MAGA can't explain what "woke" is, but that's the point — it's a "choose your own bigotry" term for Republicans
www.salon.com
"Woke" is currently the favorite word of the right. Republican politicians can't go more that 5 or 6 words without peppering "woke" into their sentences. Turning on Fox News, you'll hear the word "woke" repeated ad nauseam, like a record skipping, but for hours at a time: "woke woke woke woke woke." Everything is "woke":
Banks.
Children's books.
The military.
Disney.
M&Ms.
Super Bowl performances. To be a Republican in the year 2023 is to spend every waking moment outraged and terrified by "woke," certain its wokey tendrils will snake their wokeness into your brain and woke-ify you into wokeitude.
But the funny thing about "woke" is that, while all Republicans hate it, they don't seem to have any idea how to define it. That was hilariously demonstrated in a viral video clip of conservative author Bethany Mandel falling completely apart when asked in an interview to define "woke," a concept she wrote an entire book denouncing. Mandel couldn't do it.
"So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that, um..." she stammered before admitting it "is something that's very hard to define," and then failing utterly to get close.
Mind you, Mandel was not being cornered by some progressive journalist. She was on a reactionary show with two sympathetic hosts who bent over backward to give Mandel room to explain what "woke" meant, coaxing her gently with, "take your time." Yet she still couldn't define "woke."
I'll give it a go. Today "woke" means leftist extreme intolerance. It's enforced understanding of the needs of perceived minorities. It's using social pressure to force people to be informed about the needs of marginalised groups, be compassionate toward them, thoughtful and kind. Or rather, that you virtue signal all of this. You don't need to actually care about marginalised groups. You just need to make it look like you do. It's fundamentally patronising, since woke is a stance majority group members take, so they can use minorities as an ideological bat to beat other majority member group members with. Because minorities are assumed not being able to speak for themselves.
I think woke is the biggest threat to progressivism and liberal values today. It replaces true progress the bullshit symbols of progress. It leads to newspeak. It makes honesty into a sin.
It's the latest incarnation of ideological purity, scapegoating and mob mentality that we, so lovingly, inherited by, the loving, and caring Christians, who totally care about the poor, weak and unfortunate. Yes, the pope totally needs a gold throne. It's important for his work toward humilty.
Die die Christian culture. Just fucking die already. I'm so sick of it.
That's my take on it.
No, I don't think the conservatives are the good guys. I see the wokes as the leftist versions of fundamentalists. It's the exact same kind of, horrible, behaviour. Both are a result of our shared Christian heritage.