I'm fond of quoting the old saw about generational trends in Western civilization. This bit of wisdom states:

This is an extremely simplified take on the Strauss-Howe generational theory, but even this simplified version carries a lot of weight. We need only look back to my parents' generation, the Greatest Generation; those children of the Great Depression, the young adults of World War 2, were tough people, and they made good times, starting with that post-war economic boom. But it's hard to deny that too many among the populations of Western nations are "woke" and weak - the two going hand in hand. Now, "woke" seems to be fading (we hope) - so what might a post-woke world look like? What movement on the left might replace it?

In a recent piece at The Daily Sceptic, Dr David McGrogan, an associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School, gives us a look at what that may look like. He's not optimistic.

What we think of as ‘wokeness’ really then must be understood as an inchoate grasping towards this bare-bones, skeletal vision of the political. It is not, as some have suggested, a kind of quasi-religion or Christian heresy, but rather the complete antithesis of religion: it is what politics looks like when all that is theistic or supernatural or transcendent has been shorn away and all that is left is the individual’s most basic desires and the state which promises to realise them. It is the political reason of modernity as such, taken to its logical end, where final causes have disappeared, cosmic order has collapsed and there can be absolutely no trace of objective morality or natural hierarchy – not even a preference for family members over strangers – permitted to remain.

The problems with this, and the reasons why wokeness is dying and being replaced by something far uglier and meaner, are not difficult to understand.

I've made my own doubts known; there are many possible outcomes of the left's ongoing disintegration, most of which aren't good, for the American people or the republic.

Read More: We May Be Past the Time Where Compromise Is Possible

We're seeing the "uglier and meaner" already. Dr. McGrogan continues:

Wokeness’ then simply is no recipe for a lasting political settlement of any kind, and we have already seen the results – a nasty combination of flavours that cannot combine into anything like an edible dish. There are too many rivalries over foundational matters (consider feminists versus trans activists), too many inconsistencies (consider the incipient crisis over gay rights which will soon destroy the Islamist-Green alliances sprouting up across Europe), too many fights brewing on the horizon (particularly as identitarianism takes off among white majority populations in the West). What began in idealism ends in grubby and malicious in-fighting. And what results from that is the emergence of genuine political violence as the obvious outgrowth – because what alternative could there be when politics itself makes no reference to objective good or moral value and insists that justice can only be conceptualised in terms of what is in accordance with self-interest?

This is happening. Right now. We saw this last week, to our sorrow. And it didn't start there; the sitting President of the United States was the subject of two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign. And, we can remember the 2020 riots.

The right doesn't do this. The right leaves outdoor venues cleaner than they found them. They engage, they discuss, they persuade. The right doesn't riot, look and burn. That's becoming apparent to much of the population, and some of the more egregious acts of the "woke" left are too much for some people closer to the center of the spectrum. In the space of two years, after all, the left handed the right at least three of the most powerful political images in recent history:

Yes, the tide is turning. My friend and colleague Brandon Morse recently wrote an eloquent piece on just that:

Read More: Democrats Are Culturally Paying the Piper After Charlie Kirk's Death

What happens next? 

Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future. A beast is the most dangerous when it's wounded, after all. But I admit to seeing a few signs of hope. For whatever reason, the political assassination of a young husband and father who was just talking to people seems to have hit the nation with a heck of a wake-up call. The usual suspects on the left are still spewing their usual bile, but fewer people are listening.

If this keeps up, "woke" may end not with a bang, but a whimper, and we may yet turn that corner, where tough people will rise up and make good times.