Regardless of one’s personal feelings about wokeness and the culture wars (I think such things are important for many reasons, but have also spilt plenty of ink in critique), it seems likely they are one factor, out of many, holding back Democratic electoral success.

Some commentators have recently insisted that “The working class isn’t woke. That’s a huge problem for the left,” and that we need to recognize that the ideas of the “populist economic left” are popular but those of the “woke cultural left” are not. Perceptions that the Democrats are the crazy woke people may contribute (while not being the sole cause) to the fact that blue candidates will not garner votes even while progressive policies will — states that voted for Trump also voted for abortion rights, higher minimum wages, and so on.

The idea is to lean into bold leftwing policies that tangibly help ordinary people (which is the correct course of action when people are struggling and rightwing authoritarians and extremists are promising shelter) and lean away from what most of the country views as violations of common sense, unnecessary oversensitivity, language or thought policing, and so forth (let alone inaccuracies). People all over the political spectrum would love free healthcare or money deposited into their bank accounts by the State, but dislike getting beaten up for not using terms like Latinx. The Democrats are associated with the latter, not so much the former. And that’s trouble, because, conservatively, about 25% of independent voters and 10% of Democratic voters do not want a “woke” presidential candidate. Other research suggests that 58% of Democrats and 74% of independents are either concerned that politicians are too woke or are distracted from serious issues by wokeism. Some voters who have abandoned the Democrats will tell you directly they were tired of being told “how to talk,” with Democrats consistently “going too far.” They “lost touch with our priorities” and framed anyone who disagrees with wokeness as a “bad person.” A perceived focus on cultural issues rather than helping the middle class was the top reason swing voters chose Harris’ opponent.

There are those who saw Harris as properly progressive and having downplayed the culture war stuff, which is all debatable, but we’re talking about years-long, society-wide trends that are bigger than one campaign or candidate. Democrats would have to offer much more to help struggling people and work for some time to separate themselves from the woke Left, which is perceived as insane by too many badly needed voters.

To reiterate, an analysis of unfortunate effects and the perceptions of the masses can be acknowledged regardless of personal support for woke Left ideas. Sometimes the things you think are right hurt your electoral chances. Sometimes you’re the square peg being rammed into a round hole, at odds with most of the nation. Maybe Latinx is a better term, but 96% of Hispanics decline to use it. So you decide what hills are worth dying on; at times what’s right must be pursued regardless of electoral cost, while other things can be let go. Some woke battles are worth fighting, in my view, but if the larger culture war in any way helps hand the branches of government to the Republicans, it seems worth questioning. Many recent articles have screamed that the woke era had nothing to do with Harris’ loss, while others make it the main culprit — it seems reasonable to reject these absolutes, and most intellectually honest to say it is part of the story, and then consider how to act in response moving forward.

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In 2018, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s chief strategist, reportedly described his tactic of “flood[ing] the zone with shit” — pumping so much misinformation and nonsense into the media landscape that citizens trust serious news reports less and important stories get buried in the deluge. Conflicting stories and propaganda create a fog of confusion concerning what is true, siloing people into their own worlds, inhibiting a coherent response, thus helping a vile strongman get away with doing vile things.

Trump operates in a similar fashion individually. He is a real threat to democracy and the rule of law, but says and does so many absurd, awful things that one eventually grows numb to it all and begins to tune out. A dangerous effect. Another fog settles over the populace, with serious statements difficult to parse from the ocean of lunacy. When Trump speaks of serving for three terms or terminating the Constitution or being dictator for a day, is he trolling the libs and getting high off the attention, or expressing actual goals? (Not all will view his actions as fully clarifying.) When such statements exist alongside suggestions that bleach injections cure COVID, claims that windmill (energy turbine) noise causes cancer, and face-saving alterations of hurricane projection maps with a sharpie, is it harder for people to take them seriously? (Republicans certainly bend over backward to frame verbal threats to democracy as just more Trump silliness.) Does Trump, wittingly or not, flood the zone with so many distractions that his dangerous actions and true intentions make less of an impact, a boon to an authoritarian?

Such phenomena overwhelm the masses and ensure legitimate dangers are less noticeable in all the noise, and a recent, insidious third strain follows the same pattern. The mimetic variant has become increasingly obvious over the past four years. If Trump is accused of staging a coup, scheming to unlawfully remain in power after losing a free and fair election, the Right must respond with the laughable claim that Biden withdrawing from the 2024 election was a “coup.” If Trump interferes in an election, he must explicitly call the criminal charges against him (many for that very act) “election interference.” If Trump is a legitimate danger to democracy, no, the Democrats are the actual danger. Whatever crime you’re involved in, accuse the other side of the same, which serves to obscure the seriousness of your own actions by making all this look like standard, childish back-and-forth political name-calling. Flood the zone with shit; make accusations meaningless.

This furthers the construction of parallel worlds. As I wrote in War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ending Democracy is Saving It, which took the clear and present dangers to the democratic functioning of our society and compared them to the ideas in Orwell’s 1984:

Authoritarianism appears to rely on parts of the populace living in parallel worlds…built on conspiracy theories and lies… One part of the population believes destroying democracy is saving it. That stealing an election prevents a stolen election. The armed mob that broke into the Capitol [and] the conservatives decrying mass voter fraud…believe democracy is in danger as sincerely as liberals (and moderates and sane conservatives). It must be protected from those cheating Democrats, fraudulent votes, bad voting machines. Their own reality.

Pumping nonsense into the news, spewing nonsense individually, parroting nonsensically to distract from and delegitimize real problems… These practices and lies build the fantasyland. Elsewhere, they spread a cloud of exhaustion, confusion, and meaninglessness. Both of these creations aid and enable strongmen. Democracy, it turns out, dies not in darkness, but in a well-fertilized zone.

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In November I’ll be voting for Joe Biden with some enthusiasm. From the Leftist perspective, there are things to criticize (Israel, immigrant detention, typical disappointingly liberal stuff) but also moments of pleasant surprise (Biden’s push to abolish student debt, ending the war in Afghanistan, marijuana pardons, big money to families under the American Rescue Plan and Child Tax Credit, huge infrastructure and climate investments). Good policies — and despite thus far fruitless bribery investigations by Republicans, Biden seems like a decent enough person, minus the creepy uncle handsiness around women and occasional lie or embellishment.

I’ve been somewhat surprised at Biden’s low approval rating. (And somewhat pleased. The last thing you want is Democratic voters and officials comfortable, confident Biden will win. You want them in a panic, to ensure turnout.) To me he seems relatively inoffensive, a job done just fine. A conversation revolves around his age and faculties, but I can’t take it too seriously. If he has grown more frail and jumbles words and gets momentarily confused like a typical grandpa, that does not automatically mean the careful decisions he makes (with his team and advisors, mind you) are compromised or faulty, nor does it change the nature of his person or politics.

It would have been delightful if Biden had blown everything up and stepped aside for someone younger, more progressive, a woman or person of color, to really excite the base. Something fresh, without question creating better odds of victory. Overconfidence and pride may well cost Democrats another election. But if he’s our man, if he will not step down for a younger candidate, very well. I cannot get worked up enough to reject or disapprove of someone so vanilla and “just fine” and solidly adequate.

Trump, of course, is an awful man with extremist policies, a demagogue whose pathological lying, authoritarian flair, and general imbecility threaten the democratic functioning of society. We’ve enjoyed seeing Trump and his followers arrested and tried for their crimes. All that goes away when a Republican returns to the White House. Trump will win a stay of prosecution, order the Justice Department to drop its charges, try to pardon himself, or do the Two-Step Shuffle (Trump resigns as president, his vice president ascends and pardons him and makes him the new VP and then resigns, returning Trump to the presidency). Pardons will be issued for accomplices and January 6 rioters. No one will be held accountable for anything. The rightwing extremism, madness, and undermining of the rule of law and democracy will resume. These are the stakes.

On November 5, do your fucking job.

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Under President Clif Smart’s valiant leadership, Missouri State University has grown in many ways. Fundraising smashed records, and renovations and new buildings beautified campus. Our profile rose alongside school pride. But there are three huge tasks ahead for the next university president. If accomplished, they will bring in more students, income, donors — what any institution needs to improve its degree programs, keep tuition down, pay professors better, and more. Our next leader must have an absolute commitment to the following aims. 

1) Joining an FBS conference. Smart, his athletics director, our new football coach, and the fan base have all started speaking the same language. It’s time to move onward and upward, out of the Missouri Valley Conference and FCS football. We’re a major institution. If there’s a higher tier, we’re gunning for it. Bobby Petrino’s football program revealed the possible, giving Arkansas and Oklahoma State real scares. Joining an FBS conference brings wider national exposure, richer TV contracts, a chance at bowl games, and a more excited, proud fan base. The next president must craft a plan, including facilities improvements, to attract an invite. [2024 Update: MSU has joined CUSA and risen to FBS.]

2) Men’s basketball’s consistent appearance in the NCAA Tournament, and football’s consistent appearance in the FCS playoffs until FBS is reached. Imagine for a moment that Missouri State was the team in Missouri to reliably enter the NCAA Tournament. It would be transformative. Multitudes of young people would want to be Bears. The national exposure would be invaluable. Remember the 1980s and ’90s, when we’d make it into March Madness, even the Sweet 16? It’s time to return to glory. Likewise, football must continue the success Petrino created to remain attractive to FBS conferences and engage fans, battling in the FCS playoffs. Our new president must better fund these two critical sports, and never be afraid to cut ties with a failing coach and find one with playoff or championship experience.

3) Helping free MSU to offer PhDs. It’s illegal for MSU and eight other public universities in the state to offer PhDs and first-professional degrees in law, medicine, engineering, and so on. The University of Missouri system holds a monopoly on these degrees. There’s a reason MSU offers fewer than a dozen doctorates — it isn’t allowed to do much more. In 2023, bills were filed in the Missouri Legislature to end the monopoly (SB 473, HB 1189), but they died in committee. New bills are coming in 2024. The next president must fight for fairness and work with the Legislature to lift the ban. MSU will then be able to offer many more doctoral programs, attracting more graduate students. [2025 Update: A bill has passed allowing MSU to offer any PhD except engineering; Mizzou’s monopoly over dentistry, law, medicine, optometry, engineering, and pharmacy remains intact.]

Achieving these goals will send a university that has long been on an upward trajectory into the stratosphere. I urge the search committee to find a candidate who will commit with the utmost passion, and I encourage Bears everywhere to call for this as well at MSU’s October 2 input forum and through the community survey at missouristate.edu/president/search.

This article originally appeared in the Springfield News-Leader.

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Roald Dahl’s books — James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — were recently rewritten to excise terms like “fat” and “ugly” (“enormous” and “brute” are apparently more palatable). Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels got the same treatment for racism, as did Agatha Christie’s works. Disney has edited everything from Aladdin to Toy Story 2 to remove offensive content, with as much care as it devotes to wiping out LGBTQ stories from films in production and finished films streamed in the Middle East. Movies and shows for adults — The Office, The French Connection — have been altered. And while no one is picking up the paintbrush just yet, the names of old art pieces in museums are being revised as well.

These practices are not fully new, of course. Movies shown on television have long been edited for language, sexual content, length, and so on. The radio has traditionally muted vulgar lyrics. It wasn’t exactly the Left pushing for such things. (In general, conservatives and the religious have a long history, and present, of cancellations and censorship, from book bans to moral panics over films and music, but this piece aims to focus specifically on changes to previously published works.) But people of all stripes and times have participated. In 1988, The Story of Dr. Dolittle (1920) was scrubbed of racist elements long after the author’s death. Residents of past centuries did pick up tools and modify paintings and sculptures featuring nudity — even a Michelangelo or two. And so on. Yet the modern age has brought a new, perhaps unprecedented intensity to the alteration of past works of art. Driven by the Left, it is the responsibility of the leftist to consider its ramifications.

Publishers, studios, and streaming services want to offer people classic, beloved works, but recognize their racist, homophobic, sexist, nonconsensual elements are wrong. There is no doubt that the decision to act can stem from a sincere desire to address harm, but some institutions lack any real principle or spine, modifying art and then reversing course immediately after the inevitable backlash, racing in this direction to avoid one mob and then in the opposite direction to avoid another, whatever can be done to protect image and profits. Capitalism at work.

As for individuals, while the independent thinker will always find institutional overreactions, things that really weren’t that bad, she will likewise be unable to deny the horrific nature of some scenes and terminology in older media. That something should be done to curtail the impact of bigoted ideas and portrayals is right and reasonable.

Alteration is not the only option available, of course. New introductions, content warnings, serious discussions before or after a film, and so on have been and can be utilized, offering context and critique rather than cuts. Then there’s the nuclear option, which is a removal but one that preserves the work: no longer publishing texts (auf Wiedersehen, Dr. Seuss), removing a creation from your streaming platform, etc.

These may be comparatively beneficial — even the last one — because they avoid certain problems. Despite the noble motives behind changing past art, there is something a bit bothersome about it: doesn’t this make past artists out to be better people than they were? If Roald Dahl or Hugh Lofting employed harmful language or stereotypes, why would they deserve a more polished, progressive image for today’s readers and those of the long future? The awful caricatures of Native Americans, unabashedly called “injuns,” in Peter Pan (1953) should quite frankly be a mark upon Disney forever. What interest have I in making Walt Disney of all people, or his studio, or the film’s many directors and writers look better? This isn’t precisely the same as whitewashing. In history, or the present, whitewashing is intended to glorify individuals or events by ignoring crimes and horrors. The Founding Fathers need to be heroes, so their enslavement of human beings and vile racism can be downplayed and swept under the rug. Here the motive is entirely different: awfulness will be surgically removed so that bigoted ideas and behavior are better contained, an attempt to avoid infection of children and adults alike while still letting them enjoy beloved works. Nevertheless, the effect is rather similar. Sanitization may have a clear benefit, but it inherently creates ahistorical representations of past artists. They are positioned as fundamentally different, more moral people. This does not seemed deserved, and it is troubling to voluntarily create any false view of history, whether of its cultural creations, its artists, or anything else. This may not be a big deal for those of us who know edits have been made — but children and future generations may not have such a firm understanding, resulting, to some degree, in a rosier view of authors, filmmakers, and studios of the 1950s and other decades.

One must further wrestle with the larger question. Is it right to change someone’s art without his consent? What if she wouldn’t want her piece altered? This provokes a couple answers. If it’s a work judged to be benign, everyone would be outraged at the suggestion of tinkering — don’t change Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, leave alone the works of Beverly Cleary, A.A. Milne, and Beatrix Potter! They may not approve and are not around to object; let their creations exist as they intended. (Studios and publishers have the legal right to tamper, of course, but that does not mean they should.) It’s easy to say that problematic art and artists have forfeited that right to preservation and respect of intention. “It’s racist, he’s racist, who gives a shit?” But as a writer, I’m horrified at the thought of someone changing my books or articles when I’m gone, even to make them better, less offensive, more moral. Beyond constructing a false view of who I was, it would be without my consent and against my strong-felt wishes and beliefs (verbalized here, with any luck forever). I imagine that most artists, whenever they lived, did not want other people meddling with their creations. There is too much obsession, care, and satisfaction involved in the creative process. So, if this is a treatment and right I want for myself — respect for my consent and control over my own material offspring — I have to extend it to others. No matter how innocent or flawed their pieces. Only those who would sincerely have no issue with a song, book, article, painting, film, sketch, photograph, or other work they made being changed a century from now in an attempt to purify it can support editing Dahl or Disney (one cannot say “that would never happen” or “there’d be nothing offensive to cut” because it is likely that few of the impacted creators of today could have imagined any of this happening to their work either). The rest of us must begrudgingly respect the consent of artists (though not the content of their art) or else fall into hypocrisy.

It seems worth adding that not only do our views on preservation and the artist’s consent change when speaking of benign art versus offensive art, a change that is questionable, it also appears that the form of art matters. The idea of brushing over an offensive painting in a museum is far less comfortable, and still nearly unthinkable, compared to tinkering with entertainment and books. How about altering old photographs? Or imagine Spotify offering new versions of old, beloved songs and simply wiping out the originals. Surely one is a bit slower to defend such things. But why? Why would the form matter? Similar feelings have lurked in the back of my mind as this writing has progressed. Perhaps understandably, I find the alterations of books more troubling than films and shows. I also find tampering with films and shows for impressionable children less irksome than doing the same to entertainment for adults. Yet those distinctions and biases don’t seem to matter much. Art is art, no?

The other strategies noted above avoid all of these challenges completely. Artists may not deserve (in more than one sense) to have their work modified by others, but people have the right to discuss, condemn, or ignore art. All that’s expected. Content labels, new introductions, serious discussions, and cancellations are fair game. Of course, people will disagree over which works should be pulled from platforms or publication and which should be offered with commentary and criticism. I have little hope of solving that. It is the intention here to simply highlight these possibilities as more acceptable choices, and encourage some skepticism of changing past art of any form.

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