Conservatism is failing to address leftist "woke" ideology effectively because it is unwilling to reject its underlying egalitarian assumption about humans. The "blank slate" being a concept from classical liberalism which suggests that all humans are to be thought of as born equal and differences between them should be attributed to environmental and social factors. That is, humans are "tabula rasa" blank slates on which their environment, socially and materially, defines what qualities they will have. American history has a deep relationship with this concept, with it being vaguely referenced in the declaration of independence and being an ideological influence and rhetorical tool behind movements such as women's suffrage, slavery abolition, civil rights, and the war on poverty. Because this is a foundational belief in classical liberalism it permeates academia, resulting in it being consensus in several fields of science. See articles such as this, which take this idea as a given to such an extent that they can fill their core message with unsubstantiated claims and no citations all without question simply because it is in line with these foundational beliefs. It is so prevalent that it is imposed as a moral necessity, it is not kosher to believe any other idea publicly.
Leftist ideology is simply continuing the trajectory of this recent history. The blank slate and liberal equality, if true, would perhaps rightfully suggest that race and gender are reducable to "social constructs" or otherwise arbitrary categories, and most undesirable life outcomes that befall those groups are the cause of some preventable social or material injustice. It is therefore our moral imperative to address that injustice. Hence the leftist tendency to overdiagnose racism, sexism, and every other sort of victimization in everything. With most conservatives being civil rights era boomers who are committed to classical liberal ideology, or are otherwise subservient to boomer demographic power, conservatives have been unwilling to reject this basic egalitarian premise.
Many feel an impulse to defend themselves against wokeism because they are white, male, or some other villainized demographic that wokeism victimizes or at least desires to. They promote an anti-woke stance while also maintaining internalized blank slate liberalism, a logically questionable position. To avoid confronting the inherent dissonance of their beliefs conservatives tend to pathologize or theologize their opposition as either insane or spiritually deficient. It is easier to do that than address their shared philosophical foundation. While such attacks on character may have some accuracy they are ultimately fallacious and missing the core point that blank slate theory and liberal egalitarianism are the source of this problem and they must be rejected in order to properly address woke ideology. Debating about who represents a better implementation of classical liberalism, about who went too far or not far enough, is fruitless for conservatives because modern conservatism and wokeism are simply iterations of the same idea through different time periods. Earlier iterations may have been "better" in that they had less time to develop a bad idea into a worse one, however, any liberal way of thinking always logically arrives at current wokeism given enough time. Leftist ideologues have captured classical liberalism because they more accurately embody its inherent logical trajectory, it is not worth fighting to repossess classical liberalism from them. You cannot return to an earlier iteration of this ideology and expect it to not develop to this point once again, it has already demonstrated what its trajectory is. For this reason blank slate liberalism is fundamentally indefensible and must be rejected at its core.
Conservatives need to explicitly acknowledge that people groups have deep and meaningful innate differences which cause many of their disparities and behaviors. It is not an immoral act of hatred to accept and operate within this reality. This is a reality derived from the christian idea of "original sin", that humanity is doomed to inequity, suffering, and other tragic outcomes because sin separates them from the perfection of God. It is not a preventable social or material injustice that causes most outcomes, behaviors, and attributes, but a spiritual tragedy beyond our power to undo. While it is honorable to address tragedies stemming from original sin and to be generally charitable, it is best to do so with the need for salvation and the facts of original sin in mind than to pretend these outcomes are a purely social and material issue. The truth of original sin is that all men are equal in their relation to God and in their need for salvation, but this does not suggest equality among men and their worldly attributes. See my other article on the subject if you are interested.
The existence of a disparity in some statistic or life outcome does not inherently mean that a social or material injustice has taken place. Nor does every disparity come with a strong moral imperative to reverse it. To undo such disparities will tend to come at the cost of someone, whoever is at the other end of the disparity statistic, usually white men. While it may look good on paper to undo a disparity in this way it is most often a net loss for society in some unquantifiable way. Whether that be using grants to give higher education to people with IQs averaging 85 or HR departments shredding white male applicants' resumes to hire questionably qualified minorities. This evens out the distribution of outcomes among racial and gender demographics, but clearly doesn't produce optimal results for those demographics or for anyone else. Resulting in an unquantified loss for society in the opportunity cost of what more qualified applicants could have done in the same situation. Because this loss is difficult to quantify it is easily ignored, but it is not any less real.
Where most conservatives are failing on this issue is their unwillingness to acknowledge realities such as these and implement them into their politics. Most are still operating in some amount of egalitarian delusion from rhetoric such as civil rights which neuters their ability to talk about this issue realistically. Until this changes conservatism is complicit in the undermining of its people's interests through missed political opportunities to prevent demographic replacement. This topic at one point made some rhetorical progress through the issue of immigration, but it has since lost steam because conservatives compromised, insisting that only illegal immigration is bad and legal immigration is ok, despite them both causing the same demographic problem.
As some examples that egalitarianism is unable to accurately explain: anyone who has been around homeless and addict culture would know anecdotally that they are capable of working hard, hustling even. The level of motivation they have to achieve their next fix is unparalleled, and yet they rarely find success in life. Any resources that are given to them just end up towards the next fix, even if the giver of resources tries their hardest to structure the charity to avoid enabling addiction, they are so driven by their singular goal that no matter which resources are given to them they find a way to use them to get more fixes. Give them subsidized housing? Any savings involved go towards the addiction or other waste, or they just work less so they don't have to make as much money to meet subsistence. Give them food benefits such as SNAP or EBT? They use it to buy bottled water, dump it out on the sidewalk, and cash in at the bottle return to go buy whatever they weren't supposed to have. They then get their actual food for free from dumpster diving to meet subsistence. Consider other unnamed demographics who get almost every benefit handed to them, subsidized housing, education, food stamps, and general welfare, and yet they operate precisely at subsistence strangely often. Many are wastefully consuming thousands worth of luxury clothing and jewelry to ensure no meaningful abundance, or simply quit their jobs because subsistence could be met purely by welfare.
The pattern with these demographics and many others is that no matter how many resources they have they always operate precisely around subsistence, "paycheck to paycheck" if you will. Any abundance they receive is misused to ensure this outcome. Every public resource becomes a tragedy of the commons where someone wastes it for all of us. Previously demographics which would knowingly cause the tragedy of the commons were rare, but now they are to be expected for every common resource. After over 60 years of civil rights and the war on poverty with this result emerging repeatedly the only realistic conclusion is that individuals and people groups do have meaningful natural differences between them which produce their behavior and outcomes which can't be changed artificially with subsidies or opportunities. It is not in the interest of civilized and function people to consider themselves equal to these demographics, to be sharing votes of equal value. While some amount of these outcomes can be attributed to corruption and inefficiency within welfare and other systems, this article is already not favorable towards those systems anyway. Why do these demographics consistently achieve inequal outcomes whether or not they receive welfare intended to force equal ones? They are operating at their innate level of functionality which is not the same as other groups. These demographics' outcomes are largely caused by their low functionality more often than their low functionality is caused by their outcomes. As a purely generalized, demographic-wide statement, not excluding individual exceptions which do exist, but notably tend to transcend the issues being discussed here anyway. Knowing that these demographics aren't "fixed" by giving them resources, that equality of outcomes can't be forced by redistributing resources, are we enabling crime, teaching dependent parasitism, growing the population of low functioning people, and wasting taxpayer dollars with our welfare systems for very little benefit? It should not be considered hateful or racist to defend one's own practical interests in how their own tax dollars are spent and how their communities are managed regarding this.
None of this is to say that society should not use any welfare system to take care of its helpless and needy, simply that the difference between needy and parasitic must be more precisely identified and defined because the consequences of enabling parasitism are becoming very costly. At the moment it would appear that to our institutions there is no meaningful difference between the two.
For points that are more researched and less anecdotal see this article on race being a better predictor of IQ and academic performance than poverty or education level here. As well as some charts demonstrating simililar points.
This is specifically to prove that there is some meaningful amount of biological basis behind life outcomes and behaviors, and that biological basis does often exist within identifiable groups. "Socioeconomic factors" fail to explain a satisfactory amount of these outcomes. Knowing this to be the case we can discuss what is best to do with this information, being as rational as possible. It is not in most people's best interest to use these facts to collectively punish every underperforming ethnic group. However, it is in our interests to question whether it is warranted to give resources and opportunities to groups which don't produce enough desirable outcomes with them. To decide whether forcing groups of differing functionality to share the same spaces was a good idea, or if it caused demographic conflict and harm. And ultimately, which demographics should a functional society focus on cultivating.
How then does an anti-egalitarian viewpoint explain the egalitarian movements in the west's recent history? Civil rights, feminism, LGBT rights, among others seem to imply some amount of meaning behind the idea of liberal egalitarianism. One analysis is that these movements are demographic conflicts inherent to the democratic political process, arising from individualism. In a world which glorifies the individual as a more significant moral, social, and political unit the inevitable outcome is that individuals tend to act in their self interests, moreso than in the interests of the nation. The result is demographic interest groups forming around race, gender, and other identities. These demographics use the moral significance of their individual members to advocate for their own group interests, skillfully wielding rhetoric of equality to achieve them. Egalitarianism comes into play as the rhetoric used to guilt other demographics into compromising on their interests, but individual and demographic selfishness is largely the motivation behind these movements. Democracy, individualism, and egalitarian rhetoric combine to enable demographic conflicts in politics. What has defined the western world's political activity for the last century is not increasing moral conviction around equality and the righting of past wrongs, it is a story of demographics trying to maximize the amount of resources sent towards themselves at the expense of others. Some are more successful than others thanks to their ability to relate their case rhetorically to society's egalitarian morality and contextualize it within that history. Conservatives allow these demographic conflicts to come at their expense because they see them for their rhetoric and not for the underlying reality of demographic self interest.
One example of political conflict motivated by demographic interests is the case of whites and hispanics naturally having different incentives around immigration policy and remittances. Whites largely benefit from taxing remittances since they rarely ever send them out and they could use the tax money, they also benefit from reduced immigration to keep their voting majority and cohesion within their communities. Hispanics on the other hand send remittances quite often and would benefit from them not being taxed, and they stand to benefit from increased immigration giving them access to their foreign family members and a first world standard of living. These conflicting demographic interests occur naturally and can't realistically be avoided when different people groups occupy the same place. Hence why whites shouldn't be prohibited from advocating for their own interests, its often nobody's fault that these conflicts occur and it isn't inherently evil to advocate for your side of them.
This process is allowed to happen at the expense of conservatives and their largely white demographic interests in part because of world war 2. Its narrative is written after the fact as the open minded and diverse allies defeating the racist and bigoted axis, regardless of more realistic historic explanations. This narrative emerged soon after the war and influenced political rhetoric. In an effort to be the opposite of their enemy, the western world takes on a more liberal and egalitarian attitude. As well racial whiteness is villainized in the shallow observation that whiteness and white interests caused the war. Any reactionaries to this are compared to the nazis and hitler, despite many of them having fought in the war against the axis themselves. The result is whites and conservatives cannot act in their own demographic interest without risking that comparison. Despite the obvious logical inconsistency of other demographics being encouraged to act in their own interests at the expense of whites without invoking the same comparison, the comparison is just more aesthetically clear when it's white people. There has proven to be no optical way to get around this problem until recently with young people being 80 years distant from the war so the comparison means nothing to them, but the damage to our demographic interests has already been been done. Conservatives, having fallen for this rhetoric, have succumbed to a toxic individualism where any sort of demographic association they may take on draws the nazi comparison so they associate maximally with individualism and resent "collectivism" or "tribalism" for their own rhetorical safety. This results in a "divide and conquer" type of effect where conservatives are unable to act in their group interests, but their opponents can, a strategic disadvantage contributing to conservatives losing ground in the majority of political happenings since the 1940s. See my article on the topic of tribalism vs individualism and how the trend towards individualism has been detrimental to our well being in more ways than one.
An academic in the social sciences or humanities may view a disparity statistic and desire to balance out the numbers as a solution, but doing so ignores that there are biological realities behind that statistic. Battling against biological reality to realize some misguided idea of justice constitutes a waste of resources at best, and an injustice towards negatively affected parties at worst. Academics have a tendency to be out of touch with this reality because their intellectual upbringing involves immersing themselves in classical liberal thinking and its many derivatives for an entire career, it usually does not occur to them to reject that foundational philosophy to ground themselves in a controversial biological position, however evidently true it is becoming. As well, statistics which suggest a demographic disparity are generally unreliable and they very rarely pinpoint a specific cause to be addressed. The insufficiency of most statistics to diagnose disparities lends this issue to many misguided attempts at solutions with significant negative externalities, when if everything beyond just the statistic is taken into account the best action may be no action. (see Discrimination and Disparities - Thomas Sowell) Academics and those under them can't be relied on to issue moral imperatives from statistics. Their upbringing in classical liberalism and the nature of academic culture lends them to being extremely morally convicted and motivated, but not necessarily realistic about disparities and their causes.
A society which glorifies and disproportionately gives resources and opportunities to low functioning demographics is dooming itself to become low functioning. To reward the most wasteful, degenerate, and even criminal people at the expense of the most productive and civilized people is demographically unsustainable. It is not in the interests of functional people to continue this. Some say demographics are destiny, at this rate the western world's destiny is drugs, crime, and replacement by less civilized demographics.
The truth of this subject is becoming more undeniable as we sink deeper into the consequences of its recent history. Those of us negatively affected parties are forced to see our situation for what it is one way or another, our streets are unsafe, businesses are giving up and leaving, and public misconduct of all sorts is easy to find. Because the legal system is mostly ran by older university graduates it has been influenced by liberalism. It is failing to prosecute or properly sentence problematic people because they give preferential treatment based on the criminal's demographic. On top of that the legal system is actively prosecuting or otherwise bullying anyone who attempts to address these issues. Causing a massive negative consequence upon all of society by allowing low quality and criminal demographics to roam freely and punishing anyone who doesn't tolerate their presence. It has become clear that demographics will determine the future of the western world. It is trickling down into politics with politicians strategizing to influence voter demographic composition to their favor. It has trickled down into our culture, where many of our values and practices are being overwritten by foreign ones. Many have chosen escapism by moving to a demographically homogeneous rural area to avoid the problem. In doing so implicitly acknowledging the truth of this subject but dodging any explicit stance on it. While this can be very adaptive it is not capable of solving these issues at scale. Only an explicit stance in this truth can make meaningful political change.
Demographics are becoming the dividing issue on the right, where older conservative types currently interested in "conserving" their home values and retirement accounts are at odds with younger right wing activists who are interested in securing a future for their people and way of life safe from demographic outnumbering and replacement in the coming decades. The geriatricity of current conservative power structures directs their interests to ensuring short term financial security for a comfortable and consumeristic retirement. Geriatric conservatism lacks the capacity or incentive for a radical rethinking of what our 20, 50, or even 100 year interests are in a world of dynamic demography. Age in this sense is its own demographic issue. Boomers being the largest generation to ever exist are wielding collective power to satisfy short term interests, bringing immigrants from impoverished foreign countries in as cheap laborers, encouraging asset inflation to grow their net worths, taking on unpayable national debt to fund social security, etc, all to ensure that the next few years of the western world remain comfortable for them, regardless of exponentially growing consequences to be dealt with by future generations. The great irony here is those who deny the importance of demographics are perhaps the most consequential demographic interest group there is.
Men born after the mid 1990s have been polling at unapolagetically radical right wing positions, moreso than any other generation, likely in response to the demographic betrayal this short-sighted way of thinking has brought upon their society. Change is ahead of us if this trajectory continues. When taking an explicitly anti-egalitarian and demographically aware stance the optics and rhetoric are challenging to navigate without being called elitist or even fascist. To identify with either is rhetorically unwise, strategic optics may identify with securing a future for our cultures and ways of life, for the safety of our communities, and being good stewards of the civilization our children must grow up in. There exist groups which are incompatible with that vision that we cannot even pretend to care for the interests of. El Salvadore under Nayib Bukele may be a leading example, going from among the least safe countries in the world to the very safest in a few years of youthful, energetic, decicive, and unapolagetically right wing leadership. Bukele understood that demographics are destiny, knowing that to make his country safe he would have to erradicate the entire cartel demographic by any means, this meant imprisoning, detaining, and deporting a shocking percentage of his country's population. It is that energy which must be cultivated for our future's sake. Right wing and traditional people must be willing to wield power in their demographic interests and must not be hindered by comparisons to unsavory historical events. Conservatives may be unhelpful in this regard, but this next generation may not be looking to conserve, it must rebuild.