The woke Left has a racist problem, which it often denies and even ironically defends as “anti-racism.” In truth, it amounts to little other than race-based grievance politics. The Left’s racism is saturated with a Marxist-coded ethic that determines “oppressor” and “oppressed” or “victim” and “victimizer” based on one’s racial group. This is broadly displayed in the identification of “whiteness” as some form of inherently “privileged” status and therefore innately “oppressive” to those of a non-white racial classification.

As conservatives, we quickly and correctly identify this woke ideological framework as not only false and morally repugnant but dangerously socially corrupting. In short, it’s a host of bad ideas packaged in one big bad idea that elevates race as morally determinative.

The trouble is, a similar race-based grievance ideology has begun to arise on the online political Right. This facet of race-identity victimization has led some to classify it as the woke Right. And there is a good argument for that application based on the logic of racial determinism. Still, irrespective of the terminology, the issue here, like on the Left, is that it is a seriously bad ideology.

To put it succinctly, these woke or race-based ideologies on both the Left and Right boil down to fundamental racism. The starting point for each may be different, but they both, at their root, blame the ills of society writ large on some racial group, be it whites in general, as is the case on the woke Left, or Jews/Israel, as is the case with growing segments on both the Left and the Right.

Interestingly, there are some on the Right who are effectively dismissing the seriousness of this racism problem as either overstated, especially when compared to the Left’s racism, or effectively nonexistent.

The argument is that the bigger enemy is the radical Left because it tirelessly works toward a goal of destroying the West and its governmental and social systems that are constructed upon a Judeo-Christian ideological foundation. This is compounded by the encroachment and spread of Islam into the U.S. and especially Europe, raising legitimate concerns that seriously threaten the West’s cultural institutions and democratic governments, which aim to uphold and protect individual rights and liberty.

A few influential figures from the online Right place blame for Europe’s ideological erosion and collapse not only on the Left, particularly for allowing the massive influx of Muslim migrants, but also, strangely, on the Jews.

This troubling rise of anti-Semitism is mostly limited to unhinged conspiracy theorists, but it’s also embraced by a widely known and followed social media figure, Candace Owens. Furthermore, once-fringe individuals like Nick Fuentes, who have long trafficked in racial grievance tropes, are attracting wider audiences of mostly adolescents.

Part of this phenomenon on the Right can be attributed to a predictable backlash against the Left’s anti-white, anti-West, anti-masculine narrative. Young men, and particularly white young men, are tired of the guilt-by-race narrative. Some of them are tempted by the racial grievance narrative on the fringe Right and are effectively buying into racial tribalism.

The result is that truth gets set aside for the sake of the tribe or team. The historical record is increasingly undermined by conspiracy theories that promote revisionism, questioning all the previously identified villains of history. Furthermore, the European historical record, particularly the Holocaust, is being question by some fringe radicals. The rationale is that since the current popular narrative that white people are the problem is demonstrably false, then maybe the historical record regarding the villains of the past is also false.

Naturally, the fringe elements on the Right platforming the “questioning” of the historic record — or worse, outright claiming that it is false — are doing so by claiming they have a First Amendment right to lie. However, seeking truth and calling out error are two sides of the same coin. One cannot stand for truth and at the same time ignore blatant error because it inconveniently comes from one’s own side.

Conservatives must be willing to hold anyone claiming to be on our side to the same high standards of truth we condemn the Left for destroying. Otherwise, we risk losing the moral high ground and the cultural argument.