(Opinion) Back in March I warned my readers that welcoming the great ‘awokening’ of American politics may be more than a little over the top, but it was getting harder and harder to escape ‘wokeness’ wherever we looked.
The perfectly positive usage – a person enlightened, well-informed, and politically aware – has been weaponized, another wildly over-used expression.
MAGA Republicans and right-wing media elite use the two expressions so often that they have reached the point that they can mean anything to anybody.
This is ‘unprecedented’, another over-used expressions, making up a trio with their potency badly devalued.
But that doesn’t mean these expressions are going away any time soon or that the ensuing culture wars are not heating up under their banners.
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis vowed recently to “destroy leftism” if he defeats President Joe Biden in next year’s presidential election.
He also promises to “leave woke ideology on the dustbin of history.”
That assumes of course, that DeSantis is the Republican nominee, something that’s possible, but you wouldn’t want to bet the farm on it.
Not to be outdone, ex-president Trump weighed into the enemy’s nomenclature contest calling his indictment “the Boxes Hoax,” and blaming it on President Biden and “his closest thugs, misfits, and Marxists.”
Many of the things DeSantis and Texan Ted Cruz attack as “woke” — gay rights, transgender rights, abortion rights, environmentalism — are cultural elements of American society that research and some recent ballots say are greatly favored by the majority of Americans.
OK? Who’s going to win the culture wars and how serious will the casualties be?
If motoring in reverse on these social issues, clearing ‘offensive’ books from library shelves, fighting with Mickey Mouse, giving up ‘left’ orientation and dictating what we can think is the anti-woke objective, I for one, want none of it.
Axios reports that the far right’s anti-‘woke’ vendetta has cost a bundle.
According to Javier E. David, anti-“wokeness” has collectively caused Target, Anheuser Busch and Kohl’s to suffer a “$28.7 billion loss in market value since the beginning of April.”
That’s hardly peanuts and it’s directly the result of corporate America finding itself in an unintended bind between the progressive impulses, and the conservative weaponization.
Miller and Coors brands of beers isn’t allowing this to reduce its support for LGBTQ events. It is the title sponsor of The Coors Light Denver Pride Parade.
Conservatives are even pinning the blame for the implosion of the submersible on their favorite target: wokeness.
The largely symbolic gestures companies show during Pride Month are morphing into business and financial risk, with reaction from the left and right leading to unpredictable outcomes.
No company is safe from the ricochet. If the cultural warriors can neuter the good intentions of corporate America, it will be a big victory for anti-wokeism.
Perhaps Anheuser-Busch’s marketing people went too far promoting Bud Light, their top selling beer brand on social media with Dylan Mulvaney, a trans influencer who is reported to have more than 10 million followers on TikTok and nearly 2 million on Instagram.
There was a video of Mulvaney happily sipping a can of Bud Light, discussing March Madness, and thanking the sponsor for sending her a custom-made tallboy can to commemorate the anniversary of her transition.
Sales dived, certainly a heavy price to pay for a misstep in the culture wars. And even as research has shown that other social media-fueled boycotts have been short-lived, getting knocked off the top-selling and foamiest perch dramatically spills onto the bottom line.
Influencing beer sales is one thing: freezing 200 military promotions including top brass because of what an Alabama Republican Senator, Tommy Tuberville has decided is the Pentagon’s woke leadership, is another.
The anti-abortion senator is insisting on the Pentagon rescinding its generous policy providing three weeks of paid leave and reimbursement of travel expenses for military personnel and dependents who are seeking an abortion.
And he is holding a long list of promotions that need senate approval hostage until he gets what he wants.
Anti-wokeism has even crept into the pews of evangelical churches according to activist writer Asra Nomani.
“Wokeism”, she told Michele Goldberg of the NY Times, “is more of a danger to all of our societies than Islamism.
Especially when it comes to the kids. Islamism is not seeping into our K-12 system. But wokeism is.”
We certainly wouldn’t want our kids enlightened, well-informed, and politically aware, would we?
Sadly, peace in the culture wars isn’t anywhere on the horizon nor is it likely to be in the 17 months leading up to the 2024 election.
Victory will only be in the hands of the voters.
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