In the late 2000s/early 2010s, the left came up with "social justice warrior", and by 2015 it got turned into an insult by just about everyone online who knew the term (non-extreme-left, middle, and right). Shortly afterwards the left adopted "woke" to replace it, and even quicker than before everyone else turned it into an insult as well. DEI was, sort of, supposed to be the third replacement, and it's taken longer for this one to turn negative but it's well on its way now.
Yea definitely a little bit of that from a labeling and demonizing perspective.
I rarely hear moderate or more traditionally Republican/Conservative types rant about wokeness. It's the ones doused in right-wing propaganda.
I'm generally of the opinion most people are decent. We might have differences on things but most people can compromise and find a middle position. Our media and politicians thrive on polarization tho and it's utterly killing our ability to function as a democracy.
This is an increasing problem throughout the west. I was listening to a UK ex-politician (Phillip Hammond), who was the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary in the past.
His view, which I broadly agree with, is that the membership of a party (Tory, Labour, etc) are further from the mainstream "centre ground" than the general population, and that's a bad thing. His solution was the leadership of the party should come from the elected representatives (the MPs) and not the 100,000 "enthusiastic" members -- in the past the parties (Tory and Labour specifically) had massive membership, but now it's just a small number. It's relatively easy for a specific group to actually take over a party.
However I don't think that the small number of votes is the only problem -- the US doesn't have that problem for example, are driven by the views of millions and still come out with the less centrist options