived to be so serious that many businesses displayed Black Lives Matter signs as if it were the blood of the Passover lamb, in the hope it would spare them from riot damage. Yet, the recent boycott of Bud Light for “going woke” through their partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney cost their parent company, Anheuser-Busch, $27 billion.[1]
Which is stronger, the accusation of racism or the accusation of wokeness? And to what extent is one more powerful than the other? This is an important question, because the Left has wielded “cancel culture” to great effect, and their primary charge is “racism.” Therefore, anything that undermines the Left’s cancel culture or promotes the rise of a cancel culture of the Right could significantly alter America’s culture war.
Furthermore, in the economic realm non-Hispanic whites accounted for 70% of all buying power in the United States in 2020, and are projected to have 68% of US buying power in 2025.[2] And despite white voters being usually taken for granted, in 2016 they proved to have the potential to upend the entire political establishment.[3] White votes and white dollars matter.
The Homeland Institute asked 796 respondents who are politically and demographically representative of white, non-Hispanic American voters about the strength of the charge of “racism” versus the charge of “wokeness.”[4]
- A major finding is that the number of people willing to pay a price to boycott a business that is accused of wokeness is not that far off from the number willing to do the same to a business that is accused of being racist.
- Another major finding is that among those who identified as Republicans, the accusation of being woke was almost twice as powerful as the charge of being racist.
More specifically:
- 61.9% of respondents said they are less likely to support a business if it is accused of being racist.
- But only 41.8% said they would be willing to follow through with boycotting a business that is accused of being racist if they had to pay 10% more or drive an extra mile.
- 43.7% said they are less likely to support a business if it is accused of being woke.
- But only 29.1% said they would be willing to follow through with boycotting a business that is accused of being woke if they had to pay 10% more or drive an extra mile.
- 65.7% said they would be less likely to vote for a politician if that politician was accused of being racist.
- 45.6% said they would be less likely to vote for a politician if that politician was accused of being woke.
- For Independent respondents, 65.5% said they would be less likely to vote for a politician accused of being racist compared to 41.3% of Independent respondents who said they would be less likely to vote for a politician accused of being woke.
- Surprisingly, though, among Republican respondents 42.6% said they were less likely to vote for a politician accused of being racist, compared to 79% who said they were less likely to vote for a politician accused of being woke.
- Additionally, 7.2% of Republican respondents said they were more likely to vote for a politician who is accused of being racist.
Let’s examine these results more closely.
First, the poll asked about “racism” without making any distinction about the race of the person(s) it was directed against. Adherents of Critical Race Theory claim that racism is “power plus prejudice” and thus only whites can be racist, and never the victims of racism.[5] Most ordinary Americans, especially those who are not far-Left, take the common-sense view that racism is racial discrimination against any race. Many Americans also doubt the assertion that whites are somehow privileged given the BLM riots, affirmative action, and doxing.
Furthermore, a May 2022 University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll found that across Americans of all races, 50% of Republicans and 20% of Independents thought there has been “a lot more” racism against whites compared to five years ago.[6] 21% of Republicans and 16% of Independents said “a little more.” 21% of Republicans and 32% of Independents said “about the same.” This shows that many Republicans and Independents think that it is not just theoretically possible to be racist against whites, but that anti-white racism does in fact happen in real life and is even increasing. Therefore, anti-racist sentiment should be understood as oftentimes also encompassing racism against whites.
Second, the gap between the accusation of racism versus wokeness is significantly narrower in regard to whether people would actually follow through and translate their disapproval into a boycott. Virtue-signaling on social media is a far cry from real-life activism.
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As stated above, 29.1% of respondents said they would boycott a company if it is accused of being woke. 41.8% of respondents said they would follow through on a boycott of a company if it is accused of being racist. When we compare these two numbers, the accusation of being woke has almost 70% of the power to damage a business’s bottom line as the accusation of racism.
While the accusation of wokeness is 30% less devastating than an accusation of racism, that is still a lot of power. A 2023 New York University report stated that the average net profit margin for businesses excluding financials was 7.77% as of January 2023, with some sectors being significantly less.[7] Therefore, a business with a slim profit margin could potentially be just as devastated by an accusation of being woke as of being racist, as illustrated strongly by the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco.
The Right therefore clearly has substantial parity with the Left in its potential for an economic cancel culture of its own. Blue America has long terrorized Red America with cancel culture, even going so far as to cancel a NASCAR driver, of all people, merely for liking a meme which was critical of George Floyd.[8] If Red America is to defend itself, it has no choice but to go on the offensive.
What do these numbers mean for the upcoming elections? Much of the outrage from a charge of racism comes from voters who were unlikely to vote Republican anyway. In contrast, among Republican respondents 42.6% said they were less likely to vote for a politician accused of being racist, compared to 79% who said they were less likely to vote for a politician accused of being woke.
The charge of being woke therefore carries almost twice as much weight among white Republican voters.
Republican candidates who pander to minority groups will not only waste precious capital trying to obtain a few extra votes which were probably never in the cards to begin with; they could also lose votes if their pandering leads to a charge of being woke. If Republicans are accused of or perceived as being woke when they behave like Democrats, this could very well end their political careers. This phenomenon could in part explain why the “red wave” of the 2022 midterm elections turned out to be a “red puddle.” RINOs and RINO hunters take note.
Moreover, 7.2% of white Republican respondents said that an accusation of racism would make them more likely to vote for a political candidate. The 2022 Blake Masters campaign is a possible example of this phenomenon.
In his 2022 run for US Senate, Blake Masters was accused of being racist for a comment he originally made in April of 2022 about how blacks disproportionally commit a large amount of gun violence. Although the outrage over that comment did not begin until a Daily Beast article published on June 5, 2022.[9] A poll conducted from May 12 to 16, 2022 by Blueprint Polling before the Daily Beast article showed Masters’ opponent, Kelly, having a 16 point lead (this poll was not sponsored by anyone).[10] But a poll conducted from June 24 to 27, 2022, after the Daily Beast article by Change Research and sponsored by Future Majority, a partisan sponsor for the Democratic Party, showed Kelly as having dropped to a nine-point lead against Masters.[11] Polling numbers fluctuated over the next few months, with Kelly ultimately beating Masters at the polls by a 4.9% lead.
Even though Blake Masters lost, his campaign suggests that for Republican candidates, an accusation of racism might actually serve more as a badge of honor than as a scarlet letter.
Moreover, if 7.2% of white Republicans are more likely to vote for someone accused of racism, what is their likely reaction to crude pandering to minorities such as Trump’s Platinum Plan? If even some of these voters choose to sit out elections, it could make the difference between defeat and victory. This topic merits further research.
For decades, whites, Christians, and Republicans have felt sidelined by the establishment. Flexing their economic and voting power via a cancel culture of their own may prove essential to defending their interests. As this poll shows, the potential for a Right-wing cancel culture which punishes businesses and politicians who go woke already exists.
More importantly, with the primaries for the 2024 election fast approaching, Republican candidates would be wise to remember that they may have much more to fear from being perceived as woke rather than as racist. In fact, the Blake Masters campaign suggests that garnering accusations of racism may actually backfire on those who hurl them.
The Homeland Institute will repeat this poll annually to track how the public mind evolves on this issue.
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Notes
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12415249/Anheuser-Busch-heir-Billy-Busch-Bud-light-buy-company.html
[2] https://www.insiderintelligence.com/chart/252370/us-buying-power-by-raceethnicity-2000-2023-billions
[3] In 2016, white voters were 74% of the electorate and 54% of them voted for Trump, versus 39% for Hillary. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/
[4] Those with a high school degree or less are underrepresented by 8.3% in this sample. This is a harder group to reach online. Those with “some college” are overrepresented by 9.4%. The margin of error was plus or minus 3%.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power
[6]https://criticalissues.umd.edu/sites/criticalissues.umd.edu/files/American%20Attitudes%20on%20Race%20and%20Ethnicity.pdf
[7] https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/margin.html
[8] https://www.oann.com/newsroom/nascar-driver-released-from-contract-after-suspension-for-liking-george-floyd-meme/
[9] https://www.thedailybeast.com/blake-masters-blames-gun-violence-on-black-people-frankly https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-backed-senate-candidate-blake-masters-blames-gun-violence-black-rcna32290
[10] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/senate/2022/arizona/
[11] Ibid.
16 comments
This is fantastic. Support on its way.
I love the idea of us flexing our muscle via boycott. I think it is also imperative that we show more agency and create a positive feedback loop. The data shows that inconvenience significantly lowers a person’s willingness to boycott. What this tells me is that we need our people to become more entrepreneurial and provide more alternatives. Everywhere I go I see opportunity.
How about and ad platform and ad network that shows ads of our folk in a healthy manner. I am sure our many online businesses would prefer to have content and imagery that we find attractive and that we know isn’t aimed at our erasure. How about our own retailers where we could shop with images of our beauty standard on the walls and either no music or beautiful music playing instead of the now mandatory rap-hop everywhere?
We could leverage the tools of production and emphasize quality story telling and literacy to form our own Hollywood and feature our stories. If we are 70% of the market there is a huge opportunity there. Even if we placed a set of Euro and EuroAmerican channels, (tech/science; health and beauty; high-mid art and music culture …) that would be a massive wealth generator.
I am rambling but, the main point is, the boycott is cool and good offense. Even better is building our own. The numbers are there. Thank you for doing this work. This is a very positive development.
Great to see material coming out of the Institute!
7.2% would vote for a racist. Made me laugh out loud in agreement.
7% of White Republicans voters is 3% of the population, or ten million people. Given previous reports from the AmRen poll of 2021 I hoped for a higher number of stridently pro-White folk by now. Still it seems there are a lot of people who are on the way back to normality.
Given that this information is based on a statistical sample and we should be setting an example of real science it would be good to have the error margin for the poll published; it should be around +/- 3.5% with the sample size. This information used to be routinely included with electoral polling in the not too distant past, at least in this part of the world. Also, more information on how the data were obtained would be appreciated and losing the third significant figure from the reported data would be a better way to present the necessarily somewhat rubbery figures, if errors are not to be included with each statistic.
The margin of error is in the notes.
Nothing is going to happen, people are not going to do a thing.
The majority of Americans are too fat,lazy, complacent and scared.
This site is about politics. You need therapy. Stop commenting here.
Plenty of people lost their jobs due to the Bud Light Boycott financial blowback, and the company was a reliable donator to the Republican party anyway, so this was objectively a hard own goal that cost Team Red. A-B spent $5 million + in 2022 and 2021 lobbying. It ranks 219 out of 30K+ for political donations listed on Opensecrets.org, primarily to Republican causes and candidates.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/anheuser-busch/summary?id=D000042510
Heck, here’s a juicy one: in 2022, A-B gave a cool quarter of a mil to Eric Schmitt’s PAC “Save Missouri Values”, who, in the past week, has been posting about the need for Border Security on Twitter and calling out the Biden administration for auctioning off Trump Wall materials.
https://twitter.com/SenEricSchmitt/status/1694089296297210151
Anyway, their stock is higher than it was this time last year, anyone can open a stock chart online and see that the “Boycott” has done nothing for their valuation on a multiyear basis. It has, though, particularly impacted that brand. Check it out:
https://nypost.com/2023/07/02/glass-bottling-plants-forced-to-shut-down-leaving-600-employees-jobless-amid-bud-light-controversy/
I don’t believe the “anti-woke” mob care who they hurt or who’s lives they trash so long as they get to have their little tantrum about janky crossdressers. Anything for a symbolic victory for social conservativism.
Did Bud Lite donate to the Republicans more to bolster conservatism, or rather for mere economic opportunism and or to undermine it? AIPAC, Sheldon Adelson and the Chamber of Commerce are also major figures in the GOP donor class who are diametrically opposed to most GOP voters.
The culture war is brutal and the brutality will only escalate. Collateral damage like lost jobs is a necessity to prevent even worse damage like sexualizing children. Furthermore, its not even permanent collateral damage- anyone who lost their job with Bud Lite can probably go work for a competitor who is now moving into the market.
It’s like talking to a brick wall. Who lost out of this? It wasn’t Bud Light shareholders, who could use this as a pretext to downsize. It wasn’t Dylan Mulvaney, who was propelled to fame and further sponsorships. And it wasn’t the LGBT Chamber of Commerce, who pocketed another $200K in late May from A-B.
The article specifically mentioned Republicans as having been “sidelined by the establishment”, so I posted data specifically that shows that Republicans, and specifically Republican Christians and immigration restrictionists, are funded by A-B. Hardline white nationalists are going to account for a tiny, tiny percentage of Bud Light boycotters, who are basically mainstream rank and file Republicans who are leaning further and further into becoming violent nutcases, like Kid Rock who made his point by shooting a can of Bud Light with a submachinegun.
Furthermore, what actual policies does this aim at? It can’t be freedom of expression, because that’s pretty much sacrosanct. It can’t be freedom of speech, again, pretty much sacrosanct. Is the goal to make it illegal for children to be able to view anyone in drag or crossdressing? Or not to hear specific ideas? That’s extremely dangerous, as it moves the line of “adult content” from explicit acts like pornography into the realm of philosophy and belief. Any law that rescinds freedom of speech or expression will be used to imprison right wing speakers, guaranteed. Last time I checked, children don’t buy Bud Light either.
This fiasco was born of a desire of the conservative grassroots to punish A-B as a company for interacting with someone they don’t approve of. Where was this outpouring of white hot rage when Bud Light did an ad campaign promoting black restaurants? It just didn’t happen.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/16/business/bud-light-black-owned-restaurants-ad/index.html
Yes, because donating to the GOP totally means that a company is on “our side.”
If people can boycott Bud Light, then why can’t enough people boycott corporations that support black lives matter? NASCAR is primarily supported by Whites, yet there isn’t any push back against them, the NFL, and other sports. Whites are abandoning the military, big city law enforcement, and to some extent universities, surely enough of us can abandon the entertainment industry and these corporations.
That would be tremendous. It would’ve been great to bring Wally World to their knees for sending a cool billion to BLM. The main obstacle presently is getting everyone organized. A big-name mainstream conservative influencer could pull that off, but the problem is that they’re not listening to us.
Maybe things are getting better, but the terror of the absurd is still far from being overcome. Here is one of the most recent cases
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/alice-cooper-vampyre-cosmetics-collection-trans-comments-1235401594/
There is a major difference, from my perspective, between accusations of racism and accusations of wokeness. No business that wishes to remain in business touts its ‘racism’. So ‘accusations of racism’ are all that the public has to go by, and are universally damning. However, a good many businesses boast of their ‘wokeness’ as if it is a good thing, even if they do not employ the word ‘woke’ anywhere in their dispatches or mission statement. So ‘accusations of wokeness’ is not necessarily something that a business such as Target or Bud Lite would go to great lengths to deny or disprove. They may well welcome such a description.
Simply labeling a business as ‘woke’ is nothing even remotely as damning as labeling it ‘racist’. This is an apples and oranges comparison. If 7.2% of White Republicans admit to being more likely to support a business that is accused of racism, what percentage of White Democrats would be more likely to support a business that is accused of wokeness? I posit a far, far higher percentage.
I think this is a failure of imagination. You are assuming a static correlation of forces, when in fact a couple of years ago, boycotts of woke companies were just a meme.
The 7.2% was in a question about political candidates, not support for corporations.
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