Woke Leadership's Fatal Flaw: Feel-Good Fixes and the Death of Decisiveness—Women and Men Alike, By Mrs Brittany Miller (Londonistan)

"Wir schaffen das!" Angela Merkel's 2015 rallying cry for Germany's open-door refugee policy sounded like optimism incarnate—"We can do this!" But as Alex Berenson skewers in his October 23, 2025, Substack dispatch, it was bureaucratic boilerplate, a euphemism for "We'll manage somehow" that dodged the hard maths: 2 million arrivals from Syria and beyond, straining welfare systems, fuelling cultural clashes, and contributing to a manufacturing boom's bust. Merkel, the poster child for "woke women" in power, epitomised a leadership style Berenson dubs disastrous: sanctimonious, humourless, and addicted to nonsolutions that prioritise Lefttist empathy over evidence. Drawing on Helen Andrews' viral 2025 Compact essay "The Great Feminization," Berenson ties this to women's rising dominance in politics, law, and media, favouring "safety over risk, cohesion over competition." NPR's Katherine Maher, with her 2021 gem that "truth is a fickle mistress" whose beauty lies in the "struggle," embodies the ethos: Relativism as governance, where consensus trumps clarity.

But here's the rub: This isn't a gender glitch, it's a woke virus infecting anyone who climbs the empathy pedestal. Woke men, from Starmer's performative progressivism to San Francisco's Breed-baiting mayors, peddle the same pablum: Virtue-signalling policies that crumble under scrutiny. The backlash, Trump's bombast, Poilievre's anti-woke crusades, isn't anti-woman; it's anti-illusion. This discussion argues that woke leaders, irrespective of sex, fail spectacularly because they sublimate conflict into committees, chase moral highs over measurable wins, and leave societies poorer, angrier, and unresolved. The data? It's damning. The fix? Face the fight head-on.

The Woke Woman's Playbook: Empathy's Empire of Bureaucratic Drift

Berenson nails Merkel's arc: A chancellorship bookended by economic vigour and stagnation, exacerbated by refugee largesse and a green gamble that shuttered nuclear plants while jacking up power prices to Europe's priciest (over €0.40/kWh for households in 2025). Germany's Energiewende, decarbonisation dogma, promised clean utopia but delivered blackouts and deindustrialisation, with manufacturing's GDP share dipping below 20% by 2024. Merkel's COVID hammer? Lockdowns till Omicron, vaccine mandates floated days before her exit, harshness masked as harmony, ignoring trade-offs like school closures' mental health toll (youth depression up 40% in 2021).

Andrews' thesis amplifies the critique: As women tipped professions female (e.g., 60% of U.S. lawyers by 2025), "woke" norms followed, prioritising "feminine" consensus over "masculine" confrontation. Maher's truth-as-struggle? It's the archetype: A TED Talk platitude that, as NPR CEO, justified biased reporting (e.g., Uri Berliner's 2024 exposé on network tilt). In workplaces, this manifests as DEI quagmires: Title IX kangaroo courts presuming guilt in assault claims, eroding due process (Harvard's female-led tribunals expelled 25% more accused in 2024 without appeals).

Woke Men: The Same Script, Different Socks

Don't mistake this for oestrogen exceptionalism. Woke men ape the model, trading testosterone for TED Talks. Former PM Justin Trudeau, Canada's selfie-sock statesman, branded his 2015 cabinet "because it's 2015," feminist flexery that masked inaction: Gender pay gap stagnant at 22%, Indigenous promises broken (e.g., no national childcare, lawsuits against rights tribunals). His "reconciliation" rhetoric fuelled wildfires (2023 evacuations hit 200K) while pipelines stalled, spiking energy poverty 18% in First Nations.

London Breed's predecessor, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, exemplifies male malaise: "Diversity" tube ads amid knife crime up 20% (2024), ULEZ green fees hitting low-income drivers hardest (€12.50/day), while housing waits balloon to 350K. In the U.S., Gavin Newsom's California compassion cratered: Homelessness triples to 180K (2025), sanctuary policies linked to migrant crime spikes (e.g., 30% rise in LA assaults). Even military brass: "Woke" generals like CQ Brown pushed DEI quotas, correlating with 2024 recruitment shortfalls (41K below target).

X chatter echoes the verdict: Posts rail against "woke men failures" from "grifters" to "coward" evangelicals kowtowing to Leftists. A 2025 thread blasts Singh's "racist slur" on white men as "woke leaders' failures." Men don't escape the pathology, they amplify it, virtue-signalling without spine.

Berenson contrasts Maher's "smothering" with Trump's "gleeful incitement," from Gulf of America jabs to Iran strikes yielding "positive results." It's no contest: Woke evasion invites masculine pushback. Reform UK's 18% surge in 2025 polls? Anti-migrant revolt against Starmer's "one in, one out" farce. X users decry "woke cowards" needing "soul guidance," echoing Berenson's call: "Fight like men."

Woke leaders, women like Merkel and Maher, men like Starmer and Khan, aren't terrible because of chromosomes; they're toxic because they peddle process over progress, sublimating strife into statism. Andrews' feminisation frame illuminates the shift, but it's woke ideology's core rot: Truth as tussle, not touchstone. The backlash? Inevitable, from MAGA's roar to X's rants. Societies crave deciders, not discussers, leaders who weigh costs (Kirk's gun-rights calculus) and charge ahead. Berenson's right: The revolt's just starting. Time to manage less, master more. Let's lead like we mean it.

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/why-woke-women-make-terrible-leaders