Now that Jeremy Carl, Patrick Casey, Jon Harris and many others have weighed in as opponents of the idea promoted by James Lindsay that there is a woke right, it behooves me as a frequent target of that accusation to say my piece. There is no “woke right” any more than there are Burkean Marxists, black Dixiecrats, or patriarchal feminists. Attempts to create such unlikely fusions of opposites border on the ridiculous. Certain identities necessarily exclude other ones; and in this case we are speaking about diametric opposites.

I can wrap my head around Hegel’s dialectical logic, in which that philosopher joins conceptual actuality and contingency to envisage a future full of what are now mere possibilities. This is an exercise in treating categories of being—what in philosophy is called ontology. History, too, can operate dialectically as certain one-time clashing forces work together in changed circumstances. For example, today’s American right is more favorably disposed to social programs benefiting the working class than it was 50 years ago. And workers now stand mostly with the social right on key cultural issues, while corporate capitalism has moved to the left on the same issues.

But there are obvious opposing positions that are not likely to be resolved in a new historical synthesis. Jews are not likely to be demonstrating in support of Nazis causes, and sincere Christians are not likely to defend Muslim jihads waged against their Christian brethren in Africa or Asia. (Needless to say, I do not consider Christian progressives to be serious members of their confession.) It seems equally unlikely that a paleoconservative or member of the independent right would have any truck with the woke left. A veritable moral and social chasm divides these two sides. The barrage of attacks they keep unleashing on each other indicates mutual hostility based on essentially irreconcilable differences.

More interesting for me is why anyone would argue that wokeness and the hard right have now fused into the “woke right.” Methinks those who are pushing this bizarre, counterfactual idea harbor a political purpose. That purpose may be isolating even further those on the right who have strayed from the well-funded conservative establishment. For decades that establishment has tried to hasten the disappearance of unwanted right-wing opposition. It has relentlessly excluded right-wing dissenters from its activities and funding and periodically denounced this group as extremists.

But these Deplorables have not gone away and, particularly among younger bloggers and podcasters, they have endured despite meager resources. The real sin of these critics has been their adamant opposition to the cultural left, an embattled response that they are more likely to display than the regular conservative establishment.  They have distinguished themselves by furious opposition to wokery in all its disruptive manifestations. If there is a “woke right,” that term may be more fairly applied to the conservative establishment, which has in recent years created a “big tent” that, while offering rhetorical opposition, has in practice embraced formerly progressive causes like gay marriage, transgenderism, and diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.

The paleo- or “real right”  argue that America’s moral and social decline stems from certain root causes. It calls for addressing those causes by junking our social engineering regime at home and focusing energy on cultural regeneration rather than fighting foreign wars. By contrast, the conservative establishment shows definite limits as to how far it will go in defying the centrist inclinations and neoconservative politics of its donors. It prefers to concentrate on issues that keep it in the policy mainstream and which it can turn into profitable Republican talking points.

Quite possibly, this establishment right has taken more realistic positions than those it has kept at a distance. Perhaps establishment conservatives, who would sooner celebrate a transgendered Republican than break bread with anyone to the right of themselves, understand the world better than the hardliners. But that hardly shows that those who have been marginalized are in any way similar to the woke left.

It is even more dishonest for those who denounce a “woke right” to identify it with a few white nationalists who may have voted for the Democrats in our most recent national election. There is no pattern here that extends to the large independent right that has emerged as a counterforce to the conservative establishment. Significantly, I know of no one on my side who defected to Kamala and Joe. The serious or hard right loathes passionately the Democrats and the sexual perversity and antidiscrimination regime which it has unleashed on us, especially during the last four years.

Finally, those who talk about a woke right have placed all their enemies into the same rogues’ gallery. Although one may disagree with James Lindsay and other advocates of his position from any number of perspectives, such intellectual diversity cannot be allowed to exist in their grotesquely restricted universe. Its inhabitants see themselves as standing on one side of an infinite divide; and on the other is wokeness, which comes in two forms, a leftist and a rightist one.

In reality, there are multiple political and philosophical positions that stand in opposition to Lindsay’s worldview, which seems to be a combination of culturally leftist stands with libertarian economics and intellectual tolerance for those who happen to agree with him. I doubt that someone like John Ganz, a radical leftist critic of American politics, would read Lindsay’s invectives with any more pleasure than I would. If that is the case, should I assume that Ganz and I came to our negative reaction because we have been equally affected by wokeness?

Given Ganz’s expressed revulsion for me and my allies, which exceeds anything he has written about white bread conservatives, I doubt that’s the case. The obvious answer is that Ganz understands that my side is what Sam Francis called “hard core.” He laments the fact that nice conservatives, perhaps like Lindsay, may be losing to those he hates and fears far more. And though I’ve never consulted him on this point, Ganz may believe no less than Jeremy Carl or Patrick Casey that the woke right is a “stupid idea.”