Eduardo Gamarra Americas Insights

How the Right Became What It Once Condemned Eduardo A. Gamarra When Donald Trump first rose to political prominence, his message was clear: America needed to be “free” again—from political correctness, from cancel culture, from the “woke” left that supposedly sought to police speech, rewrite history, and impose conformity in the name of inclusion. That promise of liberation from “woke tyranny” helped fuel a populist revolt that reshaped the Republican Party and brought Trump to the White House twice. Millions of Americans, many feeling culturally alienated, rallied behind a message that said: you can say Merry Christmas again, you don’t have to apologize for who you are, you can reject liberal orthodoxy without shame. But nearly a decade later, the promise of freedom has curdled into its opposite. Trump’s “anti-woke revolution” has produced what can only be called right-wing wokeism—a mirror image of the very excesses it once condemned. The new culture warriors are not liberating A...