Why the GOP is obsessed with "woke" — but can't define it

[Cheerful Charlie]

I don't think the people who stormed the capitol were against democracy. I think they thought they were fighting for democracy. When they said that the election was stolen. That's an indicator that they think elections are the tits.

Look into the history of the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys. They weren’t formed after Trump and Fox News started lying to the American public about the election. Surely some reasonably innocent and ignorant folks got wrapped up in the push but If you think the main instigators were fighting for democracy you don’t really understand what happened that day.

That is absolutely the case, and I am gobsmacked by Dr Z’s naïveté. I feel like I need re-evaluate my ideas about foreigners’ perception of American political dynamics.

You sound hysterical

You sound like you haven't the foggiest notion about the GOP's attacks on Democracy over the last decade in the U.S..

 

[Elixir]

You sound like you haven't the foggiest notion about the GOP's attacks on Democracy over the last decade in the U.S..

Maybe it’s not “all our fault” that Z thinks these things. He remains convinced that he knows more about the US political landscape than anyone else on this forum, despite repeated correction.
Maybe Z is his own unique problem. I still suspect that it’s something for which we should take responsibility, but maybe that’s an impossible assignment.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't think the people who stormed the capitol were against democracy. I think they thought they were fighting for democracy. When they said that the election was stolen. That's an indicator that they think elections are the tits.

Look into the history of the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys. They weren’t formed after Trump and Fox News started lying to the American public about the election. Surely some reasonably innocent and ignorant folks got wrapped up in the push but If you think the main instigators were fighting for democracy you don’t really understand what happened that day.

That is absolutely the case, and I am gobsmacked by Dr Z’s naïveté. I feel like I need re-evaluate my ideas about foreigners’ perception of American political dynamics.

You sound hysterical

You sound like you haven't the foggiest notion about the GOP's attacks on Democracy over the last decade in the U.S..

I am sure you know more than me on the specifics. But I have heard a lot of dumb shit being said on this forum about democracy.

Democracy isn't one man one vote. Its just a system to spread the base of power as wide as possible without destabilising society. That last thing is critical.

USA is a great well functioning democracy. If you disagree you just need to study any other democracy.

USA's problem isnt its democracy. It is its size. Its very hard to make democracy work in a country of that size population, with that great variety of economic realities.

Under the circumstances, USA is doing great.

If you haven't been paying attention, in the last century empires have been shaking themselves to bits at an ever increasing rate. Its hard to keep them together

 

[Elixir]

USA's problem isnt its democracy. It is its size. Its very hard to make democracy work in a country of that size population, with that great variety of economic realities.

I think there’s some truth to that thought. Nonetheless… we are where we are. GOP lawmakers are now calling for the imprisonment of the DA who has not yet even filed charges against their orange avatar.

Under the circumstances, USA is doing great.

Under the circumstances I am given to recall the saying “I’d rather be lucky than good”.
We literally came within a few seconds or a few feet of becoming a totalitarian State on 1/6/21. I give us an A+ for being lucky.

If you haven't been paying attention, in the last century empires have been shaking themselves to bits at an ever increasing rate. Its hard to keep them together

Oh? Do you view the US as an “empire”?
That may be part of your problem.

 

[TomC]

is a great well functioning democracy. If you disagree you just need to study any other democracy.

Perhaps this is part of your misunderstanding.
The USA is not, nor ever was, a democracy.
At least not above the most local level of government.

We're a Constitutional democratic republic. All of those words matter in the description of the USA. They don't mean the same thing.
Tom

 

[southernhybrid]

I read what I thought was a pretty good opinion piece about "woke". It actually agrees with a few of Dr. Z's points while also showing how the Republicans, who can't even define the term, have used it to attack liberals. They use it for everything, even things that have nothing to do with liberals, but people on the left can take a little bit of blame for this. Just read my gifted link and comment if you are willing to take the time and consider that just maybe progressives brought some of this on themselves. I'll quote some of it for those who don't want to read the entire article.

https://wapo.st/3LJE5vs

Somehow, when House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) suggested that Silicon Valley Bank had collapsed because it was “one of the most woke banks,” his point, while nonsensical, was entirely clear.

After all, woke has turned into conservatives’ favorite word for anything they dislike.

This week’s bankruptcy brouhaha was typical. An army of partisans greeted SVB’s downfall with musings on, of all things, the evils of diversity, equity and inclusion. Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler called out the composition of its board (“I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but …”); Donald Trump Jr. summoned causal relationships out of thin air (“SVB is what happens when you push a leftist/woke ideology and have that take precedent over common sense business practices”).

The truth is that the bank only had one Black person on its board. That's not very woke.

The goal is to blame the libs. Case in shameless point: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) insisted wokeness was to blame for the massacre of 19 young children in Uvalde, Tex. Apparently, we’ve stopped teaching “values” in our schools, and we’re teaching “indoctrination” instead. Really, indoctrination? In Texas?

How did we get here? A bit of woke history is called for. “Stay woke,” the Blues musician Lead Belly instructed listeners to his 1938 song “Scottsboro Boys.” Fast-forward to 1962, when the novelist William Melvin Kelley provided an uptown lexicon for out-of-touch New York Times subscribers: “woke (adj.): Well-informed, up-to-date (‘Man, I’m woke.’)”

This inability to distinguish between self-righteousness and righteousness, between virtue-signaling and virtue, created an easy target for conservatives. They could pounce on the word woke to write off a wide range of efforts to address inequality, serious and unserious alike.

Even the other side of the aisle winced at the sanctimony. See comedians such as Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle bemoaning political correctness because they feel it kills jokes before they have a chance to be told. See Barack Obama bemoaning how young people believe that if they “tweet or hashtag about how you … used the wrong verb,” they can feel good about themselves: “Man, you see how woke I was? I called you out.”
See the linguist John McWhorter, arguing that this mind-set has become a sort of religion whose adherents’ “devotion is less to changing lives for people who need help than showing that they understand that racism and especially systemic racism exists.”

So, while the Republicans are misusing a word, some on the far left have given the Republicans some ammunition. I've read that a lot of Black people aren't really happy about all these "woke" white people pretending to care about them so much, instead of actually doing something important to fight racial injustice. Anyway...I think the left needs to "wake up" and realize that, while the far right is a danger to democracy, the far left has caused a lot of problems for itself, including giving the far right something to hoot about. I'm not siding with the Right. I'm just saying that sometimes the Left goes way overboard. Think about cancel culture, words that can't be used due to their origins etc. That's just nuts, or as some would say, "See how woke I am".

A good example would be people who say they care about poverty and racism, become outraged over the usage of certain words, but then put up a fight when their cities try to plan adding some housing for low income folks etc. If we want to make things better, we need to literally do something to help people, not just talk about it or worry about using an old term that had a different meaning 200 years ago. The woke really do need to wake up. /s

 

[TomC]

? Do you view the US as an “empire”?
That may be part of your problem.

Eh, I've got to give the point to @DrZoidberg on this one.

We started out as a collection of colonies. Launched a war of insurrection and won. Then started absorbing territory until we dominated "from sea to shining sea". Then we kept going, adding Alaska and Hawaii and maybe Puerto Rico...

Yeah. The USA is an empire, with the sort of problems associated with force fitting a bunch of disparate peoples under a government whether they liked it or not.
Tom

 

[DrZoidberg]

is a great well functioning democracy. If you disagree you just need to study any other democracy.

Perhaps this is part of your misunderstanding.
The USA is not, nor ever was, a democracy.
At least not above the most local level of government.

We're a Constitutional democratic republic. All of those words matter in the description of the USA. They don't mean the same thing.
Tom

Those aren't mutualy exclusive. USA is a Liberal democracy. A very well functioning democracy. If you think anything else, that just means you don't understand the terminology.

I'm often amazed about how badly Americans understand the basics of democracy and its terminology, yet manage to make it work somehow.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, the far left is arguing over the word picnic while the far right stormed US Capitol building. President Obama was attacked not because of scandals but because of incredibly petty things like the color of his suit, dijon mustard, coffee-gate.

I'm growing fatigued about how we need to blame the left for why the right wing will hyper-partisanize any and all things for political points/power. The far left has very little political power. The far right had their man (or at least who they adopted to be their man despite him being only for himself) in the White House.

 

[DrZoidberg]

? Do you view the US as an “empire”?
That may be part of your problem.

Eh, I've got to give the point to @DrZoidberg on this one.

We started out as a collection of colonies. Launched a war of insurrection and won. Then started absorbing territory until we dominated "from sea to shining sea". Then we kept going, adding Alaska and Hawaii and maybe Puerto Rico...

Yeah. The USA is an empire, with the sort of problems associated with force fitting a bunch of disparate peoples under a government whether they liked it or not.
Tom

The word "united" in the name is a clue.

Fun fact many people don't know, Spain, Italy and the UK are all empires. They're unions of several distinct nations.

 

[Shadowy Man]

is a great well functioning democracy. If you disagree you just need to study any other democracy.

Perhaps this is part of your misunderstanding.
The USA is not, nor ever was, a democracy.
At least not above the most local level of government.

We're a Constitutional democratic republic. All of those words matter in the description of the USA. They don't mean the same thing.
Tom

Those aren't mutualy exclusive. USA is a Liberal democracy. A very well functioning democracy. If you think anything else, that just means you don't understand the terminology.

I'm often amazed about how badly Americans understand the basics of democracy and its terminology, yet manage to make it work somehow.

Regardless of the semantics, we have a system that is based on the integrity of the individuals participating in that system. Once we let people with no integrity run the system it will collapse.

That’s what Franklin meant by “if you can keep it”.

 

[crazyfingers]

The GOP will not define Woke because at it's most fundamental, woke means supporting the idea that people who have been marginalized deserve equal inclusion. To be anti-"Woke" means supporting being a bigot and a jerk. They can't just come out and say that without losing half of their supporters on that issue. The other half relish being bigots and jerks.

 

[Shadowy Man]

The GOP will not define Woke because at it's most fundamental, woke means supporting the idea that people who have been marginalized deserve equal inclusion. To be anti-"Woke" means supporting being a bigot and a jerk. They can't just come out and say that without losing half of their supporters on that issue. The other half relish being bigots and jerks.

They portray it as a zero sum game. If we attempt to demarginalize historically oppressed groups it must come at a cost to the historically privileged groups. They see progressivism as the destruction of their conservative values.

It seems to me that these arguments depend on an implicit superior view of their traditional values and constructs, otherwise what is the threat?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Yeah, the far left is arguing over the word picnic while the far right stormed US Capitol building. President Obama was attacked not because of scandals but because of incredibly petty things like the color of his suit, dijon mustard, coffee-gate.

I'm growing fatigued about how we need to blame the left for why the right wing will hyper-partisanize any and all things for political points/power. The far left has very little political power. The far right had their man (or at least who they adopted to be their man despite him being only for himself) in the White House.

Arguing about "picnic"? Really? The inflammatory garbage coming from the mouths of Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Donald Poopypants Trump, Fuckhead Carlson do not matter now because a few Liberals argue anout the word "picnic"?
This is not sane. Did anybody here pay any attention to the recent CPAC insanity?

 

[Elixir]

? Do you view the US as an “empire”?
That may be part of your problem.

Eh, I've got to give the point to @DrZoidberg on this one.

We started out as a collection of colonies. Launched a war of insurrection and won. Then started absorbing territory until we dominated "from sea to shining sea". Then we kept going, adding Alaska and Hawaii and maybe Puerto Rico...

Yeah. The USA is an empire, with the sort of problems associated with force fitting a bunch of disparate peoples under a government whether they liked it or not.
Tom

I disagree. If the US was an empire, we’d still be occupying and pillaging every territory associated with any military we have vanquished. You know - Roman style.

AL and HI were US territories when I was born - the only States added since. I’m not sure if any territories have been conquered and claimed, but certainly no major acquisitions in my lifetime. Russia - then the USSR - would be a much better example of empire; they keep grabbing up neighbors until their top-heavy shit collapses, then start over right away grabbing back bits of what you lost when the empire collapsed …
By literal definition, an empire would also need a single supreme authority who basically “owns” the entire collection of properties.

an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress. (Dictionary)

But your point in context is perhaps relevant. The United States of America is totally a kluge, with an antiquated document as it’s only North Star. That has a lot to do with the rising appeal of authoritarianism, cults of personality and oversimplified views.

 

[lpetrich]

Conservative Author Struggles To Define 'Woke' in Clip With 2m Views

Conservative author Bethany Mandel struggled to define the word "woke" while criticizing it in a clip that has now gone viral.

On The Hill's web series Rising, Mandel spoke to Briahna Joy Gray about her latest book and her issues with progressives or leftists and their influence on children.

At one point during the interview, Gray questioned what Mandel meant by "woke." Mandel responded that she could not give it a clear definition in a clip that has been viewed more than 2 million times.

The Vanguard on Twitter: "LOL: Briahna Joy Gray BREAKS the brain of Rising guest Bethany Mandel by asking her to define "wokeness" (vid link)" / Twitter
What her book was about.

Mandel, explaining the views of her book, Stolen Youth, co-written by herself and Karol Markowicz, argued that progressives are waging a battle to indoctrinate American youth through multiple avenues including politics, education, mental health, and entertainment.

Mandel said: "The crux of the book's argument is that there is a woke reimagining of our society and it is happening in a lot of different ways and in a lot of different areas of our lives. Karol and I wanted to talk a lot about how this sort of interferes with childhood as it is happening in America right now."

"There is a lot of chatter on what is happening on college campuses but not enough about children," she said.

What a conspiracy theory.

Entertainment? That's capitalist, and I thought that right-wingers believe in capitalism.

But then again, right-wingers hate non-right-wing news media, despite it being almost entirely capitalist.

Mandel said: "There are a lot of things that are sort of a right versus left conversation, but this is not one of them. I think there are a lot of people for whom this argument resonates and it is not just a right-left issue.

"We hope that parents of all political stripes will pick up the book. This is sort of a woke reimagining that is very, very, very far left.

"Only 7 percent of Americans consider themselves very liberal and probably fewer of them consider themselves to be woke."

Gray interrupted to ask what "woke" means to her and asked her to give a wider definition.

Mandel replied: "So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that... this is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.

"Woke is something that is very hard to define and [in the book] we have spent an entire chapter defining it.

"It is the sort of understanding that we need to totally reimagine and reduce society in order to create hierarchies of oppression. Sorry, it is hard to explain in a 15-second sound bite."

 

[DrZoidberg]

is a great well functioning democracy. If you disagree you just need to study any other democracy.

Perhaps this is part of your misunderstanding.
The USA is not, nor ever was, a democracy.
At least not above the most local level of government.

We're a Constitutional democratic republic. All of those words matter in the description of the USA. They don't mean the same thing.
Tom

Those aren't mutualy exclusive. USA is a Liberal democracy. A very well functioning democracy. If you think anything else, that just means you don't understand the terminology.

I'm often amazed about how badly Americans understand the basics of democracy and its terminology, yet manage to make it work somehow.

Regardless of the semantics, we have a system that is based on the integrity of the individuals participating in that system. Once we let people with no integrity run the system it will collapse.

That’s what Franklin meant by “if you can keep it”.

Yes, USA's systems of electors is objectively bad. It was copied by the south American republics that followed during the Napoleonic wars. They all soon collapsed. Its a system wide open to abuse and very hard to keep stable.

But even so, in USA it did work. It really did. And does. Sometimes even bad ideas work out. Sometimes something that works in one place doesn't work in another. Democracy and democratic systems are like that. Sometimes stuff that used to work, stop working, even though the rules don't change.

The Roman Republic is a great example. The Roman Republic worked great until the Gracchi brothers came along and read the fine print. Once the consuls got in the habit of exploiting that loophole, it all went to shit.

The naiveté with which the west have tried spreading democracy in the world is staggering.

It's pretty obvious that the actual process with which the west became democratic and how it actually works, is poorly understood.

Democratic nations keep the democratic traditions going by telling ourselves myths about how it works. Great nation building narratives. But about as factually true as the Bible.

 

[laughing dog]

"Woke" is now an empty word that means whatever MAGA wants it to mean

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.

But your interpretation clashes with the current conservative meaning. For example, your interpretation contradicts the current narrative from the right in the USA that the recent bank failures are due to "Woke" banking.

"Woke" has replaced "political correctness" as the approved mode of virtue signalling from the right in the USA.

Woke and pc is the same thing.

Yes, conservatives are great at using the current "bad liberal word" as a magical ju-ju fetish dog whistle. It's a bizarre behaviour. I'm not conservative. They can all go and get fucked as far as I am concerned.

But I do defend the rights of conservatives to be conservative. I think they should be allowed to express all their bigotted and narrow minded opinions freely. Its a hill I am willing to die on.

When conservatives cross the boundry from conservatism to reactionary authoritarianists, destroying the rights of non-MAGAts, I draw the line.

Ok, then. But I hope you understand if people like me see you as a threat to democracy and western civilization?

Tolerance, isn't just a pretty word. It actually means something. It's fundamental to making democracy work.

I hope you understand why I group you together with those who stormed the capitol as the same type of people? People who are a threat to democracy are just as bad, regardless if they're on the right or left.

Google, Carl Popper, the paradox of tolerance.

It doesn't apply here. There is no side here that is openly against democracy or democratic principals.

In Sweden we have old school Nazis. They think violence and terror was legitimate tools in a democracy. That needs to be stopped. The MAGA crowd thought Hillary was Hitler. They are stupid. But its the same fight. They are not anti democratic. They are retarded. Its different

Um, the Jan. 6 insurrection was a violent attempt to overthrow an election. That is anti-democratic.

 

[lpetrich]

Right-wing author left speechless after being asked to define 'woke'

Several users described the clip as “hilarious”, and pointed out that Mandel should be able to define” a term “woke” she’s written extensively about it.

Glee actor Jane Lynch responded to Mandel’s embarrassingly inarticulate performance, tweeting: “‘Words, words, words! I’m so sick of words!’ But a few would be helpful. Choice ones- strung together to make a sentence.”

Some have argued that Mandel’s difficulty describing the phrase wasn’t down to incompetence, but a reluctance to share what the term is actually used for by anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives.

“They actually have a very simple definition of ‘wokeness’, they just can’t use it publicly for pretty obvious reasons,” one user wrote.

Brando Simeo Starkey on Twitter: "@vanguard_pod She can define "woke" just fine. But she doesn't want to expose herself. Woke, to her, is a code word that people like her can use to tap into certain listeners' bigotries while not having to explicitly defend the propriety of those bigotries." / Twitter
and
Brando Simeo Starkey on Twitter: "@WatchTheOceans @vanguard_pod In that moment, she realized looking like a fucking moron was a better alternative than looking like a fucking bigot." / Twitter

Following the clip going viral, Mandel responded by claiming it was merely a “brain fart“, while accusing Briahna Joy Gray and co-host Robby Soave of “demeaning parenting” before going live.

Claiming that she overheard BJG saying that people have children only to continue their narcissism, and RS saying "there are some good ones and some bad ones".

“As for wokeness, here’s an actual definition – a radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination,” she wrote.

“It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality or group result is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.”

 

[DrZoidberg]

? Do you view the US as an “empire”?
That may be part of your problem.

Eh, I've got to give the point to @DrZoidberg on this one.

We started out as a collection of colonies. Launched a war of insurrection and won. Then started absorbing territory until we dominated "from sea to shining sea". Then we kept going, adding Alaska and Hawaii and maybe Puerto Rico...

Yeah. The USA is an empire, with the sort of problems associated with force fitting a bunch of disparate peoples under a government whether they liked it or not.
Tom

I disagree. If the US was an empire, we’d still be occupying and pillaging every territory associated with any military we have vanquished. You know - Roman style.

AL and HI were US territories when I was born - the only States added since. I’m not sure if any territories have been conquered and claimed, but certainly no major acquisitions in my lifetime. Russia - then the USSR - would be a much better example of empire; they keep grabbing up neighbors until their top-heavy shit collapses, then start over right away grabbing back bits of what you lost when the empire collapsed …
By literal definition, an empire would also need a single supreme authority who basically “owns” the entire collection of properties.

an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress. (Dictionary)

But your point in context is perhaps relevant. The United States of America is totally a kluge, with an antiquated document as it’s only North Star. That has a lot to do with the rising appeal of authoritarianism, cults of personality and oversimplified views.

The US states have a high degree of self rule and have developed different civic cultures. Comparatively, USA is quite loosely held together.

I'm convinced that's why it works. USA's central government have to do a good job or the states will leave. It's already happened once.

Contrast it to Russia. It would be the equivalent of Biden holding Texas in abject poverty, bleeding it dry and using that oil revenue to pay for troops and secret police to keep it all together.

Sweden is one city, Stockholm, bleeding the rest of the country dry for the glory of Stockholm. That's how most countries work. Is it fair? No. It's not.