Online memes have helped build and break many political movements, but few have had the lasting effect of Karen, even though she’s now being swept into oblivion by a rising tide of Democratic Socialists. Karen — the overbearing scold who lectures waitresses about the service she expects but doesn’t receive — began as a mildly insulting stereotype about an observable segment of society. People recognized the Karens among us, and it seemed harmless to poke fun at them.
Yet the Karen stereotype accelerated the decline of liberal white women’s influence in the public debate, particularly within the Democrat Party. A new wave of leaders from the left pushed them — and the perspective of millions of American women — to the side. Our politics is worse for it.
Karens exist across political parties, but the Democrat Party of the ’90s and early 2000s was led by women who fit that mold, from Hillary Clinton to Nancy Pelosi, and driven by Karen-style organizations like the National Organization for Women, National Women’s Law Center, and Women’s Sports Foundation.
As a conservative, I often opposed their efforts to warp institutions like schools and workplaces to favor girls over boys. From my perspective, their health care and economic policies strained the proper limits of government power and warped the free market in ways doomed to backfire on women. That old generation of Democrat Karens and I used to debate these issues.
Yet underlying the debates, there was a lot that those liberal Karens and I could agree on: That the safety of our children on the school playground mattered more than the “right” of the addict to shoot up next to the swings; that regimes that force women to cover their faces and restrict their movement are evil; that antisemitism is wrong; that violent criminals belonged in jail; and that America, for all of her flaws, is still the best country on Earth.
Beyond politics, Karens played an important role in making all of our system work better. Karens encourage businesses to keep their restrooms clean and local officials to fill emerging potholes. Karens are typically huge assets to public schools, scrutinizing school decisions to make sure that their kids weren’t getting short-changed, but also volunteering to ensure field trips, class parties, and field days all go off without a hitch. Ironically, Karens make actual government action and regulation less necessary, since they help monitor public institutions and businesses, ensuring they serve the public. We all benefit from having Karens in our communities and demanding excellence from those around them.
Unfortunately, such women are today far less common than in decades past and have all but disappeared from today’s Democrat public leadership. Their marginalization began long before the Karen meme caught on. Liberal women were first cowed by deconstructionist academics who weaponized the concept of identity-based privilege — once their strong suit — against them. The charge stuck: It was always a stretch for Wesleyan-educated, rich, white women working in the upper echelons of society to position themselves as victims of Western society.
The same logic that feminists had used to demand equal pay and outcomes was weaponized against Democrat women’s leaders, who dutifully embraced the victimhood hierarchy where women’s interests — especially white women’s interest — were all but last. Leading women’s organizations like the National Organization for Women and the Women’s March were both embroiled in controversy as staff and members complained that the leaders and organizers were too white.
So many of the white women in leadership in a host of organizations stepped aside — and when they hesitated, were shoved aside — to elevate the perspectives of people of color. Race and issues surrounding sexuality increasingly trumped any shared kinship of womanhood, and the agendas advanced by the so-called women’s groups increasingly had little to do with women at all, but rather echoed the agenda of the increasingly radical far left, including defunding the police and open borders, causes that run counter to women’s safety and security.
Most humiliating for the traditional Democrat Karens who had built these women’s rights groups was their acquiescence as the radical trans movement usurped women’s hard-won rights to equal protection and opportunity. Former champions of Title IX and #MeToo applauded as taller, stronger, and faster men pushed women and girls off podiums and taunted them in locker rooms. They nodded along as the Biden administration made it a civil rights requirement to force female employees to shower alongside males. They even grinned — undoubtedly with clenched teeth — as Dylan Mulvaney redefined female beauty as high heels, false eyelashes, and showy boobs that made Barbie look butch.
Some brave liberal feminists recognized that reducing womanhood to a costume, renaming women “chest feeders” and “bleeders,” and allowing male predators to opt in to women’s prisons was profoundly misogynistic. Yet Democrat Party stalwarts like Clinton and Pelosi looked the other way as those feminists were denigrated as TERFs and pushed aside.
The leading female figures in the Democrat Party are now radicals like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib — women who aren’t interested in ensuring that women have equal access to all the opportunities that America affords, but rather disrupting the American experiment at its core. These women condemn America’s market system as a whole, support abolishing our borders and defunding our police, want fully socialized health care and increasingly even housing, and aren’t very interested in calling out regimes that kill women who show their hair. They consider champions of those regimes allies in their fight against the West.
There are a few prominent Democrat women like Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who at least pretend to fit the traditional liberal Karen mold and are trotted out anytime the party needs to appeal to independents. But those women aren’t where their party’s energy is and, after the cameras are off, obediently fall in line to support the same radical agenda as dictated by AOC.
Millions of women who long considered themselves Democrats recoil from this radicalism. As a conservative, I hope they will consider joining our movement as we push for the restoration of common-sense border, economic, and social policies. Yet, even if they don’t switch sides, I hope that liberal Karens reassert themselves into the public debate. I hope they once again find their own unique voice and use it, rather than just parroting the radical leftists’ dogma. I would welcome constructive debates about labor and health care policy with people who I could assume want a stronger America but have different ideas about how to get there.
Women never should have let the Karen meme get in their heads. Sometimes we really do want our salad dressing on the side — and there is nothing wrong with asking for it and expecting to get it. Women were taught since kindergarten to speak up and advocate for ourselves — and we shouldn’t give that up out of fear of sounding overbearing. Perhaps our inner Karens should take a breath before complaining, to give the clerk a little time before asking for the store manager, but we shouldn’t let the big stuff slide. After all, Karens’ discerning eyes and high standards helped make America great.
The meme was meant to be funny, but its consequences have been anything but. It is no coincidence that since Karens have been silenced, our public spaces have deteriorated, and our politics have become less constructive. I hope Karen can make a comeback.
