Woke politics goes south

SOME people call it left-wing identity politics. Others call it “wokeism”. It helped elect Donald Trump president of the United States and provided convenient controversies to distract British voters from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s weak record in office. Woke politics is now travelling south, with equally dismal consequences.

For example, it is helping Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump wannabe, to recover in the polls ahead of the country’s presidential election in October, making the race tighter than it was 2 months ago. In Chile, woke activists recently produced a draft constitution that The Economist has described as “ridiculously broad” and a “confusing mess”. Polls suggest voters are likely to reject it in a Sep 4 referendum.

Before I condemn myself to being “cancelled”, let me state 3 obvious facts. Yes, countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Colombia – where the right-wing populist Rodolfo Hernandez received 47 per cent of the vote in the recent presidential election run-off – after long histories of social injustice, income inequality, and racial and gender discrimination, need serious reform.