I am on the left, but I’m also a reasonable person, and definitely not just a ‘hard left on all things’ person. I don’t just adhere to party lines on every issue because it happens to be on ‘my side’. There are plenty of things I end up very moderate, or even conservative on. I’m definitely on the left side of most social issues, but very rarely (if ever, I can’t really think of anything off the top of my head) do I have extreme beliefs.
Regarding woke-ism, I consider it to be largely pseudo-intellectualism, and often self-indulgent, which I think is often the conservative take on it as well. I think the idea of critically examining race/gender relations is important and worthwhile, but I think all the things that ‘woke’ has come to mean do fall into more extreme categories that I don’t get down with.
I’ll also say, though, that I think throwing the vast majority of people who lean left into this category of ‘wokeism’ is dangerous and incorrect for a huge part of the United States. The characterization of the left as some weird conglomeration of people who either spent 100k on an underwater basket weaving degree and socialists is nonsense. That’s an extreme right characterization of the left is rarely true. I think there are regions where defining the left in these terms makes sense, but mostly it doesn’t. As an example: I live in Dallas, Texas. Dallas is slightly left-leaning by voting demographics, but overall it’s quite close to 50 50. The vast majority of Democrats and left-leaning people I know here are not remotely extreme. We tend to be pretty moderate, well-informed liberals. We embrace a lot of conservative policy, particularly when it comes to the economy, but tend to vote for more liberal candidates for office.
Regarding your point about some of the major cable news networks, there is definitely truth there. I think 24 hour cable news networks have done a real disservice to journalism in general. Stories should be presented because they’re important events that happen and need to be documented. They shouldn’t exist because a corporation needs to fill airtime with news 24/7. The only way you can fill that amount of time, and keep an audience, is by inserting A LOT of opinions, and even if a network is trying to be even-handed with the talking heads they’re putting on tv, ultimately that’s not going to be how things pan out. It’s why I also don’t get much out of the major news networks, if anything. They’re good for finding major headlines, and their reach/resources are useful for covering global events, but there’s a lot of fluff and opinions to sift through as well.
Now that being said, I also find a middle ground between, say, CNN and Fox News, versus all the ridiculous fringe ‘news’ outlets. There are really good sources for well-researched, deep dives into important issues. They are rarely accompanied by incendiary headlines. This goes for both sides. Good journalism still exists, it’s just a little harder to find beneath all the bullshit out there.
Hopefully this gives you a better sense of where I stand in general.
