The Woken Empire, that sprawling edifice of virtue-signalling dogmas and bureaucratic overreach, is teetering. As Christopher Chantrill observes in his American Thinker piece, "The Decline and Fall of the Woken Empire," the empire's soft power, bankrolled by oil and steel fortunes funnelled into liberal foundations, has long outmuscled the tech lords who lack the stomach for true power. But empires, even ideological ones, follow a predictable arc: birth, growth, hubris, decay, and collapse. The Woken Empire, built on the shaky pillars of enforced conformity and hollow moralism, is cracking under its own weight. Its fall signals not just a cultural shift but a divine reminder: power without wisdom is an empty vessel, and humanity's true calling lies beyond the allure of the Ring.
The pursuit of woke power, whether in academia, NGOs, or the administrative state, is a chase for an inner ring that promises everything but delivers nothing. The empire's foot soldiers, from tenured professors to blue-haired activists, clamour for inclusion in this elite circle, only to find it a mirage. As Lewis warned, "No circle has the charm from the inside that it seems to have from the outside." The Woken Empire's obsession with control, censoring speech, rewriting history, policing thought, reveals not strength but fragility, a brittleness akin to the late Soviet Union's collapse under its own contradictions.
The empire's power rests on old-money foundations, as Curtis Yarvin notes, which fund a vast network of NGOs and academic grift machines. These institutions, from Harvard to the Ford Foundation, churn out woke ideologues, rewarding those who amplify the loudest social madness, DEI mandates, climate catastrophism, or identity politics. A 2023 study found 66% of U.S. faculty feel pressured to conform to these dogmas, while 70% of UK students support censoring "offensive" speech. Yet this soft power, backed by billions, is losing its grip. The public, weary of being lectured, is tuning out: 60% of Americans in 2025 polls reject DEI initiatives as divisive, and Florida's tourism boom (34.4 million visitors in Q2 2025) over California's slump signals a cultural pivot toward freedom over ideology.
The Woken Empire's muscle lies in the administrative and regulatory state, a leviathan that seeks to centralise power while stifling innovation. Chantrill recounts Marc Andreessen's 2024 White House visit, where Biden administration staffers declared AI would be controlled by a few large companies, with no room for start-ups. This top-down arrogance, mirrored in California's regulatory chokehold under Governor Newsom, epitomises the empire's decay. By 2025, California's tourism is tanking, plagued by crime, homelessness, and "political tensions," while Florida thrives on a "freedom-first" ethos. The administrative state, bloated by woke mandates, is a dinosaur, too rigid to adapt. As Chantrill suggests, political domination breeds brittleness, and the empire's cracks are showing.
This brittleness is evident in the Democratic Party's turmoil. The old guard, Schumers and Pelosis, clings to power, while young radicals push woke agendas that alienate the working class. A 2025 Pew poll shows 55% of Democrats under 30 support defunding police, a stance only 20% of all voter's share. The party's reliance on educated-class virtue-signalling, produced by NGO grift and academic echo chambers, is a recipe for fracture. Like the Roman Empire's overextended legions, the Woken Empire is spread too thin, unable to reconcile its dogma with reality.
Yet empires fall, and new orders rise. Chantrill sees hope in figures like JD Vance, backed by Peter Thiel, who embody a pragmatic, middle-class ethos, a rejection of elite power games. Unlike the tech lords, who, as Yarvin notes, shun power for functionality, Vance represents a counterculture that values making things work over chasing rings of influence. This aligns with a broader shift: 65% of Americans in 2025 polls prioritise economic stability over ideological crusades. The tech lords' indifference to political power, as Andreessen's Trump endorsement suggests, may be their strength; they build, not rule.
Christian wisdom offers a deeper lens. The Woken Empire's obsession with control echoes the pride of Babel, doomed to scatter (Genesis 11:1-9). True power, as Jesus taught, lies in service, not domination (Mark 10:42-45). The empire's fall is a chance to rediscover this truth, to limit power to real threats, tyranny, not "racist-sexist-homophobe fascists next door." Chantrill's nod to Tolkien and Lewis, who warned of the Ring's evil, reminds us that myths endure because they speak to human folly. The Woken Empire, like all houses of cards, is crumbling because it forgot humility.
The fall of the Woken Empire isn't guaranteed to be peaceful, as Yarvin doubts, but its decline is inevitable. Its foundations, old money, regulatory overreach, academic dogma, are rotting. The public's rejection, from Florida's tourism surge, to the backlash against campus censorship, signals a new era. Chantrill's hope lies in a culture that sees power's emptiness and embraces wisdom instead. Christians might call this a return to stewardship, building communities grounded in truth, not ideology (Proverbs 1:7).
The Woken Empire's collapse is a reckoning, not a tragedy. It's a chance to rebuild on firmer ground, where the pursuit of knowledge, freedom, and service trumps the hollow allure of control. As the empire fades, a new world is stirring, one that might just remember that power, without purpose, is dust.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/08/the_decline_and_fall_of_the_woken_empire.html