Ani O'Brien: This is what the Woke Right is

Never wrestle with pigs. You’ll both end up covered in sh*t and the pig will enjoy it.

Around a decade ago the burgeoning Woke Left really hit its straps and was observably and overtly dominating cultural spaces (it still does). Language policing, cancel culture, moral purity, and complete obsession with identity cannibalised leftist politics and bled out into progressive strongholds like academia, public service, the media, and eventually the corporate world. Attempting to argue principles or nuance with the Woke Left would (and still does) result in a struggle session complete with a suite of DARVO tactics.

The fight against the Woke Left has been maddening and destructive, but we appear to be moving into a new phase of the movement. The re-election of Donald Trump has been hailed by some as the end of woke, but that is not quite right. Yes, some of the most overt and outrageous aspects of leftist wokeness have been seriously weakened. Trump has signed Executive Orders banning men from competing in women’s sport, for example, and his administration has made it clear DEI is to be eradicated as far as they are concerned. The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the legal definition of ‘woman’ is based on biological sex.

But, wokeness is a formidable opponent. Wokeness is a parasite. It burrows under the skin of society causing havoc and driving the host to insanity.

Burrowing is exactly what the Woke Left are doing now. They have retreated to their (substantial) strongholds and are digging in. They are rebranding DEI, dressing it up as something more subtle that will slip under the radar and preparing for four years of lawfare against the Trump administration.

In New Zealand, the public service has dug its collective heels in so determinedly that the Coalition Government is having to battle their own ministries and advisors on every minute detail of policy and legislation. Just this week, Minister Casey Costello had to instruct Health NZ to cease using “gender neutral” or so-called “inclusive” language like “pregnant people,” “birthing parent,” or “people with uteruses” to describe women in maternity care. There has been an outcry of protest at this including from the Leader of the Opposition who famously doesn’t know what a woman is.

That isn’t to say there is nothing to celebrate. The Woke Left have taken significant hits and that they have to retreat and make their insanity more palatable is a win in itself. But I always imagined getting to the point of seeing the Woke Left in retreat would be a moment of delirium and relief. Finally! It’s nearly over! These woke tyrants will no longer hold an anvil over our heads…

Enter, the Woke Right.

I was sceptical when I first heard the term ‘Woke Right’. How can the right be woke? I initially thought that this must refer to centre-right social liberals who are into identity politics like LGBT+, BLM, or feminism. It seemed like a strange concept and of little value to broader political analysis. And from what I am observing in the discussion following Joe Rogan’s podcast (JRE) episode with Douglas Murray and Dave Smith, I am not the only one who made these assumptions.

The online right has turned into a living version of the Spiderman meme. Everyone is pointing at each other and shouting “Woke Right!” in accusing tones. Some of it is blatant shitposting1 from trolls who seek to simply confuse everyone who isn’t already confused. But part of it is a power struggle that could well come to define the right.

This power struggle has been on my mind since I listened to that JRE episode. Or rather since I listened to the ep and then saw X split in half over who “won” the debate between Murray and Smith. You would think there were two versions of the conversation circulating. Accusations of “Woke Right” from one side of the debate to the other continue to be flung like the left fling around new genders and it has become abundantly clear that a rift in the right is brewing.

Because my mentions are so full of both genuine and disingenuous demands for a defintion of “Woke Right,” and I am apparently a sucker for punishment, I am going to do the unwise thing and attempt to provide one.

I will lean heavily on the work of James Lindsay
New Discourses who is probably the reason “Woke Right” has entered the lexicon.


James Lindsay.

So, who is the “Woke Right”?

On the surface, “Woke Right” is a deliberate paradox, since “woke” has typically been associated with progressive or leftist politics — especially around issues like race, sex/gender, identity, and social justice. However, it is not an affinity to these topics that makes this section of the right “woke”. It is rather the behaviours and tactics that they utilise in pursuit of right wing goals.

This is a segment of the right that tends to be hyper-online, very meme-savvy, and culture war–obsessed. They are deeply ideological - much like their left wing equivalents - and this usually plays out in nationalism, religiosity, and/or anti-globalism. They are populists with a tendency towards the authoritarian. Anti-elite and anti-institution, they cannot stand “normie” conservatives. They will not hesitate to turn on their own side for what they perceive as weakness or disloyalty. In fact, this seems to be what they spend most of their time on.

These people are prevalent in Christian nationalist communities [example], but also include figures from the MAGA world, right-wing influencers, conspiracy-adjacent commentators, and online bros with Pepe profile pics who think Ben Shapiro is a sellout.

James Lindsay characterises the members of the Woke Right as being rarely over the age of thirty-five and predominantly male. Most, he contends, are between the ages of 15 and 25 and have zero interest in listening to anyone over the ripe old age of 40.

Lindsay actually sees the Woke Right as another stream of the Left, but I won’t get into this too deeply as we could be here all day. Basically, he contends that the most invested activists actively claim to use postmodernism and critical theory, but to different means. They are pro-redistribution and socialism, but the nationalist kind. He sees the fight against woke as a two front war or rather two hands of the same beast.

Ultimately, and of most concern, the Woke Right embody everything the left has accused the wider right-wing of being. They take the position that anything the left does is bad, so everything the left hate must be good. They have embraced white supremacy, homophobia, racism, and general offensiveness. The left have dreamt up a bogeyman and the Woke Right have brought it to life.

Caveat: there are degrees of Woke Right like there are degrees of Woke Left. Some people are sticklers for pronouns and proponents of Drag Queen Storytime, but oppose the use of puberty blockers and juvenile transition. Likewise, some on the Woke Right are vehemently anti-globalism, but reject the white nationalist aspects. Some ideas from the Woke Right and Left are founded in utterly reasonable concepts too. It is reasonable and common to be opposed to mass immigration and expect one’s government to put its own citizens first, for example, but when this extrapolated to the idea that there should be zero immigration and that white people are the superior race it becomes a serious issue. Likewise, most people abhor racism, but when the left extrapolates that and sees racism everywhere, blaming white people for everything, it is problematic.

Culture Warriors of the Right

These Woke Right-Wingers use many of the same tactics or language as progressive activists. They emphasise identity, grievance, and victimhood, but from a right-wing perspective.

In this sense, it is “woke” in form but not in content — the same kind of intense cultural engagement, but flipped ideologically.

The Woke Right adopts identity-based frameworks like the left does too. These tend to champion white identity politics and emphasise oppression or suppression of Christianity (although this is not as common in less religious countries like New Zealand). In a real reversal of politics, the right now tends to be the one focusing on rural or working class oppression and rights.

This flips the idea of social justice on its head. They use the left’s tactics to highlight what they see as neglect or discrimination against conservative, right-wing, or majority groups. Same playbook, different players.

This right-wing version of the playbook includes cancelling people for being too liberal, creating right wing echo chambers, conservative or based virtue signalling, creating division within political allies, gatekeeping, purity tests, and loyalty demands.

The Woke Right aggressively police ideological loyalty. If someone on the right doesn’t go far enough, fast enough, or speak in approved terms, they’re labeled terms like “RINO” (Republican in Name Only), “controlled opposition”, “Neocon”, “Cuckservative”, “Normie”, “grifter” or “fence-sitter”.

These are functions of gatekeeping and ‘othering’. They create tight in-groups and out-groups based on binary purity tests. For example, if you support Ukraine, you’re “deep state”, if you support Israel, you’re “Zionist-controlled”, and if you won’t go all-in on adoration of Trump (e.g. never critique him), you’re “a traitor”.

While they mock the left’s cancel culture, the Woke Right has wasted no time at all engaging in their own campaigns to boycott, bully, and excommunicate. However, broader conservative boycotts are usually about where one spends their money, like the Bud Light boycott, rather than the more violent and aggressive version we are seeing from the Woke Left regarding Tesla currently. The Woke Right boycotting and cancelling techniques against the Daily Wire are an example of in-group attempts to excommunicate.

Just as the Woke Left will flood comment sections with name-calling and moral accusations when they smell blood - in the form of a woke transgression - in the water, so too do the Woke Right. We are all familiar with the left’s style of moralistic name-calling e.g. “terf”, “bigot”, and “racist”, but the right have a far superior and more creative suite of slurs, in my opinion.

The Woke Right employ several different kinds of insults used interchangeably and dependent on context. Many of these have foundations in concepts or behaviours that are widely criticised, and are quite fairly viewed negatively, but these are hyperbolised and weaponised.

First of all, they seek to effeminise their opponent to signal that they are weak, emotional, or “not masculine enough.” Some examples of this are: Soyboy, Cuck, Beta male, and Simp. They also use conspiratorial or anti-globalist terms to paint opponents as tools of global elites, or enemies of the nation/state; Globohomo, Commie / Marxist / Cultural Marxist, NPC (Non-Playable Character), Shill, and Deep State Stooge, for example. While the concept of DEI hiring is widely disliked, the Woke Right have taken to using racialised and DEI-related insults such as Diversity hire or race hustler and using “white guilt” in pejorative terms. They openly mock feminists in very unoriginal ways. For example, they’ve brought back the good ol’ “feminazi”. They also use mocking terms that I myself am guilty of using to describe the madness of gender ideology e.g. Alphabet Mafia, Gender Goblin, and Pronoun Police. Fond of pushing boundaries and saying things they are ‘not meant to say’, they have brought the word “retard” back into circulation and also regularly employ the portmanteaus Libtard and Woketard. And of course, we can’t forget “Snowflake”.

Call out culture is flourishing in the woke world of the right just as it does on the left. The Woke Right can be found making YouTube and TikTok videos “exposing” the political impurity of others on the right. X spaces and threads have also played host to such call outs. These often aim to deplatform or humiliate right-wing figures who aren’t ‘pure enough’.

They may not be tearing down statues just yet, but the Woke Right are just as determined to destroy the heroes of Western civilisation as the left. Winston Churchill is a popular target for them - poor fellow has copped from both sides. Ronald Reagan has also been in the firing line. The inverse is the more than troubling sanitisation of dictators like Adolf Hitler.

Winston Churchill

Unquestioning support is expected for certain figureheads of the MAGA movement - though remember that the Woke Right is not synonymous with MAGA, but they are a subsection who seek to take it over. Obviously these figureheads include Trump, but also people like RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson. Support for certain ideas and causes are also unofficially compulsory. These include being vehemently anti-Israel, anti-vax, anti-immigration, and anti-globalism. Criticising the movement or a figurehead, idea, or cause from within, is likely to result in being seen as a traitor, weak, bought and paid for, or “working for Soros or the deep state”.

You might assume that these figureheads and issues are American-specific, but the Woke Right (again, like the Woke Left) is so culturally ‘American’ that even those beyond the United States’ shores demonstrate allegiance as if they were citizens.

People on the Woke Right engage in trying to ‘out-extreme’ each other in feats of performative outflanking to prove their credentials or loyalty to the cause. They use “that’s cute” rhetoric steeped in condescension and hyperbole. It becomes a competition of who’s most based, most redpilled, or most willing to say the unsayable.

“You still think democracy works? Lmao.”

“You still believe in voting? Fed behaviour.”

“You’re not calling for a Christian monarchy? Weak.”

Just like the left as they built the dominance of the Woke Left cultural tsunami, the Woke Right seek to build identity and define what it truly means to be “right wing” in 2025. They are asserting dominance over the rest of the right and are engaged in a power struggle over who controls the narrative. Purity always wins over pragmatism and this drives extreme rhetoric in much the same way that the transgender movement on the left push the increasingly more ridiculous (e.g. men can get pregnant). They’d often rather burn bridges than compromise.

Conservatives are generally advocates for smaller government. The Woke Right bucks this trend. They want the state to intervene to force compliance with their own belief systems. They rail against “big government”, “globalism”, and the “deep state”, but when it serves their moral, cultural, or ideological goals, they are happy for Daddy Trump to lay down the law. The Woke Right doesn’t reject state power outright; they want to reclaim and weaponise it to enforce traditional values, suppress leftist “wokeness,” and reshape society in their image.

Old-school conservatism says the Government should be small and stay out of our lives. Woke right conservatism says the Government should be big enough to crush the people we hate.

It’s a shift from libertarianism to reactionary statism — all justified in the name of moral survival. It is the belief that the government should enforce traditional values and crush progressive threats.

Not only have some opponents of the Woke Right pointed out the fascistic flavour of these beliefs, but some of the Woke Right itself has begun to reclaim the term “fascist”. In a mix of irony, rebellion, and sincerity, they aim to own the label their enemies use for them and signal ideological defiance. And sometimes they do this because they actually like elements of fascism. Many on the dissident or Woke Right feel that the left calls everything fascist, from moderate conservatives to Trump voters. So instead of denying it, they lean in. “If everything’s fascism, then fine — I’m a fascist.” As with much of what they say and do online, it should never be forgotten that shock-value is always an objective. It is also worth noting that it certainly isn’t universal of Woke Right figures to embrace the label of “fascist”.

Despite enjoying weaponising language as a tool to shock and push the boundaries, the Woke Right engage in plenty of language policing themselves. At its core, language policing is about controlling what people can say, how they can say it, and which words are socially or politically acceptable. It's about enforcing a moral or ideological framework through language.

Even while they mock the left for being “snowflakes” or “too PC,” the Woke Right pushes its own rules around what language is acceptable and this is often presented in a binary: patriotic vs. unpatriotic, moral vs. immoral, traditional vs. radical, and based vs. woke. They ridicule and condemn the use of terms associated with their counterparts on the Woke Left. These include: “systemic racism”, “white privilege”, “DEI”, “critical race theory”. Whereas the left claims “inclusive” language, the right owns “traditionalist” or “nationalist” framing.

The language wars are polarising and both sides brand and rebrand cultural terms in a war of meaning and construction. For example, the Woke Left uses “undocumented immigrant” whereas the Woke Right takes it to the opposite extreme with “illegal alien”. Likewise, the tug-of-war over abortion phrasing; the right say they are “pro-life” instead of “anti-abortion” like the left say “pro-choice” instead of “pro-abortion”.

They recast language to shape public perception and claim moral ground.

In New Zealand, the Woke Right tend not to be so religious, even so they still identify with Christianity for political reasons and engage in the linguistic front of the religious culture war. For example, they criticise people who say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas”. They see it as a war on Christianity. Recently, there has been criticism of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for being explicit in his support and celebration of Muslim holidays while overlooking Christian ones. The Woke Right are vocal in their condemnation of this.

Click to view

A linguistic loyalty test is created based on what you say and how you say it: are you “with us” or “against us”.

High profile right wingers can be caught in a spiral of proving they are “with” the in-group and as a result become increasingly more ‘woke’ in the content they create. This is often due to audience capture. Their base rewards extremism and pushing the boundaries, but punishes them when they demonstrate moderation. James Lindsay points to public figures like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson as examples of this.

A less mainstream example of a Woke Right influencer - as pointed to by both Douglas Murray and James Lindsay - is a guy called Ian Carroll. He is primarily a content creator who appears on various right wing podcasts and Murray and Lindsay assert that he promotes conspiracy theories and revisionist historical narratives. His interest in Israel and the history of the Second World War are typical of the Woke Right and his audience lap up content that challenges dominant narratives of history which they contend have been written by Jews.

In the recent Joe Rogan episode, both Rogan and Smith deny that Ian Carroll and another content creator, Darryl Cooper, are as bad as Murray claims. They are particular defensive of Cooper and reject Murray’s characterisation of him as expressing far-right ideologies and rewriting history. His re-casting of Winston Churchill as the villain of the Second World War particularly offends Murray, but on the podcast Rogan and Smith deny that he does this. Screenshots of his tweets doing just that have subsequently circulated X.

Click to view - Darryl Cooper on X.

DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is a central feature of ‘woke’ behaviour. It’s a psychological defence mechanism that was initially identified in relation to abusers or manipulators, especially at times when they're being held accountable for their actions. They deny the wrongdoing, attack their accuser’s credibility or character, and reverse the roles so the abuser looks like they’re the real victim.

The Woke Right has adopted some of the emotional and rhetorical postures of DARVO — particularly around victimhood, identity, and moral righteousness — and simply flipped them ideologically.

To break this down, here are some examples from both the Woke Left and Woke Right to demonstrate DARVO in action:

1. Deny

In this first stage, the person usually refuses to engage with the substance of a critique. ‘Deny’ often comes from a place of moral certainty; the confidence that one’s side is “on the right side of history” or the “real good guys”.

Woke Left examples:

“They just want to pee!” [Regarding males who claim to be women using women’s bathrooms.]

“Bussy isn’t an inappropriate word — context matters.”

“I never said ‘Defund the Police’. I just said…”

Woke Right examples:

“I’m just asking questions.”

“I’m not antisemitic — I’m just anti-Zionist.”

“I never said Churchill was worse than Hitler, I just said...”

2. Attack

Instead of responding to the critique directly, they attack the motives or identity of the critic — often using social justice language as a weapon.

It usually involves casting the intentions of the critic as coming from a place of hate, bigotry, or evil. It often descends into a moral purity test and can include overt intimidation. It is moral outrage that appeals to emotion, fear, or belief systems.

Woke Left examples:

“You’re a racist/sexist/transphobe.”

“You would say that; you’re a white man.”

“You don’t care about future generations. You’re happy to watch the world burn.”

“Why are you so obsessed with people’s genitals?”

Woke Right examples:

“You’re a cuck / groomer / globalist shill.”

“You hate America / New Zealand.”

“You’re complicit in demographic replacement.”

“You’re paid for.”

3. Reverse Victim and Offender

This is when the person who is called out turns the tables and claims they’re the one being harmed. The left like to claim victimhood when their views are so much as questioned. They frame this oppression and use therapeutic or trauma-informed language (like “harm,” “safety,” or “violence”) in a way that shuts down debate.

They do this to shift the focus away from the issue and onto how they are being victimised by criticism. The recent case of Green MP Benjamin Doyle being found to have an alternate Instagram account featuring inappropriate content is an excellent example of this. Immediately his party and its proxies sought to frame him up as the victim of bad actors, threatening behaviour, and homophobia. They guy isn’t even gay, he just uses they/them pronouns and paints his nails.

In Woke Right spaces, the cultural narrative is different but the behaviour is the same. They apply grievance discourse to conservatives, Christians, white people, or men as victims of a new liberal or “woke” oppression. They mimic the language of civil rights, anti-racism, or trauma-informed justice just as the left do, but use it to justify reactionary beliefs.

Woke Left examples:

“Misgendering trans people is literal violence.”

“Do your own research. I’m not doing your emotional labour.”

“This isn’t a debate — this is about our right to exist.”

[Calling everything genocide]

Woke Right examples:

“I’m being silenced for speaking the truth / asking questions.”

“White men are the real oppressed group now.”

“You’re not allowed to criticise Israel without being labeled antisemitic.”

“They control the media, and we get banned for pointing it out.”

Case study: The "Woke Right" & Israel

The Joe Rogan Experience episode with Murray and Smith focused a lot on Israel as both men are outspoken about the conflict. It is a good case study for how traditional conservative perspectives are at odds with those held by the Woke Right. While traditional conservatives in the United States and elsewhere have historically supported Israel due to religious, strategic, or ideological reasons, the Woke Right — especially online — do the opposite. Far-right influencers, nationalist populists, and “edgy” online subcultures have adopted strident anti-Israel and even antisemitic positions, but framed in a way that mirrors activist language.

Generally, they criticise "Zionist control" or “globalist elites” and use this to defend themselves against accusations of overt antisemitism. They see Israel as a “colonial apartheid state” and claim support for Palestinians. However, their motives are regularly questioned as they spend a lot of time flirting with outright hatred of Jews and the oldest of conspiracy theories.

I find the Woke Right’s stance on Israel an interesting contradiction of some of their anti-immigration narratives. They are aggressive supporters of Palestinians who are Arabic and Muslim, while also opposing mass migration of Muslims to Western countries on the grounds that they bring violence and inferior cultural practices with them.

Let’s look at how Woke Right DARVO plays out regarding Israel.

1. Deny

They deny that their views are bigoted or conspiratorial, even when they use classic antisemitic tropes (like accusing Jews or Israel of secretly controlling media, finance, or politics). They also mask far-right ideology under progressive-sounding slogans like “decolonisation” or “liberation.”

“I’m not antisemitic — I’m anti-Zionist.”

“I’m just criticising Israel’s government.”

“I support free speech and human rights. That’s all.”

2. Attack

They go after journalists, activists, or anyone who challenges anti-Israel narratives. They use inflammatory or coded language to delegitimise pro-Israel voices and often accuse Jewish critics of being manipulative or dishonest. Sometimes it crosses the line into full-on antisemitic conspiracy theories, but is framed as “just asking questions.”

“You’re a Zionist shill.”

“She’s always standing up for Jews. Who’s paying her?”

“So you support bombs being dropped on schools and babies being murdered?”

“Jews always play the victim card.”

3. Reverse Victim Offender

They cast themselves as victims of censorship, persecution, and political correctness — claiming they’re being punished for telling “an uncomfortable truth.”

“I was just telling the truth and got cancelled for it.”

“They can bomb civilians, but I get banned for posting memes?”

“Jewish power is so strong, you can’t even talk about it without getting attacked.”

“They’re trying to erase national borders and replace us.”

 

What next?

James Lindsay is pretty pessimistic. He sees the Woke Right as an existential threat to the success of the Trump administration. He views them as kind of cuckoo birds in the right wing nest and it is only a matter of time before they go insane and attack their host.

After the Murray vs. Smith debacle, the Woke Right firmly piled in behind Smith. They aggressively shitposted and swarmed Murray using homophobic and antisemitic slurs. Then, the next day, Donald Trump posted about his “friend” Douglas Murray and his new book.

Click to view

This did not impress the Woke Right and the sensitive wee petals launched into full conspiracy mode. They speculated why Trump would say pro-Israel things and if the Israeli government has something on him. Their nihilism has sent them into a spin and they have begun to turn on Trump.

Click to view

The Woke Right is very nihilistic. They want to tear down liberalism, democracy, modernity, feminism, and secularism. But they frequently don’t propose coherent, positive replacements — or treat the idea of rebuilding as a joke or afterthought.

“Let it all collapse.”

“We’ll build something better from the ashes.”

“Modernity is a failed experiment.”

“We want Caesar — or chaos.”

There is only so much that they can defend with the excuse of irony. They bat back accountability and criticism with retorts like “it’s just a meme,” “I’m just joking,” and “we’re being post-ironic”. This makes it hard to tell whether they believe in anything at all. That playful ambiguity is a hallmark of postmodern nihilism — meaninglessness masked as provocation. It is seen in their flirtations with breaking taboos, attention seeking, and gratuitously subverting moral norms. Religious traditionalism is a feature of their culture, but often it is a shallow aesthetic based on identity politics rather than a sincere spiritual belief. On some level they are yearning for order and meaning in their lives.

The power the Woke Right wield on X is considerable. They have weaponised the platform and operate in swarms or packs to push conversations where they want them to go. They engage in a great deal of agitprop. They reply en masse in ways designed to enrage or agitate. The best thing to do is not feed this beast. The saying that I began this post with applies here: Never wrestle with pigs. You’ll both end up covered in shit and the pig will enjoy it.

I was on the left when the Woke Left imploded the progressive movement and I now find myself somewhat on the right as the Woke Right threaten to do the same thing. The right must do what the left did not and excise the wokeness from the wider conservative or right wing cause. James Lindsay is doing overtime trying to bring this situation to the attention of influential people on the right. Douglas Murray’s appearance on JRE can be viewed as one big appeal to Rogan to be wary of the Woke Right.

James Lindsay - who is not religious - uses the biblical story of Cain and Abel to demonstrate the futility of the Woke Right and the value in sticking to principles. He offers it as a hopeful alternative narrative, but maintains a depressing pessimistic doubt that it will be received well.

In his analogy, the Woke Right is Cain. Cain is consumed by resentment and thinks the world is unfair. He is jealous of his hardworking and productive brother, but instead of improving himself, he becomes destructive and kills him. The “normie” conservative movement is Abel; disciplined, sincere, a picture of true positive masculinity, humble, and focused on service. He does not posture or perform, he is reliable and delivers on promises.

The Cains feel like the system is rigged and the world doesn’t reward their effort. They feel invisible, disrespected, and pushed aside. Cains mistake online rage for a show of strength. They mistake the bogeymen of the Woke Right - feminists, elites, Jews etc - for the villains causing their pain, just as Cain blamed Abel for his problems. Resentment is a false energy. It depletes rather than propels.

Abels show that even when life is hard you can live with integrity. You might not always win, but the goal isn’t dominance. The goal must be meaning, personal strength, and rising above victimhood.

The message to the young men captured by the Woke Right has to be that burning it all down isn’t victory. The problem is they’re already playing with the matches.

Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.