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This is correct. Wokeness is humanities academia fed through the incentive structure of social media. It's purpose is not to signal distinctiveness between blue and red, but between impure blues and properly pure blues. It originates with the overproduced elites on the margin looking for ways to distinguish themselves or get their peers ejected so they can win the next round of musical chairs on their way to tenure. It took existing liberal ideas and upped the extremity to the necessary point to distinguish themselves from other blue tribers.
I think right wingers really misunderstand the role of the institutional democratic party in wokeness. The Democratic Party has to get the votes of an aging electorate in an electoral system designed to over represent rural people. Academia, the entertainment industry and social media back in the 2010s all have much stronger incentives to appeal to the sensibilities of young educated people then the Democratic Party. The Democratic party gets dragged in the direction of wokeness by it's young election campaign staff working a year or two as a career stepping atone but the people invested in it's long term success understand who they have to appeal to.
Obama wasn't pro-gay Marriage in 2008. He ran on an 'all of the above' energy policy and presided over a massive shale boom and a 74% increase in oil production. He isn't responsible for the shale drilling revolution, but he didn't stop it either. He's a competent politician who understands that increasing gas prices is political suicide and the path to cutting emissions is keeping gas prices stable while subsidizing clean energy.
People forget that after George Floyd mainstream Democratic outlets weren't pushing defund the police they were pushing 'eight can't wait', a series of modest police reforms like banning chokeholds and shooting at moving vehicles. Deray McKessen went on Pod Save America, the Bill Simmons podcast and GQ, he got written up by Vox and endorsed by Ariana Grande and Oprah. This got rolled into the George Floyd Justice in Policing Bill the Democratic house passed in 2020 which had a national registry of police misconduct and an end to qualified immunity but didn't cut police funding. But this activist campaign for police reforms got absolutely wiped out by the attention grabbing divisiveness of 'Defund the Police' which took over Twitter and social media. Obama as a competent politician criticized the slogan as an expensive signal saying "do you want to actually get something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with?"
Might be against the rules to high-five, but this struck me as spot on.
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