As Donald Trump stood in the Capitol Rotunda last week, blundering his way through his second oath of office, online liberals were preoccupied with debating another matter: who will be the first Democrat to call Republicans the R-word? Setting aside the question of whether they should use a term widely considered an ableist slur, that very debate was revealing, for a number of reasons.
On the morning of inauguration day, #DarkWoke began trending on Twitter/X. The hashtag – ostensibly a tongue-in-cheek reference to “Dark Brandon” – emerged in reaction to an exchange between the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the far-right influencer Chaya Raichik.
Over the weekend, Ocasio-Cortez posted an Instagram Reel in which she explained her lack of interest in attending any inaugural festivities. “I don’t celebrate r[*]pists,” she says bluntly. Raichik, whose social media account @LibsofTikTok is widely recognized for proliferating the anti-LGBTQ+ “groomer” moral panic, shared the video, declaring “another person Trump should sue”.
The congresswoman then retweeted Raichik, stating: “Oh, are you triggered? Cry more.” The post accrued more than 17m views, and in the process it birthed both a meme and a debate about Democrats’ approach to messaging for the next four years.
Should liberals start using slurs? No – and anyone who seriously entertains such a question has no business crafting comms strategy. It’s clear that Democrats’ current approach to messaging, however, is broken – and party leaders have no conception of how to fix it.
Yahoo News: What is Dark Woke & should the left embrace it? An explainer
In a lot of ways, this feels like the core of what’s behind Dark Woke — treating MAGA the exact same way they’ve been treating everyone else. And if that means kicking civility to the curb, then so be it. Sorry, Michelle Obama, they went low and we’re meeting them right there in the dirt.
But it’s entirely possible to embrace Dark Woke without becoming a wannabe edgelord who’s lost the plot. As one person on X pointed out, it’s kind of even an internet-centric repackaging of punk.
mEsSaGiNg
yes thats exactly what these wimps need to focus on jfcOne could dismiss the whole affair as black-pilled shitposting – aimless, nihilistic musings from a despairing online left. It would be a mistake for Democrats to come to this conclusion.
These fuckers BETTER NOT try to coopt our black-pilled shitposting or I’m gonna lose it
Blackpilled shitposting is not revolutionary action and therefore fair game for recuperation
But… But I thought posting was praxis
Agitating and educating is praxis, shit posting is not.
Idk if I’m not getting it but I was joking?
Yeah, but some people aren’t.
That’s ridiculous that people would think shitposting is praxis… Have there been actual strugglesessions over that before? I feel like there have been
Shit posting is praxis if it helps build community and provides folks with a safe outlet. I will die on this hill.
I’m more talking about people who think being a leftist is shit posting on the internet.
The latest one was basically about that.
It doesn’t matter what dems messaging is because no one believes them and won’t until they actually do anything for anyone that isn’t bipartisan ghoul shit. Of course that isn’t going to gappen because that’s their whole purpose
Exactly my point! I feel like I’ve seen multiple articles since Trump’s inauguration that are talking about how they are so stumped as to how to reach the average voter like STOP FUCKING TALKING AND DO SOMETHING no one gives a shiiiiiit about your messaging, that should be painfully obvious, but the best you can do is manufacture a hashtag? Cmonnnnn
Fuck this confused me. I genuinely hate journalists who don’t just write the fucking words instead of “r-word”. Took me a long time to realize AOC called Trump a removed (person who sexually assaults others) and not an actual slur
who will be the first Democrat to call Republicans the R-word? Setting aside the question of whether they should use a term widely considered an ableist slur
This section was, in fact, about the ableist slur. The term for a sexual assaulter only comes into the article later, and is not called the r-word or censored.
Yeah, I was confused by the copied text in the OP because the word AOC used was changed into “removed” I think? Then it was edited to use an asterisk instead.
The confusion is definitely the shitty journalist’s fault, because the article is about AOC calling him out for his sexual assault but the journalist opened with a random tweet about democrats calling republicans the r-word, a thing that exists entirely in the imagination of the tweeter
Oh yeah that’s a big fucking difference
How will calling Republicans the r-word reduce homelessness and unemployment?
We’ll see sweaty that’s actually impossible to do so instead we have to do what we can, and that’s finding ways to bring back slurs
They mean r*pist not brace’s favorite slur
The article quoted in the OP begins by talking about the former unless my reading comprehension is completely failing me
Could be mine failing me
10,000 Palestinians dead: Does the left need to loosen up on woke?
100,000 Palestinians dead: How do we find a Joe Rogan for the left?
500,000 Palestinians dead: Hey have y’all heard about #DarkWoke?
Dark Woke sounds like Dirtbag Left but for lanyards
i was just about to type this
they can never be dirtbag left because the moment it gets a little too “dark” the hood will go back on - shit a good portion of the dirtbag left can handle that
The congresswoman then retweeted Raichik, stating: “Oh, are you triggered? Cry more.”
Please make it stop
After throwing trans people under the bus, I guess now they want to show they don’t give a damn about mentally disabled people either. Democrats keep democratting.
No improve material conditions
only do whatever this is After throwing trans people under the bus, I guess now they want to show they don’t give a damn about mentally disabled people either. Democrats keep democratting.
No, they meant the other r-word. As in sex crimes.
who will be the first Democrat to call Republicans the R-word? Setting aside the question of whether they should use a term widely considered an ableist slur
No this section very definitely is talking about using the ableist slur. The r-word for sexual assaulters is not censored in the article since it is not considered a slur.
Oh. I misread that, then. You’re right.
Oh. I guess that’s less bad. (Though of course, it’s pathetic to see them trying to act tough after completely surrendering to Trump over the course of the last months and refusing to wield any political power for something good. Only for perpetrating the most evil acts of this century and sending more military funding to the zionists.)
Is dark woke a 2020s reboot of the 2010s dirtbag left?
First as flatulence, and then as fart.
shart rhetoric
kill all CEOs #darkwoke
dork woke
Honestly, I do think there’s SOME merit in the idea of them acting uncivil. Like, there was a noticeable bump in the Democratic campaign when Tim Walz called Republicans weirdos, to the point that it actually seemed like they were going to win. But then, the Democratic brass told him to stop, the campaign was more of the same, and then, they lost horribly.
But don’t use the r-slur, come on…
You now have me convinced Dems are going to run on being anti ADA to appeal to the right more and be “big-tent”.
Democrats do Southern Strategy 2.0. Make themselves super evil, but Republicans don’t change at all, and then the Republican Party becomes the slightly more left party.
more like #DorkWank
boom. gottem.
And here I was hoping this was gonna be a rebranding of the Black Panthers’ tactics.
I need to read more stuff from Black Panther leaders. Especially as a western leftist it only makes sense to read stuff from people who actually learned to survive living with the beast itself.
Democrats better not reclaim white genocide.
Gaza gave the dems their first experience of what campaigning around explicit racism feels like, like Republicans they’re now addicted to lashing out at minorities
They desperately want to re-triangulate themselves so they can claim the mantle of the premier American conservative party, but Republican racism and bigotry is so extreme and explicit they don’t know how to craft racist messaging without sounding identical to republicans, which is socially embarrassing for them
So they affect apathy and put out feelers like this #DarkWoke trash
