Why was woke more successful now than it was in the 90s?
Because basic-bitch liberalism (individualism, tolerance, equality/fairness) =/= Leftism (Marxists, Critical Theorists, Post-structuralists, etcetera), and liberal tolerance allowed themselves to be completely subverted as an ideological group from the inside due to some overlap with the hardcore leftists. There's a reason Leftists use "liberal" as a derogatory term.
You can see this difference in how the gays were approached in the past vs. the present. In the past, there was the belief that you were simply born gay. Making it an immutable characteristic was the liberal approach since it defended the homos from being bullied for being homos but also isolated the actions of the homos from homosexuality itself, so a gay pedo wasn't a pedo because he was gay, he was a pedo who happened to be gay, and so on. The Leftist approach meanwhile has to be rooted in leftist concepts and the belief that every status quo is the result of some kind of oppression. Critical queer theory posits the only reason everyone isn't bisexual and genderfluid is the result of of internalised homophobia drilled into us by society and some motive from the movers of society to keep gays oppressed to the benefit of the majority. Even the language they use is exclusionary of people with a monosexuality, such as the term "sexual preference" effectively meaning you
prefer women, but men
could be fine too, in a pinch.
Though the liberals have been completely subverted, they still enable the leftists to influence kids towards homosexuality because they're of the belief that anybody who comes out as gay was gay since birth, even though the leftists themselves believe everyone is suppressed sexually and via exposure people's "true" selves will come out. The former is only slightly preferable because it's not proactively leaning on kids to "express their sexualities" or "explore their gender identities" because both can't be influenced/decided by anybody but you.
Oh, also the fact "kids" can be sexual at all is a Leftist concept. Freud though sexuality developed from infancy and not puberty, and Freud's theories on psychology directly influenced Critical Theory, which you find traces of everywhere in almost every detestable ideology and viewpoint you can think of.
TLDR: Liberals were (and maybe still are) the majority, but their overlap with Leftists and the shamelessness of Leftist subversion coupled with a very vocal online presence and infection of universities (which often reside close to government capitals/buildings) has given them undue influence.
I'd say peak-woke was 2014-2025, so I think they're starting to die down now as we receive constant demonstrable proof that they don't exist in the numbers they've lead corporations and governments to think they are, which is typically achieved via elections.
