Go Woke, Go Broke? More Like, "Help Trump, Are a Rump"
- john raymond
- Jul 12
- 3 min read
For years now, the Right has loved to chant its empty little mantra—“Go woke, go broke”—as if it were an iron law of culture.
The idea, repeated ad nauseam, is that any attempt to center marginalized voices, tell honest historical stories, or include diverse casts will doom your film, your brand, your campaign.
It’s a comforting fairytale for people who need to believe that whitewashed nostalgia is the only kind of story worth telling.
But the real story of cultural bankruptcy isn’t being written in progressive Hollywood. It’s being written by a handful of fading stars who have decided that their final act will be in service to a literal Russian asset and con man.
Enter Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Sylvester Stallone—three men past their creative prime, who now serve not the arts but Donald Trump, as his handpicked “ambassadors to Hollywood.”
They aren’t ambassadors. They’re props. They aren’t protecting culture. They’re circling a sinking ship in MAGA life vests, hoping someone still thinks they matter.
The Rump Parade
Let’s call this what it is: a rump state of washed-up celebrity politics.
These men don’t represent Hollywood. They don’t shape it, influence it, or lead it. They are relics—coasting off reputations earned decades ago, now willing to launder Trump’s authoritarian nostalgia under the guise of “saving” the film industry.
Trump has branded Hollywood as a “troubled place,” a “broken institution,” in need of MAGA oversight. And so he’s tapped these three loyalists—none of whom have produced anything culturally relevant in recent years—to be his “eyes and ears.” What does that even mean? Surveillance? A revival of blacklists? Cultural purity tests?
This isn’t about patriotism. It’s about power—and fear.
Trump doesn’t want to save Hollywood. He wants to discipline it, like he tried to do with the Justice Department, the press, and the courts. He wants a propaganda factory. These men are eager to help build it, because they have nothing left to say artistically.
Not a Golden Age—A Rusted Fantasy
The fantasy Trump and his “ambassadors” are selling is not a revival. It’s a retreat. A return to a time when white men told all the stories, minorities were punchlines or villains, and women were accessories.
But the world has moved on. New voices are here, and they are not going away.
And for all the Right’s whining about “cancel culture,” it’s the MAGA world that’s now promoting blacklists in reverse—punishing the woke, elevating the loyal, and freezing out anyone who dissents from the party line. This is not freedom. It’s not even capitalism. It’s a cultural dictatorship in camouflage.
Mel Gibson, with his long record of racism and abuse, is not a moral leader. Jon Voight, whose performances have become parodies of themselves, is not a cultural force.
And Stallone? He spent a lifetime playing blue-collar heroes, only to side with the billionaire fraudster and Russian compromised actor who mocks them.
These are not rebels. They are lackeys. Not icons, but a rump of reactionaries clinging to relevance by licking the boots of power.
Help Trump, Are a Rump
So no—“go woke, go broke” is not the lesson of our era. The lesson is this: bend the knee to Trump, and you reduce yourself to a rump. A leftover. A tool. A warning.
Real culture doesn’t come from fear. It doesn’t survive on obedience. It survives on risk, on truth, on freedom. And the people Trump calls “troubled” are the ones still trying to do the hard work of telling stories that matter.
The rump? These three asses? They're out of stories. Out of time. And, soon enough, out of relevance.
Let them have their titles. Let them wear their badges. Let them salute the flag of the man who mocks democracy.
They are not Hollywood. They are not the future.
They form a rump. And it shows.
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