Seven Culture Warriors Who Put Woke On The Run

Woke is on the run.

The cultural scourge has stifled free thought, promoted hard Left extremism and corrupted the arts. Now, the pendulum is finally starting to swing in the opposite direction.

As Justine Bateman eloquently put it, it’s like we can all breathe again.

Woke may have been destined to crash and burn on its own. It’s antithetical to the American spirit and goes against basic biology. Plus, it’s often meted out in a cruel, hypocritical two-tier fashion.

Hunter Biden repeatedly texts  the “n-word” — zero punishment. Morgan Wallen calls a white friend the “n-word” in a private moment caught on tape – his career implodes overnight.

Yet, over the past decade we’ve witnessed a number of brave souls stand up to the woke onslaught. While there are many on team sanity who deserve a shout out — including the voices at The Daily Wire — here are seven culture warriors who hastened woke’s demise and deserve a curtain call.

Robby Starbuck

Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The filmmaker/activist became the one person woke companies fear more than anyone else. Starbuck’s crusade to expose corporate shenanigans, like excessive DEI policies, proved shockingly effective in recent years.

Just ask Walmart, Target, John Deere, Harley Davidson and more.

A single social media post from Starbuck could send company executives into damage control mode. Sunlight remains the best disinfectant.

Starbuck brings the receipts, too. His recent exposé on Cracker Barrel, coming on the heels of the brand’s calamitous logo “update,” proved he isn’t done spotlighting woke on steroids.

Jennifer Sey

Courtesy of Jennifer Sey

The former gymnast defied her woke overlords at Levi’s and lost, if only on the surface. Sey left her job as Global Brand President after speaking out against pandemic school closures. The woke company demanded she toe the line and not share her opinion publicly. She refused.

She could have licked her wounds or stayed silent. Not Sey. The Colorado resident rolled up her sleeves and kept fighting. She assembled a team to create a documentary detailing just how punishing lockdowns proved for millions of kids, even as we weren’t always allowed to admit it aloud. That upcoming documentary, “Generation-Covid,” is just part of her anti-woke agenda.

She also created XX-XY Athletics, a clothing brand designed for women, not biological men living as women. Her company speaks out against trans women in women’s sports, helping strike a blow against a movement that often shames citizens into silence.

Now, the tide is turning on the subject, with more Americans allowed to speak their minds. Sey helped make that happen.

Elon Musk

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He may be “frenemies” with a certain world leader these days, but Musk struck a mighty blow against woke by buying Twitter. Partly inspired by the platform’s attack on The Babylon Bee and other free speech punishments, Musk took over and restored many censored accounts. His new, streamlined X let free speech reign anew. Suddenly, users didn’t have to self-censor for fear their unwoke opinions could cost them their digital voice.

The platform is far from perfect, but under Musk’s control, it’s a vastly superior product and a woke-free zone.

Christopher Rufo

Photo by Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Starbuck may be corporate America’s worst nightmare, but Rufo offers a similar service for academics gone wild. Rufo’s relentless pressure campaigns, and fact-based measures, proved highly effective in recent years.

Rufo helped expose former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s plagiarism scandal, but that’s just a fraction of his recent activism. Here, he describes why he focuses his attention on Ivy League institutions.

“They’re promoting from their central administrations racial discrimination, scapegoating and even segregation.”

In some cases, they “were” promoting all of the above. Rufo gets results.

J.K. Rowling

Samir Hussein/WireImage via Getty Images

Many celebrities, even the biggest stars in the galaxy, stand down under intense woke pressure. Remember how Scarlett Johansson buckled rather than accept a role playing a trans character?

Not Rowling. The “Harry Potter” author, an old-school progressive, began questioning elements of the trans agenda in 2020. That put her squarely in the Left’s cross-hairs, and she’s remained there ever since.

Death threats. Endless cultural cancelations. Serial attacks from the same Legacy Media outlets that once praised her ability to inspire young readers.

And Rowling refused to back down. That posture, combined with the work Sey has done on trans matters, allowed others to speak out against biological men in women’s sports.

Joe Rogan

Screenshot: Joe Rogan Experience/YouTube.com

Rogan’s relentless curiosity, eagerness to let so many voices share his platform, and his dedication to an open, long-form conversation has given free speech a major boost. 

Even more important, Rogan had a change of heart regarding one potential guest. Two years ago, Rogan seemed disinterested in chatting up former President Donald Trump.

Then, as he watched the Democratic Party stifle speech across the culture, he realized his platform could give Trump a boost in the 2024 presidential campaign. It’s likely why other rebel comics did the same with the Trump-Vance ticket, from Andrew Schulz to Tim Dillon.

President Donald Trump

Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Everything woke turns to s***,” The 45th and 47th president once said, slicing through the noise to make perfect sense. He’s right, of course, and he helped make woke retreat to its current, cornered state.

The president’s frank talk, blustery persona and eagerness to speak sans filter did more than burnish his brand. He gave us permission to do the same, to shoot straight and take the consequences.

Plus, he used his executive orders to protect female athletes against biological male competitors and doubled down on Rufo’s efforts to rein in woke colleges. His anti-DEI initiatives will be part of his legacy, no doubt.

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Woke is far from gone, despite the work of these culture warriors. Some companies and schools are using sleight-of-hand techniques to keep on discriminating on the basis of race and gender.

The disgraced Gay is still teaching students at Harvard.

Hollywood will keep making movies about five-foot-nothing women beating up men double their size. Gender and race-swapped stories won’t fade to black like 3D movies and found footage shockers.

Still, woke has taken body blow after body blow. And these powerful figures threw some of the heaviest punches.

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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.