Hoffer then moves on to Part 2: The Potential Converts. This is where he moves from what preconditions are necessary to start a mass movement to how a mass movement attracts converts during its active phase. He goes through a long list of people in different life circumstances who are seen as undesirable in society that are primed to be converted including the poor, misfits, the inordinately selfish, the ambitious facing unlimited opportunities, minorities, the bored, and the sinners. It is important to note that the key elements in being seen as ‘undesirable’ is built up frustration and the promise of hope. Frustration and hope are essential ingredients for mass movement converts. I will do my best to quickly go through these categories and show how they apply to mass movements today.

The first category of undesirables is the poor which he divides into several different subcategories including the new poor, the abjectly poor, the free poor, the creative poor, and the unified poor. I will go through them quickly even though they some may not apply to every mass movement.

The new poor is exactly what it sounds like – people whose “poverty is relatively recent.” Frustration is built based on circumstances foreign to someone who is new to poverty. This type of poverty is relatively new in human history since poverty has been mostly a function of class. Hoffer explains that, “until recently the new poor came mainly from the propertied classes, whether in cities or on the land, but lately, and perhaps for the first time in history,” – remember, he is writing in 1951 – “the plain workingman appears in this role.”

The abjectly poor are those on the “borderline of starvation” whose still “live purposeful lives.” It might sound weird to claim the people who are starving might live with more purpose than their more prosperous counterparts, but once you understand that purpose is not tied to wealth or personal happiness, you will begin to understand that, as Hoffer puts it, “to be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.” But this does not mean that people in abject poverty are not susceptible to the influences of a mass movement. Frustration is much less of a factor for those who have never seen the ‘greener grass on the other side’. Hoffer states it perfectly by saying, “our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some.” What converts the abjectly poor is the promise of hope, specifically immediate hope. A rising mass movement “preaches immediate hope” even though once a mass movement gains power, they shift their emphasis to distant hope in the future when they become preoccupied with maintaining power in the present.

The free poor are those who are slaves to freedom. As Hoffer puts it, “freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration.” Many of us born into western democracies understand it is better to be free than be a slave, but that does not mean freedom does not have its own burdens. Hoffer continues, “freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual.” The free poor join mass movements out of frustration with their own circumstances, especially when caused by their own failures, and want to “escape individual responsibility” within a collective group fighting for a cause. Even the Nazis had a goal common in many mass movements, “to be free from freedom.”

The creative poor are those who have no outlet for their creative minds. People high in creativity tend to be less vulnerable to frustration, but when changing conditions – such as commercializing the art industry, a decline in the demand of handicrafts, and an extremely competitive marketplace for modern forms of art – lead to a rise in frustration and the “increased susceptibility of the individual to mass movements.” Hoffer says, “it is impressive to observe how with a fading of the individual’s creative powers there appears a pronounced inclination toward joining a mass movement.” A painter without a canvas quickly becomes a frustrated radical.

The unified poor are members of a compact group who have a robust defense against frustration when their group bond is strong. One of my favorite phrases Hoffer has in this book is what he calls the revolting point. He says, “a member of a compact group has a higher ‘revolting point’ than an autonomous individual.” These ‘compact groups’ include tribes, racial groups, religious groups, and – most important of all – family units. Unified groups become frustrated when there is a breakdown within the group. For example, Hoffer uses the breakdown of the family unit that results in unified poverty. Hoffer states, “they did it by undermining the authority of the parents; by facilitating divorce; by taking over the responsibility for feeding, educating and entertaining the children; and by encouraging illegitimacy.” This strategy sounds familiar, right?

So, does the religion of the woke take advantage of any of these potential converts? Yes, of course they do. The ‘new poor’ converts are the new generation of Americans who saw their parents and grandparents buying houses, are relatively debt-free, and taking part in the American Dream while they are left out. The younger generations already have a predisposition towards “progressive” mass movements, but frustration based on getting a worse deal, in some ways, than the generations before them boost frustration in a major way. The ‘abjectly poor’, even though they might have the best defense against wokeism depending on where they came from, convert when they are promised immediate hope that the woke thought-leaders never intend on delivering. These thought-leaders know that the closer they get to their stated goal of eliminating oppression, the less they can rely on oppression narratives. The ‘free poor’ might be the strongest candidates for conversion because wokeism explicitly rejects the notion that an individual can improve their own conditions, especially if they are a part of an oppressed class. “Unburdening yourself from the chains of freedom” might as well be their feature slogan. The ‘creative poor’ might be their most effective converts because they can use their creativity to create propaganda for the holy cause. Creative people, much like the younger generations, are already predisposed to “progressive” mass movements because they tend to be high in “openness” as a character trait. Because the religion of the woke try to cancel all forms of art that do not agree with or push their rigid ideology, there is an unwillingness to create art at all because of the constant threat of cancellation. This type of creative poverty builds frustration with creative individuals who then become passionate defenders of the holy cause. And finally, the ‘unified poor’ are converted using two methods: (1) break down the unification, or (2) switch the unifying mechanism. The first method is perfectly explained by the example I used before of the breakdown of the family unit, but the second method is deployed when there is utility in maintaining the unified group. Black Americans are a unified group (or generalized as such), via what we call the “black community,” and the unifying mechanism has always been cultural. The “fight for equality” has also been a strong influence in the black community but is being hijacked by wokeism. Equality has now been changed out with equity – effectively changing out the demand for equal opportunity and treatment with the demand for equal outcomes – and treated as a holy cause. This maintains the power of the unified group while also converting most in the group to members of the woke mass movement. The woke will push back on this by claiming they are doing this out of compassion for the unjust history black Americans have suffered, and still suffer in some cases, but you can tell this is dishonest by the way they treat black Americans who choose to speak out against wokeism. The woke show no tolerance for those in “oppressed classes” who do not repeat the lines that were given to them and respond by calling them the most vile names in the book. That is what I call woke tolerance.

Thank you for reading, but due to the length of this piece, I need to split it into parts. The next part will be coming shortly. Also, I plan on releasing these in the Engineering Politics Locals Community a week or so before I republish them on Medium. This way the members of this community get to see it first. I really appreciate your support because this type of content takes some time and a lot of thought to produce. I will also do a podcast covering this material shortly after it is completed. Thanks again!