At the roundtable discussion of the Institute for the Research of Communism and the XXI Century Institute, Rajmund Fekete, director of the former said that the woke movement is the second act of communism, which has penetrated into almost every aspect of life. In his view, this false ideology was alien in our region, but Donald Trump's victory also showed that people overseas are fed up with this madness. According to Márton Békés, director of the XXI Century Institute, the movement was also partly motivated by business interests and has now been withdrawn. Gábor G. Fodor, Director of Strategy at the XXI Century Institute, pointed out that it was not internal conviction that gave birth to the ideology which severely demolished traditional structures and social frameworks.
Rajmund Fekete stated that today it is clear that the citizens of the United States of America have said no to the woke-craze, to being forced by liberal elites to protect their own children from this ideology, which has taken over a significant area of the media as well as education. The director of the institute underlined that woke is in fact a continuation of communism, the second act of communist ideology. The only difference is that those who run it don't tell you that you are a “kulak”, but that you are a racist. He recalled that the movement was supported by the American media and much of the local art world. Both the film and the music industry. In the case of the latter, it happened that a well-known country singer's song was cut by her publisher because the lyrics and the accompanying music video were seen as too American, patriotic and conservative.
Rajmund Fekete drew attention to the fact that in the 2024 presidential election campaign, the Democratic Party representatives simply restrained their emphasis on woke, rather trying to emphasize the patriotism and border protection policy of their candidate Kamala Harris - even if it can hardly be considered successful in hindsight. This change was necessary because the trend had clearly reversed, with normality replacing violent ideology: according to a survey, 55% of the US population thought that strict border protection and immigration policies were the right thing to do. This trend was successfully reversed by Donald Trump's campaign staff, who constantly reminded the American electorate that the Democrats were staunch supporters of woke and illegal migration.
The Institute's director recalled that the Democratic elite has also dominated US higher education, as a 2016 survey showed: in US universities, the ratio of Democratic professors to Republican professors is 12:1. This stands as proof that the left liberal elite has taken over the universities, underlined Rajmund Fekete.
According to Rajmund Fekete, this movement may seem funny to us in Europe, but it was far from that to the American citizens: they had to protect their own children from this destructive ideology. As for the relationship between multinational companies and the woke movement, he explained that Budweiser Light beer sales had suffered a serious decline after the manufacturer had become involved in promoting woke. In this regard, he added, there was a memorable scene when overseas singer Kid Rock shoot up cases of Bud with a semi-automatic machine gun.
He also said that this false, distorted ideology must be dealt with at all costs, and that everything must be done to ensure that it does not return and dominate public discourse. Everyone must be reminded of the damage its return would do to societies. Fortunately, however, in countries that have lived through both total dictatorships - including Hungary - the woke has not become popular at all. For example, the proposal by the left-wing mayor of Ferencváros to create a Black Lives Matter memorial was harshly rejected. Rajmund Fekete also said that it was extremely sad that attempts had been made to dehumanize famous people using woke as a weapon: it was unfair that the American actor Kevin Spacey had been accused of violence and then, as a result, had been removed from a production in progress.
According to the Institute's director, Donald Trump's victory will mark the beginning of a new era in the history of the United States of America. The former businessman, who has been preparing for the presidency for four years, won the election by a convincing margin despite his opponents' constant attempts to unseat him, both legally and with a gun. From 2025, the United States will be characterised by strong, raw imperial politics, not the opportunistic, sneaky methods of Joe Biden that defined the previous years. America wants to radiate power, and it is no coincidence that Donald Trump, like President Kennedy, has also announced a space program, and Vice President J.D. Vance, who has all the qualities to become the next President of the United States of America, can be of great help in this plan, thus cementing the power of the Republicans for years to come - concluded Rajmund Fekete.
Márton Békés, director of the XXI Century Institute, said at the roundtable that it were business interests that unleashed the woke movement on the Western world. It was nothing more than a business opportunity, a way of gaining a market, with a political ulterior motive, of course. According to him, the woke phenomenon was a typically American one, by no means originates in Europe. The movement was characterised by an egalitarian, Quaker, elitist outlook. The woke was in fact a stripped-down, American, Protestant plague, said Márton Békés. The director of the XXI Century Institute recalled that the contrary to the mass opposition, the elite started to leave woke out on its own, which was of course reinforced by the strong, decisive policies of the current Trump administration. Even the father of Facebook, the liberal Mark Zuckerberg, has retreated, and has clearly shown his preference for Donald Trump. Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook had effectively interfered in previous US elections against the Republicans. One example of this radical change is the American series Tracker, which responded to Donald Trump's presidency by replacing openly lesbian characters with American flags and American features. In Márton Békés's view, the current Trump era will be a creative destruction in the life of the United States. Not a new Reagan era, but the era of the state of two hundred years ago, he said.
Gábor G. Fodor, Director of Strategy at the XXI Century Institute, said: the woke is not dead. Although it is possible to partially close down this clearly politically charged movement, which was invented, launched and made part of the public discourse by the left, we cannot say that it is dead. Woke can be seen as a counter-revolution against Trumpism, which was created to weaken and dismantle traditional social structures. According to the Gábor G. Fodor, it was created by many, but one man - Donald Trump - has pushed the movement to its grave.
This movement was not born out of internal conviction, G. Fodor Gábor said. The proof of this is that big companies and mammoth corporations immediately backed Donald Trump after his landslide victory, throwing all previous activities into the dustbin. He pointed out that people are not receptive to the violent woke politics in films and music, which is in fact the left's disastrous downfall. Harmful woke ideology can act as the enemy of the future, because there is a goal if there is something to fight against. As for the period ahead, the director said that the United States and Donald Trump's strong, powerful moves must be taken seriously again, and that Greek philosophies will probably not be enough to understand them.