As various socialists’ old social media posts come back to haunt them now that they are trying to take over the Democratic Party, there is an attempt by some to renounce “Woke 1.0” and offer up what they claim is a different kind of leftism. However, on Friday’s PBS News Hour, Boston Globe columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr cautioned against discarding Woke 1.0 and claimed “we are seeing the results of what people were talking about then.”
Host William Brangham had a leading question, “I mean, Kimberly, the—some Democratic critics of the president say that, yes, the Republicans do like to fetishize the woke era, but they argue you also have a Republican Party that is in virtual lockstep with Donald Trump. And what they argue is his very open war on all of the democratic norms of our society, and that that is a much bigger liability. Do you think that that's true?”
Stohr was filling in for MS NOW host Jonathan Capehart during the weekly news recap segment with The Atlantic staff writer David Brooks, and those two aren’t exactly the greatest defenders of “democratic norms.”
PBS's William Brangham had a leading question for Boston Globe columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr on what has now been called Woke 1.0 , "I mean, Kimberly, the—some Democratic critics of the president say that, yes, the Republicans do like to fetish the woke era, but they argue you… pic.twitter.com/fNytxl8u0J
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 15, 2026
Still, Stohr replied, “I think multiple things can be true at once. That's certainly a big liability… But at the same time, to push back against your point about how what a disaster Woke 1.0 was, we are seeing the results of what people were talking about then.”
She also lamented, “We are seeing a work force where the federal work force is—was decimated, including black women disproportionately hit. You are seeing Republicans vilify trans people and LGBTQ people with zest and zeal. You are seeing DEI, whatever they call DEI, being eliminated in a way that even the president is putting up signs on Smithsonian saying that it's a lie if it talks about the plight of black or brown Americans, which is factual. You're seeing such a backlash against all of those things, which is in part because Democrats were walking away from it.”
Obviously, Stohr’s depiction of the Smithsonian controversy is wildly caricataured. She also made the common refrain that the Democrats need to accommodate the crazy people because, “I think Democrats have to build a big tent that focuses on all of the things that are happening as a result of the Trump administration, both economically and otherwise. And I think that's what Democrats are trying to do at this point. They need a big tent. They need to make the big case to Americans that you can—if you want to keep with all of—everything that's going on, keep voting Republican. If you want that to end, give someone else a shot.”
For his part, Brooks offered up some big-picture public opinion analysis, “Just one quick thing. I think we lived through the era of what we will call neoliberalism: Clinton, Obama, Bush. That may have died, much as I would lament that fact. But it's been replaced by two successor ideologies, one on the left, which Ibram Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, one on the right, which is MAGA.”
He also claimed that “I think both those successor ideologies are now in the process of cracking up. And the question would—becomes, what's next? How—is there a new moderate? Is there something else, something? One has a sense of a succession of belief systems that we're now on the end of. And I wish I knew what came next.”
2020 and “Woke 1.0” were not that long ago. The candidates running on them just realize they need to do a better job of not saying the quiet part out loud, but unfortunately for them, the internet is forever.
Here is a transcript for the August 14 show:
PBS News Hour
8/14/2026
7:41 PM ET
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, Kimberly, the—some Democratic critics of the president say that, yes, the Republicans do like to fetishize the woke era, but they argue you also have a Republican Party that is in virtual lockstep with Donald Trump. And what they argue is his very open war on all of the democratic norms of our society, and that that is a much bigger liability. Do you think that that's true?
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR: I think multiple things can be true at once. That's certainly a big liability. People—Donald Trump's approval ratings on all the things he ran on, affordability, two to three down in the polls. Immigration, more than half of Americans are disagreeing with his policies and the way that immigration policy is going. So you have that. But at the same time, to push back against your point about how what a disaster Woke 1.0 was, we are seeing the results of what people were talking about then. We are seeing a work force where the federal work force is—was decimated, including black women disproportionately hit. You are seeing Republicans vilify trans people and LGBTQ people with zest and zeal.
You are seeing DEI, whatever they call DEI, being eliminated in a way that even the president is putting up signs on Smithsonian saying that it's a lie if it talks about the plight of black or brown Americans, which is factual. You're seeing such a backlash against all of those things, which is in part because Democrats were walking away from it.
I think Democrats have to build a big tent that focuses on all of the things that are happening as a result of the Trump administration, both economically and otherwise. And I think that's what Democrats are trying to do at this point. They need a big tent. They need to make the big case to Americans that you can—if you want to keep with all of—everything that's going on, keep voting Republican.
If you want that to end, give someone else a shot.
DAVID BROOKS: Just one quick thing. I think we lived through the era of what we will call neoliberalism: Clinton, Obama, Bush. That may have died, much as I would lament that fact. But it's been replaced by two successor ideologies, one on the left, which Ibram Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, one on the right, which is MAGA.
I think both those successor ideologies are now in the process of cracking up. And the question would—becomes, what's next? How—is there a new moderate? Is there something else, something? One has a sense of a succession of belief systems that we're now on the end of. And I wish I knew what came next.
