Republican vanity candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is running for president (of the United States) on an anti-woke platform. He claims he invented the concept and calls himself the CEO of Anti-Woke, Inc. He’s an imbecile. But he isn’t the only one running against the racist Republican conception of woke-ism. Fascist Governor Ron “Meatball Ron” DeSantis claims that under his heavy-handed rule, Florida is where woke-ism goes to die.
The term “woke,” which dates back nearly a century, was initially used in Black communities to describe a raising of consciousness and has since become a catchall denoting awareness of a range of social-justice issues. In recent years, “wokeness” has also become, in conservative circles, a subject of suspicion and ridicule: shorthand for performative righteousness, like “political correctness” before it.
A few days ago, Meatball Ron was in Houston looking for money for his presidential campaign. A real crowd pleaser for the old reactionaries he was addressing was to declare that Florida and Texas are partners in an anti-woke jihad. “Democrats bashed DeSantis' visit, while also seeking to stoke tensions with Abbott. ‘Ron DeSantis is an empty suit who pushes as far as he possibly can on nonsensical culture war issues because he thinks it’ll win him support in a Republican presidential primary,’ the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, Gilberto Hinojosa, said in a statement. ‘It says a lot about our own inept governor that he’s not even shrewd enough to win these ridiculous culture war battles against the Pee-wee Herman of the Republican Party, and that he’d lose in a landslide in a primary to clowns like Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump.’ Hinojosa added that DeSantis nonetheless holds ‘wildly extreme views on everything that actually matters— including that he wants to gut Social Security and Medicare.’”
I looked at two extremely unrelated polls yesterday. One was Emerson College’s poll of New Hampshire Republican primary voters. I was struck, remembering back to Sunday when a self-satisfied Governor Chris Sununu told the Meet the Press audience that Trump couldn’t win a GOP primary in his state, how massively ahead of everyone else (combined) Trump was in the poll. I bet Sununu was mortified when he was this yesterday:
I see the other poll as more interesting and more valuable. Ipsos found that a clear majority of Americans see the word “woke” in a positive light. Reporting for USA Today, Susan Page wrote that 56% of those surveyed say the term means ‘to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.’ That includes not only three-fourths of Democrats but also more than a third of Republicans. Overall, 39% say instead that the word reflects what has become the GOP political definition, ‘to be overly politically correct and police others' words.’ That's the view of 56% of Republicans.” That could turn out to be less than ideal for Republicans who have been promising to ban policies at schools and workplaces they denounce as “woke.”
Independents, by 51%-45%, say "woke" means being aware of social injustice, not being overly politically correct.
“Most Americans understand that to be woke is to be tuned in to injustices around us,” said Cliff Young of Ipsos. "But for a key segment of Republicans who make up the Trump-DeSantis base, 'woke' is a clear trigger for the worst of the politically correct, emerging multicultural majority."In the early 20th century, "woke" was generally used as a call for Black people around the world to "wake up" to racial oppression. After the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the term gained wider usage to describe awareness of the continuing legacy of racial discrimination and systematic oppression.
Now conservatives have adopted the term as a rallying cry in the culture wars, signaling their opposition to everything from the teaching of the ongoing effects of slavery to the use of gender-neutral pronouns.
"We will never surrender to the woke mob," Ron DeSantis declared in his victory speech when he won a second term as Florida governor in November. Former President Donald Trump last week accused President Joe Biden of engineering "a woke takeover of the entire federal government."
Even South Carolina's Sen. Tim Scott, a Black man who discusses how racism has affected his life, has derided "woke corporations" and "woke prosecutors" as negative forces in American life.
…Americans by close to 3-1, 72%-26%, support teaching "the ongoing effects of slavery and racism in the United States" in public schools, a question asked of half the sample. That includes overwhelming numbers of Democrats and independents and close to half of Republicans (46%).
But in response to a different question asked of the other half of the sample, those surveyed oppose by 53%-41% the teaching of "critical race theory," which holds that systemic racism is institutionalized in America to the advantage of white people.
The phrase particularly resonates among Republicans, who by 81%-15%, oppose the teaching of critical race theory in public schools.
Americans overwhelmingly oppose, by 76%-21%, efforts by state governments to ban certain books from school classrooms and libraries. Last year the nonprofit group PEN America reported that school districts in 26 states had moved to ban some books, often ones that relate to race or gender identity.
The opposition to state bans crosses party lines, including 86% of Democrats, 78% of independents and 66% of Republicans.