The term “woke” originated as a call to see what one had not previously perceived. It evoked the image of a person waking up morally to injustice and oppression dominating the society in which they live. These injustices and oppressions focused on the perspective and the priorities of progressives, especially regarding race, gender, and sexuality.

In the wake of Hamas ’s vicious attacks on Israel, a number of Americans, especially some on the Left, have begun a new “awokening.” They, and we, watched as rallies have broken out against Israel across America. It is one thing, and a right thing, to be concerned for those civilians in harm’s way in Gaza . But these rallies instead often celebrated Hamas’s terrorist attack and treated Israel’s response as the more evil set of actions. In so doing, they willfully ignore the clear distinction between targeting women and children versus the unintended, though still tragic, civilian deaths that sometimes occur when pursuing military goals.

This reaction to the original atrocities in the Middle East, and to Israel’s legitimate counterattack, might begin a greater move by some out of the ranks of the progressives who have taken so strong a hold on the Democratic Party. The Left has shown with unavoidable ardor the antisemitic elements within its ranks. With no reasonable way to obfuscate or otherwise elide this fact, people have begun to openly question their continued alliance with the Left.

Severing that alliance would be a good thing. If events like these do not diminish that coalition, if that coalition continues to rise, then our present and our future will be the worse for it. We must understand the gravity by noting where these rallies have been most prevalent: large cities and college campuses.

That these rallies have also grown in large cities such as New York paints a worrisome picture of our present. For one, places such as New York are home to large Jewish populations, exposing them directly to discrimination and violence. For another, these large cities form the main cultural, economic, and political centers for individual states and, collectively, the country at large. They export their ideas through financial decisions, legal advocacy, and the media components of news organizations, book publishing, and television or movies. These tools wield great, even dominant, social, economic, and political power. Such tools falling even deeper into the hands of those defending, even celebrating Hamas should not go uncontested.

Along similar lines, the rot on campuses exposed these past weeks portends a broader issue for the future. Our university system forms many of the most influential citizens of the coming generations. Many of these students one day will fill roles as high-powered lawyers, CEOs, congressmen, college professors, and even as presidents of the United States. If we are not proactive, then we are only a short time away from the views of those rallies achieving dominance among our cultural and political elites. Already, they have done so to an alarming degree.

Some efforts on the college front have begun to develop. Jon Huntsman’s refusal to continue donations to the University of Pennsylvania hopefully marks a trend to defund those programs and institutions that harbor antisemitism and like ideologies.

But we will need more than withholding funding from bad actors. We will need more, too, than opposition only to antisemitism. We will need to turn those funds toward initiatives and institutions that are rebuilding the goods of Western civilization. These initiatives and institutions already exist to some degree and many more need to be founded. They included educational endeavors such as new K-12 schools and colleges. They also must involve cultural work in the arts. And, of course, they must involve political advocacy for laws that protect and encourage these projects.

In light of these events, we must not give in to doom and gloom. But we must not be complacent, hoping someone else will do the needed work. We must exercise our republican virtue to retrieve and rebuild. Far from a reason for despair, let it be a reason to join the fray.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.