Woke PC 4

primary 2 23PC4

AHA NOTE COVER FOR DOGE COUP BS DEI USAID WOKE SLUSH FUND

disambig pending see PC3 cancel silence

not going away? 12 21 nope, divide into corps (soc media bias) and mil ~ radical/infiltration?

merri ok

see desantis say gay

see social media bias bs

woke = communist 9 22 vought

see wedge culture war

note // anti-commie

[white ID] victim grievance reverse discrimination

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aha variants mind virus and mob contagion sick // dirty/ insane defective gullible?

-=-=

RWW 9 26

Finally, Brenden Dilley appears to be panicking about the GOP's prospects in the midterm elections: "THE DEMS WERE CUTTING KIDS DICKS OFF, ALLOWING ILLEGALS TO INVADE, MURDER AND LIVE OFF OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS, ALL THE WHILE THE MILITARY WAS IN TOTAL WOKE DISARRAY! FUCK YOUR GAS PRICES! IT'S REPUBLICAN OR COMMUNISM!"

-=-=-

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JDV BS IN DEBATE HARRIS DEFLECTION FACT CHECK? // ROGAN

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note tropes lib press silence gag twit files laptop whattaboutism...

greivance projection, note attack dem women

running for trump vp

alternet- no lnx}:

Home | Marco Rubio shouts over Kristen Welker in cringeworthy interview about election fraud:

:{:{David Edwards and Raw Story May 19, 2024}:

An animated Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) raised his voice and refused to say he would accept the outcome of the 2024 election on Sunday.

During an interview on Meet the Press, host Kristen Welker asked the senator if he would accept a loss by former President Donald Trump in this year's presidential election.

"Will you accept the election results of 2024, no matter what happens, Senator?" Welker asked.

"No matter what happens? No," Rubio insisted.

"No matter who wins?" Welker pressed.

"Well, why don't you, I think you're asking the wrong person," Rubio shot back. "The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000."

"It's Hillary Clinton who said it," he continued.

Welker pointed out that "no Democrat has refused to concede," including Clinton.

"Hillary Clinton said the election was stolen from her and that Trump was illegitimate," Rubio asserted.

"Senator, she conceded the election," Welker noted again.

But Rubio raised his voice as he talked over the host.

"She said that the election had been stolen. Kamala Harris agreed," the senator argued. "And you have Democrats now saying they won't certify 2024 because Trump is an insurrectionist and ineligible to hold office."

"So you need to ask them," he complained. "I think you've ever asked the Democrats this question on your show. I bet you you've never asked the Democrat that question."

Welker reminded the lawmaker what he had said after certifying the 2020 election.

"Democracy is held together by people's confidence in the election and their willingness to abide by its results," Welker recalled. "So by your own definition, are Donald Trump's claims undermining Americans' confidence in democracy, given that he has not conceded the last election?"

Rubio, a possible vice presidential nominee, refused to condemn Trump.

"I think what undermines people's confidence in the election is when you have places like Wisconsin with over 500 illegal dropbox locations, when you have places like Georgia where liberal groups are [paying] people, $10 a per vote," he complained. "You couldn't even talk about it on social media. They would deplatform you."

"I have to jump in here, Senator," Welker interrupted. "You voted to certify the election. Nothing has been censored on this program."

Rubio griped about coverage of a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden's son, Hunter.

"We covered the laptop," Welker said.

"You couldn't even talk about it on social media," Rubio replied.

"And just to note that Chris Krebs, who was a top election official, called it the safest and most secure election in recent history," Welker added.

"But I'm telling you that if it's unfair, we are going to do the same thing Democrats do," Rubio pouted. "We're going to use lawyers to go to court and point out the fact that states are not following their own election laws."

Watch the video below from NBC or at the link.

Marco Rubio shouts over NBC host in cringeworthy interview

www.youtube.com

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

How these 6 Republicans are debasing themselves to be 'authoritarian crook' Trump’s VP ›

'Two-faced': Ex-GOP strategist explains why 'you can’t trust' Nikki Haley ›

How Trump’s ongoing feuds with GOP governors could throw a massive wrench in his campaign ›

Lee Brice Announces New Single “Country Nowadays,” Which He Performed During Turning Point USA Super Bowl Halftime, Dropping This Month

Aaron Ryan·

COUNTRY MUSIC

·February 8, 2026

Lee Brice

Looks like Kid Rock isn’t the only one dropping a new song after the Super Bowl halftime show(s).

Video Playlist

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Lee Brice announced tonight that he’ll be releasing his new single, “Country Nowadays,” on February 19, after debuting the patriotic anthem during the Turning Point USA All-American Halftime Show.

Brice first teased the song during an interview with Breitbart News ahead of the performance, announcing that the song would be available on his still yet-to-be-announced upcoming 30-song album.

The politically-charged anthem finds Brice lamenting the state of the country these days:

*“It ain’t easy being country in this country nowadays

*The direction of fingers point when it all goes up in flames

*Saying I’m some right wing devil because I was downside red letter raised

*It ain’t easy being country in this country nowadays”

In introducing the song during the halftime show, Brice praised TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk for giving people a voice to speak out about their beliefs:

“Charlie, he gave people microphones so they could say what was on their minds. This is what was on mine.”*

One verse (and line) in particular really seemed to resonate on social media:

*“I just want to cut my grass, feed my dog, wear my boots

*Not turn the TV on, sit and watch the evening news

*Be told if I tell my own daughter

*That little boys ain’t little girls [got cheer?]

*I’ll be up a creek in hot water

*In this cancel-your-a** world”

Immediately after the performance I began getting messages from people wanting to know where they could find the song, and it wasn’t long before Lee himself gave us our answer.

The song is available for pre-save now on streaming platforms, and according to Spotify will be dropping everywhere on February 19.

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Lee’s announcement comes as Kid Rock also gears up to drop a song that he performed during the halftime show.

After opening with his own rockin’ song “Bawitaba,” Kid Rock (whose real name is Robert Ritchie) slowed things down with his own spin on Cody Johnson’s #1 single “Til You Can’t,” even adding his own verse that he wrote after the death of Charlie Kirk:

“There’s a book that is sitting in your house somewhere

That could use some dusting off

There’s a man that died for all our sins, hanging on the cross

You can give your life to Jesus, and he’ll give you a second chance

‘Til you can’t”

Kid introduced the new lyrics by saying that he woke up one morning and felt called to add one more verse:

“I awoke one Sunday morning all alone with this song stuck in my head, and in that moment, something or someone spoke to me. They said there was still a verse that needed to be written for this song. And to get up and write it down.”*

It’s a version of the song that Kid Rock first performed back in November while filling in for CoJo during the Hondo Rodeo Fest. And ahead of the halftime show, Kid even recorded his version of “Til You Can’t” to drop as a single tonight at midnight.

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I have a feeling both of these songs are going to be pretty popular.

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GREIVance IN A BIGGER SENSE // STORY 1

AN 12 25

In his New York Times column and frequent appearances on MS NOW, journalist David French isn't shy about attacking President Donald Trump from the right. Like other Never Trump conservatives — from attorney George Conway to MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace to The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson — French believes that Trump and the MAGA movement have been terrible for the GOP and terrible for conservatism.

But French examines MAGA's belief system in his December 14 column for the Times. MAGA, according to French, believes that Trump is fighting to save the United States from a "death spiral" — and that combination of anger and "despair" is one of the things that makes MAGA and the "New Right" so dangerous.

"In this telling," French explains, "the 'strong men' of the American past had created a glorious and powerful nation. Our peace and prosperity had spawned a weak and feckless generation that had squandered America's strength and cultural identity, and now, it was time for hard men to arise to reclaim what was lost. This view of America's glorious past is indispensable to understanding MAGA's appeal — and the extremism of MAGA youth. After all, the slogan, 'Make America Great Again' implies the loss of greatness."

French continues, "This sense of loss provides the intellectual and — crucially — emotional foundation of the right's authoritarian turn. It's hard to overstate how much the New Right idealizes America's past. Online spaces are full of memes and images, for example, of families from the 1950s in idyllic settings, often with the caption, 'This is what they took from you.'"

The New Right, French observes, typically "contrasts its vision of a glorious past with a miserable present."

"Now, combine that hyperbole with smartphones and social media, and you've got a recipe for a nonstop sense of alarm," the conservative New York Times columnist warns. "I can open my Twitter feed and see video after video of outrageous conduct, and no amount of telling myself that these are isolated incidents in a nation of over 340 million people can blunt their emotional impact."

*David French's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

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an 11 25

hmn 2 gov pretty centrist? cop intel

Tuesday night's elections across several states delivered overwhelmingly positive news for Democrats. But one columnist is also directly warning MAGA Republicans that the lopsided victories for diverse candidates signifies that the GOP is badly losing its culture war.

In a Wednesday column for the San Francisco Chronicle, op-ed columnist Drew Magary announced he had "terrible news for red America" in that their war on "woke" had clearly failed given Democrats' victories on Tuesday night. He pointed out that Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral race, Abigal Spanberger won the Virginia gubernatorial race by promising to build more affordable housing and Democrat Mikie Sherrill was elected to be the New Jersey's next governor after promising to codify abortion protections in the Garden State's constitution.

"Everywhere you looked, woke or woke-adjacent candidates won big," Magary proclaimed. "Even more distressing, the state of Woke-ifornia just voted YES to a gerrymandering plan."

"Because Tuesday, amid the fiery embers of a self-immolating democracy, woke staged an electoral renaissance, and now it’s coming for you," he added.

Magary went on to argue that he felt no sympathy for MAGA, as last year he "watched as American voters handed the country over to a criminal enterprise headed by a broken television set" and has since "spent the near entirety of 2025 watching that enterprise eat its way through this country’s federal workforce, itsmilitary, its legacy media and eventhe White House itself." He observed that "woke was felled by this onslaught, and outright bigotry had become the new order."

However, Magary opined that Tuesday marked a significant change in that order, as voters came out specifically to vote for "woke" candidates and policies, saying: "These people spent eight months living in a woke-free America and collectively decided, 'We don’t want this.'"

"What we DO want is to be left the f—k alone. Contrary to what Ted Cruz might tell you, that’s what woke does," he wrote. "Woke lets you drive around town without the threat of a cop pulling you over to gun you down. Woke lets you be gender fluid without an emergency PTA meeting springing up outside your door. Woke lets you go to college without entering into a modern sharecropping agreement. It lets children read, lets every citizen be able to vote without a fuss, leaves the original recipe for Tylenol intact, and endeavors to keep our air and water clean. Woke, in other words, is good."

"You conservatives tried to kill woke, only for it to mount an impressive comeback," he added. "I hope that leaves you triggered, and I hope no one offers you sympathy for it."

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CHRIS WRIGHT DOE BS SILENCE GAG DEBATE

NOTE HE DOES NOT SAY PAID OR GUBMINT BUT TOP-DOWN

mma

August 19, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show SALEM

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): You've taken on the entire kind of climate science world. Energy department attacks climate science in contentious report. By the way, you're in safe company here. We think this is all politicized. This is driven towards a environmentalist agenda that is trying to weaken American energy dominance. The agency asked five client skeptics to write a report criticizing the consensus on global warming.

First of all, science does not have consensus. This is a very important thing. Right? Science says nothing. Scientists say things. Okay? Science never talks. Science is silent. This is a good thing that could apply to everything. Scientists say things. And scientists, like we learned during COVID, we learned during the lockdowns, learned during the vaccines, can say a lot of different things with the data.

Now, again, global warming does not have consensus like the second law of thermodynamics. Global warming does not have consensus like a object at rest will stay at rest. Your reaction, Mr. Secretary, and how you think about this because they — again, let me read this New York Times article, The consensus on global warming. What an outrageous claim. Your thoughts, sir.

CHRIS WRIGHT (GUEST): Yeah. I always give the contrast between the science, which is what the left likes, which is the opposite of science. Science is a process of challenge and engagement and debate and wrestling with data. And if the data doesn't agree with your model, your model is wrong. Where the science is this top-down, authority-driven thing used with COVID to me was the climate movement in fast forward. The science told you what to do.

But as you said, Charlie, look at those critics. They critique the authors. Five skeptics. Well, skeptical of what? They presented — these are five highly distinguished scientists. One of them was undersecretary for science in the Obama administration, provost at Caltech, PhD from MIT. All of those scientists were accomplished scientists that are also tired of this censorship of the science, censoring real science and real process of engagement. But even on my CNN interview a couple weeks ago, I went on to talk about the climate report. There are zero questions about climate change. Zero. They want to impugn the writers or impugn the way we reference people. They want to find little things. What we want to talk about is the data.

Let's talk about climate science. Like, it's a real phenomenon. It's a slow-moving phenomenon, not even remotely close to the world's biggest problem, but it's used by the left to justify big government and top-down control of everything. Let's be honest. Let's engage in real science, as you said. That's what we're about. And I'm excited to have that debate over four years. We're going to end a lot of children's nightmares. We're going to end a lot of people trying to be pushed around and bullied by people that don't know what they're talking about. Like, I've spent twenty years studying climate science as physical data, and the people who were passionate about it never want to debate me because they don't know anything about it. But we're going to have that debate whether they want it or not.

KIRK: Science is a process. It doesn't tell you anything. People tell you. Science is a method. It's a methodology. And good science, which again is a verb, they they act as if, well, science, you know, puts something out. No. You do science. You go in exploration of truth. And then once you have a conclusion, you have to measure it, you have to analyze it, you have to inquire it, you have to cross-reference it. And by the way, we're bringing back that methodology to our government, RFK at HHS, and you at the Department of Energy.

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AN 7 25

Progressive firebrand and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan recently debated "20 far-right Republicans" as part of the Jubilee series "Surrounded." One of them went way beyond identifying as conservative and admitted to being an outright "fascist."

When Hasan asked Connor, who goes by "Pinesap" online, if he considered himself a fascist, he replied, "Yeah, I am."

Connor also told Hasan he supports "autocracy" and said, "I, frankly, don't care being called a Nazi at all."

According to the Daily Beast's Ewan Palmer, Connor says he was fired from his job after publicly making those statements and "has launched a fundraising page on GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site" that has "faced criticism for hosting extremist causes."

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On his GiveSendGo page, Connor writes, "I'm raising money as an emergency fund and for other expenses while I look for a new job. Unfortunately, voicing fully legal traditional right-wing political views results in real consequences. This is cancel culture and political discrimination on full display."

Connor's fundraising campaign is drawing a lot of responses on X, formerly Twitter.

Attorney Ari Cohn wrote, "The pathetic grifty crybabyness of 'I said I am a fascist and lost my job, give me money' is just wild. So f—————— soft. Have fun not getting any insurance/benefits from the government because you're too busy begging for handouts instead of applying for a new job, loser."

X user Chris America mockingly posted, "OPer: I was fired for going on Jubilee and saying that I was a facist! My first amendment rights! Business: Thanks to the same GOP, we can fire you for any reason to protect ourselves. GOPer: The woke people did this to me! I need to raise money now! Grift. Grift. Grift."

X user Keith Edwards tweeted, "The literal fascist who got exposed on Jubilee has been fired from his job. Love that for him."

Edwards also wrote, "he doesn't believe in the First Amendment, so."

Another user Stanislav Birko posted, "This loser coming out as fascist on television thanks to Hasan and then raising more than 20 grand (seemingly in much less than a day) due to getting fired perfectly encapsulates the political moment we are living in."

X user Kennedy Pivnick wrote, "Ok but the actual answer is that unless he worked for the government or a company running a company town, no it isn't First Amendment stuff."

Similarly, Rob Braun posted, "First Amendment protects your right to free speech, he won’t be arrested or jailed. But most states are at will employment and can fire you for any reason they see fit."

*Watch the Mehdi Hasan video below or at this link.

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visit WH said trump was cordial?

During a recent political comedian Bill Maher bluntly addressed MAGA Republicans who think he might be ready to come over to their side. Maher (who met with President Donald Trump in the White House) stressed that for all his disdain for "wokeness" and political correctness, he has zero desire to embrace the far-right extremes of MAGA — he will talk to MAGA Republicans, but he is still far some being on board with their agenda and detests their cultish devotion to Trump.

Maher even compared fawning MAGA adulation of Trump to the. n korea?

Maher's "anti-wokeness" draws a lot of attention from what is sometimes described as the "dissident right" — people who have a history of expressing liberal views but grew fed up with "political correctness" and "social justice warriors." However, the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg, in her April 14 column, is noticing a trend: the "dissident right" feeling major anxiety now that the United States has a far-right MAGA administration in the White House.

"The writer Richard Hanania once said that he hated bespoke pronouns 'more than genocide,'" Goldberg observes, "and his 2023 book, 'The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics,' provided a blueprint for the White House's war on DEI. But less than three months into Trump's new term, he regrets his vote, telling me, 'The resistance libs were mostly right about him'…. Scott Siskind, who blogs under the pseudonym Scott Alexander, has been an influential figure in Silicon Valley's revolt against social justice ideology, though he's never been a Trump supporter."

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Goldberg continues, "Last week, he asked whether 'edgy heterodox centrists' like himself paved the way for Trump by opening the door to once-verboten arguments….. It is too early to know what these small cracks in the dissident right mean and whether they presage more substantial defections. They suggest to me, however, that not everyone can sustain the level of cognitive dissonance necessary to rationalize away this administration’s destructiveness."

The Times columnist cites podcast host Alex Kaschuta as another "dissident right" figure who is rebelling against MAGA and Trump's second administration.

"When liberalism was firmly entrenched," Goldberg explains, "its discontents could treat authoritarian ideas as interesting avant-garde provocations. Authoritarianism in power, however, was always going to be crude and stupid…. Well before the tariffs, Kaschuta, who trained as an economist, was moving away from the movement that once thrilled her…. For all her mounting disgust, however, the tariffs seemed to push her over the edge. When she looks back on the milieu she was once a part of, she said, she sees no solid ideas for a post-liberal society — it was all just aesthetics, resentments and vibes."

Goldberg draws a parallel between "dissident right" figures rebelling against MAGA and the late Irving Kristol's move to the right. Kristol was the father of The Bulwark's Bill Kristol, a Never Trump conservative and neocon who became an unlikely ally of Democrats.

"Irving Kristol famously said that neoconservatives were liberals who'd been 'mugged by reality,'" Goldberg writes. "Maybe soon, we'll need a similar word for the right wingers who can't stand to live in the world they helped build."

*Michelle Goldberg's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

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AN 3 25 THE CONV

“And one other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education.”

Donald Trump made this promise in a Sept. 13, 2023, campaign statement and repeated it frequently on the.

Trump tried to make this long-standing pledge a reality on March 20, 2025, by signing an executive order that he said will “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all.”

Trump said that he hopes Democrats would support his executive order. “I hope they’re going to be voting for it,” said Trump, speaking from the White House in front of a group of children seated at desks. “Because ultimately it may come before them.”

Project 2025, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the Trump administration, provides detailed recommendations for closing the Education Department, which was created by an act of Congress in 1979.

The Department of Education already announced on March 9 that it laid off more than 1,300 of its 4,100 employees.

Trump’s new executive order calls for Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely,” according to a White House statement distributed to media.

I am an anthropologist and have been studying U.S. political culture for years. During Trump’s first presidency, I wrote a book about the extremist far right called “It Can Happen Here”. Since then, I have continued to study the Make America Great Again, or MAGA, movement, seeking to understand it, as the anthropological expression goes, “from the native’s point of view.”

Education policies in the U.S. are largely carried out at the state and local levels. The Education Department is a relatively small government agency, which as late as February 2025 had just over 4,000 employees and a US$268 billion annual budget. A large part of its work is overseeing $1.6 trillion in federal student loans as well as grants for K-12 schools.

And it ensures that public schools comply with federal laws that protect vulnerable students, like those with disabilities.

Why, then, does Trump want to eliminate the department?

A will to fight against so-called “wokeness” and a desire to shrink the government are among the four reasons I have found.

1. Education Department’s alleged ‘woke’ mentality

First and foremost, Trump and his supporters believe that liberals are ruining public education by instituting what they call a “radical woke agenda” that they say prioritizes identity politics and politically correct groupthink at the expense of the free speech of those, like many conservatives, who have different views.

Diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives promoting social justice – and critical race theory, or the idea that racism is entrenched in social and legal institutions – are a particular focus of MAGA ire.

So, too, is what Trump supporters call “radical gender ideology,” which they contend promotes policies like letting transgender students play on school sports teams or use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, not biological sex.

Trump supporters say that such policies – which the Education Department indirectly supported by expanding Title IX gender protections in 2024 to include discrimination based on gender identity – are at odds with parental school choice rights or, for some religious conservatives, the Bible.

Race and gender policies are highlighted in Project 2025 and in the 2024 GOP’s “Make America Great Again!” party platform.

Trump has repeatedly promised, as he did on Aug. 14, 2024, in North Carolina, to “keep critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our schools.”

2. American Marxist indoctrination

For MAGA supporters, “radical left” wokeness is part of liberals’ long-standing attempt to “brainwash” others with their allegedly Marxist views that embrace communism.

One version of this “American Marxism” conspiracy theory argues that the indoctrination dates to the origins of U.S. public education. MAGA stalwarts say this alleged leftist agenda is anti-democratic and anti-Christian.

Saying he wants to combat the educational influence of such radicals, zealots and Marxists, Trump issued executive orders on Jan. 29 that pledge to fight “campus anti-Semitism” and to end “Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools.”

3. School choice and parental rights

Trump supporters also argue that “woke” federal public education policy infringes on people’s basic freedoms and rights.

This idea extends to what Trump supporters call “restoring parental rights,” including the right to decide whether a child undergoes a gender transition or learns about nonbinary gender identity at public schools.

The first paragraph of Project 2025’s chapter on education argues, “Families and students should be free to choose from a diverse set of school options and learning environments.”

Diversity, according to this argument, should include faith-based institutions and homeschooling. Project 2025 proposes that the government could support parents who choose to homeschool or put their kids in a religious primary school by providing Educational Savings Accounts and school vouchers. Vouchers give public funding for students to attend private schools and have been expanding in use in recent years.

Critics of school vouchers, like the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers unions, argue that vouchers would diminish public education for vulnerable students by taking away scarce funding.

Trump has already issued a Jan. 29 executive order called “Expanding Educational Freedom and Educational Opportunity for Families,” which opens the door to expanded use of vouchers. This directly echoes Project 2025 by directing the Education Department to prioritize educational choice to give families a range of options.

4. Red tape

For the MAGA faithful, the Education Department exemplifies government inefficiency and red tape.

Project 2025, for example, contends that from the time it was established by the Carter administration in 1979, the Education Department has ballooned in size, come under the sway of special interest groups and now serves as an inefficient “one-stop shop for the woke education cartel.”

To deal with the Education Department’s “bloat” and “suffocating bureaucratic red tape,” Project 2025 recommends shifting all of the department’s federal programs and money to other agencies and the states.

These recommendations dovetail with Trump’s broader attempt to eliminate what he and his MAGA supporters consider wasteful spending and deregulate the government.

Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 that establishes a “Department of Government Efficiency” headed by billionaire Elon Musk. Musk said on Feb. 4 that Trump “will succeed” in dismantling the Education Department.

Can Trump abolish the Education Department?

Trump’s executive order shuttering the Department of Education will almost certainly spark legal challenges in court.

Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota also introduced a bill in November 2024 to close the department.

Trump has dismantled other government agencies in his second term, chiefly the U.S. Agency for International Development, without the required congressional approval. A federal judge ruled on March 18 that the dismantling of USAID likely violated the Constitution and ordered the Trump administration to restore all USAID employees’ email and computer access.

Abolishing the Department of Education would legally require congressional approval and 60 votes to move forward in the Senate, which is unlikely since Republicans only have 53 seats.

Regardless of such legal challenges, Trump’s March 20 executive order will further weaken the Department of Education even as it remains in the crosshairs.

Alex Hinton, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; Director, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University - Newark

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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NOTE STRAIGHT NEWS SLING BS

MMA

Right-wing media want you to think stopping infectious diseases and feeding the poor is woke

Written by Gideon Taaffe

Research contributions from Jack Wheatley

Published 02/11/25 MMA

Right-wing media are focused on culture war battles as the Trump administration suspends lifesaving work from the U.S. Agency for International Development, cherry-picking USAID programs to dismiss the agency as “woke,” “radical,” and “overwhelmingly hard left.” In reality, USAID is responsible for providing health care and nutritional aid to thousands of the world’s vulnerable people, many living in war-torn regions.

The Trump administration has sought to put a halt to USAID’s operations

- On February 4, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that USAID was now under the direct authority of the State Department, and the administration froze U.S. foreign aid.Rubio placed Pete Marocco in charge of USAID; he served in the agency during Trump’s first term and has been accused of attempting to dismantle it during his tenure. CNN, [2/3/25]

- Following Rubio’s takeover, 10,000 USAID employees were placed on administrative leave, and a couple days later the Trump administration announced plans to leave fewer than 300 workers in place to carry out the organization’s work. A judge put a temporary pause on some of the Trump administration’s job cutting, resulting in 2,200 employees being reinstated but with uncertain futures at the agency. USA Today,[2/4/25; The Associated Press, 2/6/25; NBC News, 2/7/25]

- USAID workers in high-risk locations have reported being cut off from communication and were left unsure of how to access evacuation protocols. Employees of USAID are also facing interruptions to medical care and housing insecurity. Bluesky, [2/7/25]

- Rubio claimed he had issued a blanket waiver for lifesaving programs, but workers on the ground have said that operations have come to a halt. While some programs have been granted a waiver to continue under Rubio, many have lost access to supplies, and payments to contractors that are covered by the waiver have not come through. That has affected emergency food aid in Ethiopia, a refugee camp in Syria, a resettlement program for victims of the Islamic State group, and more. One USAID worker told CNN, “That work is grounded to a halt because there’s no staff to manage it, and there’s no staff in DC to answer questions from partners.” The Washington Post, [2/10/25; CNN, 2/8/25]

## The Trump administration’s antics have prevented USAID from providing critical aid to some of the world’s most vulnerable people

- The freeze impacted the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has been credited with saving more than 25 million lives and reducing AIDS-related deaths by 68% since 2004.Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, told The Associated Press that even short interruptions in care could have negative outcomes, as “HIV viral loads rebound in about three weeks if you go off antiretrovirals.” The initial freeze to USAID has already sparked confusion among PEPFAR workers and local partners as appointments are canceled. The Associated Press, [2/3/25; AVAC, 2/8/23; The New York Times, 1/27/25]

- As a result of the USAID freeze, thousands of people in medical trials for dealing with HIV and other illnesses have been left adrift, with their treatments suddenly stopped or with medical equipment in their bodies. The New York Times, [2/6/25]

- The freeze will also impact millions of dollars in aid that is being used to help those in war zones dealing with infectious diseases.The Associated Press reported that 1.2 million people in Congo could lose lifesaving support and 600,000 people in Sudan will be at risk of catching and spreading cholera, malaria, and measles. The Associated Press, [2/3/25]

- Defunding USAID also hurts American farms that sell products to the organization for disbursement via its nutrition programs.According to The Washington Post, “Purchases and shipments of U.S. food aid worth over $340 million — including rice, wheat and soybeans — have been paused during Trump’s foreign-aid freeze.” The Post also reports that the aid freeze “disrupted more than 507,000 metric tons of American food aid.” The Washington Post, [2/6/25]

- The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a USAID program that helps aid programs determine where to send resources, has also been shut down. An analyst specializing in food insecurity told Reuters, “Famine was disappearing from the world in the 2000s, and now its return will likely accelerate as we become increasingly blind to it, even as it becomes a more common tool of politics and war.” Reuters, [2/6/25]

## Right-wing media have dismissed USAID as a “woke” left-wing “slush fund”

- Fox & Friends Weekendco-host Rachel Campos-Duffy claimed USAID is “not aid like you would imagine,” like “setting up soup kitchens in Africa.”She claimed it’s a “slush fund for Democrat donors, the Clinton Foundation, George Soros, all of the NGOs who have been doing stuff that American people never voted for them to do.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends’ Weekend*, [2/9/25]

- Fox News contributor Ben Domenech claimed USAID has “not been acting in the interests of the American people or the United States for a very long time” and is instead enacting a “woke agenda.” Fox News, *Sunday Night in America*, [2/9/25]

- Podcast host Megyn Kelly dismissed USAID as an organization that seems to give money to “woke” projects like “LGBTQ and that kind of promotional stuff.” Kelly also said it “appears” that USAID employees are “overwhelmingly hard left.” iHeartRadio, *The Megyn Kelly Show*, [2/5/25]

- On Fox, former podcast host Vivek Ramaswamy claimed USAID funds are “not even going to help starving children in Africa,” adding that it was a “smokescreen.” He claimed that instead foreign aid is being used to push “progressive ideas, LGBTQ+ agendas, woke and DEI agendas, onto foreign countries.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/5/25]

- Newsmax’sFinnertyran a chyron reading “USAID funded some ridiculous causes.”Guest and former Trump deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley criticized USAID’s operations, calling them “crazy, ridiculous programs.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [2/5/25]

- Fox’s Sean Hannity said everything USAID does is “radical DEI, woke, transgender, you know, leftist, Green New Deal madness.”Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [2/4/25]

- On Fox News’The Five, Jesse Watters claimed USAID is a “slush fund for social justice warriors and permanent Washington to bribe people, staff people at NGOs, and just create hell.”Fox News, *The Five*, [2/4/25]

## Others in right-wing media have bizarrely claimed USAID’s critical work will continue despite the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the agency

- Jesse Watters claimed saving babies from getting AIDS in Africa is “still going to happen once they look at everything and get this thing streamlined.”Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/7/25]

- Fox News anchor Bret Baier claimed that Marco Rubio is not against critical foreign aid, but he is going to “scrub what is real and what is not.”His guest, Republican strategist Matt Whitlock, agreed and said that “so much of what we have seen” is “exporting a social agenda.” Fox News, *Special Report with Bret Baier*, [2/7/25]

- Fox News anchor John Roberts claimed that Marco Rubio will “continue with the good that USAID does.” Roberts: “The Democrats are literally losing their minds over all of this, saying that Elon Musk is gutting U.S. foreign policy. But Rubio is saying, ‘No no, we’re going to continue with the good stuff that USAID does. We’re just going to get rid of what we think is the wasteful spending that has been engaged in and the insubordination of the entire agency.’” Fox News, *America Reports*, [2/7/25]

- Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner falsely claimed, “No one is talking about taking the food and taking the things for people who actually need those things away.”She added, “Who doesn't audit? It’s been years. We need to know where that money is going. And some of it is going to terrorist organizations.” Fox News, *The Faulkner Focus*, [2/6/25]

- OutKick columnist Mary Katherine Ham claimed the frozen funds were just getting “audited.” Ham: “We're told that waste, fraud, and abuse is such a small percentage of the federal government's budget, and should be easy to deal with, given that. And yet we're also told that that small slice of the federal government is the end of democracy if you start auditing it.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [2/5/25]

### The idiotic meltdown over Politico Pro subscriptions is a perfect case study for the right's broken information ecosystem

02/06/25 2:29 PM EST

### As USAID is dismantled, right-wing media rejoice and spread baseless conspiracy theories about the agency’s work

02/07/25 4:38 PM EST

### Fox host to federal workers: “Get a real job”

02/06/2

---

// MUSK NAZI SALUTE 2X?

RWW

01/23/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Self-proclaimed "prophet" Manuel Johnson claims that God took him "ahead 12 years in the spirit" to show him that the inauguration of President Donald Trump has opened "a supernatural window for the body of Christ."
Mark Driscoll is excited that the Trump administration will provide a host of new opportunities for "heterosexual alpha males."
Lucas Gage explains why he fills his social media accounts with photos and videos of Adolf Hitler: "Because the Jews have demonized Hitler so much, and use him to maintain their cancel culture, he has ironically become a symbol of freedom of speech."
Steve Deace wants to see former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator "hung by her bedazzled scarf Nuremberg-style."
Finally, Nick Fuentes says that Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde should have been arrested for humiliating Trump during the National Prayer Service.

---

THE CONV AN 11 24

...

Attack ads that feature phrases like this don’t necessarily win elections.

But gender identity was a nonstop talking point at the dozen or so MAGA events I attended ahead of the election. Speakers there constantly mocked the use of nonbinary pronouns and blasted the “radical left” for “transgender insanity.” This “insanity,” in their view, includes issues such as transgender people using bathrooms that match their gender identity and participating in sports competitions.

The word “equity” – along with related terms such as “diversity,” “critical race theory,” “social justice,” “privilege” and “DEI,” short for “diversity, equity and inclusion” – can also anger a Trump supporter.

They associate these words with a “woke” or even “communist” agenda that they think the “radical left” is trying to impose on them.

While some people think that these terms speak to efforts to recognize that groups of marginalized people, including people of color and women, have long faced discrimination, many Trump supporters think that related “woke” policies threaten their free speech and individual and family rights.

‘Racist’

Trump supporters were called “deplorables” by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.

But my interviews and observations show that no word, not even “fascist,” stings Trump supporters as much as being called a “racist,” an accusation that is widely used against them.

As Matt Schlapp, the head of the conservative group Conservative Political Action Committee, which runs the annual CPAC conference, laments in a book, “There is no way to escape its putrid stink.” The “racist” label, Schlapp explains from experience, shames, stigmatizes and makes a person afraid to speak.

More broadly, the use of “racist” and related terms plays into many Trump voters’ perceptions and anger that Democrats are elitist liberals who they think look down upon and even hate them.

Trump and Republican influencers frequently play on this resentment. Trump, for example, wore an orange and yellow safety vest as he sat in a garbage truck after Biden referred to them as “garbage.” Trump’s supporters soon started wearing vests and even garbage bags to his preelection events to show their support for Trump.

No one, however, wore a shirt to a Trump rally emblazoned with the word “racist.”

...

no lnx

alternet

Trump's Cabinet of horrors exposes his totalitarian drift

President Donald Trump and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard embrace, joined by Tucker Carlson on stage at a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point USA, in Duluth, Georgia, U.S., October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Donald Trump nominated an alleged rapist and sex trafficker to be attorney general. He picked a Russian asset to be director of national intelligence. He chose a religious fanatic and Kremlin stooge to be secretary of defense. And for secretary of health and human resources, he selected an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who once had a literal brain worm, and who habitually takes (“legal”) steroids to maintain, at the age of 70, the appearance of a physique of a man half his age.

There are the obvious things to say about this motley crew. Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert F Kennedy Jr are not qualified, respectively, to lead the agencies they have been chosen to lead. None has managed anything larger than an office. None has the expertise required. Gaetz has never worked in law enforcement, Gabbard in intelligence, Hegseth in military leadership or Kennedy in public health. Their only qualification is their loyalty to the man who picked them, and how they look to him when they are on television.

Right now, the discussion seems to be concentrated on the Senate Republicans, who will have majority control of that chamber in January. They will be responsible ultimately for vetting Trump’s cabinet picks. The question is whether they will find the courage to restrain the president-elect or roll over, either by approving them or by letting Trump have what he wants through recess appointments.

Among liberals, the discussion seems to be limited to the absurdities each of these people brings to governance as well as the dangers they pose. “Yes, shake your head at the seeming absurdity of these picks,” wrote MSNBC’s Jen Psaki. “But don’t stop there. These choices aren’t just controversial; they require us to stay vigilant about how each potential new Cabinet member could negatively affect our lives.”

But I think we’re missing the bigger picture. These nominations signal the totalitarian drift that’s coming to Washington and the country. Yes, that’s right. No, I’m not exaggerating. It’s time to start using that word.

Totalitarianism seeks dominion over the individual to the point where individuality is erased. That’s what happened to the Republican Party. Individuals have looked the same, talked the same, acted the same and thought the same for a long time. (The men sometimes literally dress the same as Donald Trump, with a blue suit, a long red tie.) After the election, however, Republican behavior has finally been totalized.

As one GOP congressman said, Trump “is the leader of our party. … His goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word. If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads.”

The objective is forcing the rest of America to conform the way the Republican Party has conformed. This can be seen in the anger expressed by some magas. It wasn’t enough to win. Losers must now shut up and get in line, too. As a Trump attorney said recently: “You’ve got to own when you lose and say: this is America. We have to stand behind President Trump.” Senate Republicans are likely to approve his picks, no matter how bad, because the losers must be taught a lesson.

Totalitarianism also seeks to dominate the individual’s mind by going to war against facts, reason, science and any useful meaning of the word “proof.” In normal times, pre-Trump, we could expect in the Senate a spirited debate over a president-elect’s cabinet nominations, beginning with whether they’re qualified. Such debate is going to be impossible now, because “being qualified” is a meaningless term.

It is a stone-cold fact that Kennedy’s views on vaccines are not only insane, but in direct opposition to the moral principles of public health. But that fact won’t be accepted as fact. It will be taken as evidence of Trump’s enemies trying to sabotage his presidency. And there’s no way to break through this conspiracist mindset, as Lindsay Beyerstein calls it. It is impervious, she said. “When scientists or the government or journalists come forward with evidence that vaccines save millions of lives and prevent untold suffering, the conspiracist answer is: Well, that’s what conspirators to kill our children would say.”

Because there’s no empirical anchor to conspiratorial thinking, totalitarians can make reality into whatever they want. Up is down, left is right – or in the words of the totalitarian regime in George Orwell’s 1984: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

Therefore, the Republicans are likely to see nothing wrong with his picks. His nominee for the law is anti-law. His nominee for national intelligence is anti-intelligence. His nominee for national defense is anti-defense. His nominee for science is anti-science. But there’s no dissonance in the world of conspiratorial thinking. Up is the new down, and the only measure of morality is whether it pleases the dear leader.

The drift toward conformity and away from individualism isn’t limited to the GOP. Thanks to the rightwing media apparatus, which is global in scale, totalizing groupthink has also been growing in the culture at large. The trick is that it comes disguised as subversive individualism.

During his interview with Trump, popular podcaster Joe Rogan said “the rebels are Republicans now. They’re like, you want to be a rebel? You want to be punk rock? You want to, like, buck the system? You’re a conservative now. That's how crazy. And then the liberals are now pro-silencing criticism. They’re pro-censorship online. They’re talking about regulating free speech and regulating the First Amendment.”

If you are listening to liberals directly, you know there are no such efforts. But if you are listening the rightwing media apparatus, or if you just feel the conspiratorial ambiance that it generates, it’s possible to cast yourself as a man who’s bucking the system, as if the party of billionaires is the party of the common man, as if people who look the same, talk the same, act the same and think the same are punk rock.

But the strongest evidence of totalitarian drift is the plain awfulness of Trump’s cabinet picks. They have not earned the right to be called on. They haven’t studied or mastered their disciplines. They haven’t built reputations among leaders, peers and professionals in their fields. They haven’t overcome adversity and hardship. They haven’t reached high and achieved. They certainly haven’t followed the road toward the American dream, which asks us to work hard and play by the rules.

And that’s the point. Totalitarians fear individual excellence, first because they can’t understand it, and second because excellence threatens their goal of totalizing conformity. They are not humble enough to admit that they are mediocre people but they are arrogant enough to believe they can force the rest of us down to their level.

With this cabinet, Trump can pick up where his second campaign left off, which is movement toward “the consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity …” as Hannah Arendt once wrote.

“Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable,” she said. “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty” (my italics).

---

===

In Kandiss Taylor’s Christian Nation, ‘I Don’t Have to Give You Your Freedom of Religion’

By Kyle Mantyla | August 21, 2024 rww

During the most recent episode of her “Jesus, Guns, and Babies” program, which airs on the network owned by virulently antisemitic conspiracy theorist Stew Peters, Christian nationalist GOP activist Kandiss Taylor claimed that the Christian church is supposed to be running the government and therefore non-Christians are not entitled to freedom of religion.

Taylor is flat-earth conspiracy theorist who unsuccessfully ran for governor of Georgia in 2022 and despite her paltry showing in the Republican primary, she steadfastly refused to accept that she had lost. In 2023, Taylor became a Georgia GOP district chair and started voicing increasingly radical views, even going so far as to call for the public execution of those who oppose her Christian nationalist worldview.

Those radical views were on display during her recent program as she insisted that the Constitution was founded on common law and that common law is rooted in the Bible, meaning that the United States “was founded on Jesus Christ.”

“The idea behind the whole document was that the church runs the state,” Taylor asserted. “The church is we the people. We are the church … and so we run the state. But the state, the government, has no control over the church.”

“And everybody is like, ‘Then you gotta let Satanists come in and you gotta let witches come in, and you’ve gotta let Muslims and Hindus,'” she continued. “No. No, we don’t. No, we don’t because America is founded on God almighty, Creator God, Yahweh, Elohim. That is what we’re founded on and I don’t have to honor your religion. I don’t have to give you freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is there for us to worship Jesus. It’s not for you to come force anything else upon me.”

“So we have that all wrong,” Taylor declared. “We’ve had tolerance. We’ve been politically correct. And at what point are we going to say, ‘No, we’re not going to be’? You can do whatever you want to the comfort of your home. You can do whatever you want to, but don’t come into my government and bring any of that trash in there.”

“We shouldn’t be electing anyone in government—local, state or federal—that is not a Christian,” Taylor concluded.

===

---

an 2 24

florida public school students start learning about communism in 7th grade. That’s too late for some Republicans in the Florida House, who want teachers to instruct students as young as kindergarteners on concepts such as “cultural Marxism.” But what is it?

The House bill moving in the Legislature doesn’t provide a definition for the term, raising questions about how little kids could understand cultural Marxism.

The Senate version of the bill doesn’t include cultural Marxism in its legislation.

Nevertheless, HB 1349, passed in a House committee on Feb. 1. The bill analysis says that starting in the 2026-27 school year, the history of communism must be included in instruction in grades K-12 in Florida’s public schools. (Currently, there are no standards for the history of communism from kindergarten to 6th grade.) The legislation would include “the philosophy and lineages of Communist thought, including cultural Marxism.”

The bill involves a task force — the governor would appoint the members — to come up with age-appropriate curriculum and academic standards for K-12 instruction of the history of communism and its dangers. The task force would report its findings no later than July 1, 2025, and it “must also make recommendations to the Legislature regarding the creation of a Florida Museum of Communist History,” according to the legislative staff analysis.

The House proposal, from Republican Reps. Chuck Brannan and James Buchanan, gained enough support last week to move forward in the Legislature. But Democrats criticized the inclusion of cultural Marxism as one of the things students will learn about. Brannan represents North Florida counties and a part of Alachua, and Buchanan represents part of Sarasota.

From terrorist manifesto to K-12 curricula

Democratic lawmakers pointed to far-right groups’ usage of cultural Marxism in relation to antisemitic beliefs.

“If you look up the term cultural Marxism, what comes up is the term cultural Marxism refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory, so that’s also concerning to me,” Palm Beach Democratic Rep. Katherine Waldron said during the Choice and Innovation subcommittee meeting last week. “I’m all for kids learning about government and political systems. But I would be against this very specific terminology in training or in trying to educate them on this.”

Marilyn Mayo, a senior research fellow with ADL’s Center on Extremism, said in a statement to Florida Phoenix that antisemites also use the term to reinforce their longstanding antisemitic trope that communism is “Jewish.”

“‘Cultural Marxism’ is a term, typically used by right-wing ideologues, to attack an array of ideas and concepts they oppose, including multiculturalism, globalism, feminism, and LGBTQ+ rights, among others. The term often functions as an antisemitic dog whistle or codeword,” Mayo wrote in the statement.

“Promoters of the term often invoke a conspiracy theory that falsely claims such progressive ideas originated with the so-called Frankfurt School, a leftist intellectual collective active in Germany between the two World Wars. Exploiting the fact that a number of the Frankfurt School intellectuals were Jewish, antisemitic versions of this conspiracy theory link the Frankfurt School, and thus ‘cultural Marxism’ itself, to Jews, claiming that Jews seek to subvert and weaken Western (and Christian) society by imposing their left-wing and politically correct (or ‘woke’) views.”

Over the years, cultural Marxism has gone from being linked with the far-right through terrorists’ manifestos to seeping into the vocabulary of mainstream politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has said he views wokeness as a form of cultural Marxism.

“Most of the most violent, the deadliest acts of hate, perpetrated against Jewish people especially in the United States in the last 10 to 15 years have been by far-right extremists. We don’t have cultural Marxists shooting up synagogues. If it were the case, then we should talk about it, but it isn’t,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. “You have white supremacists, anti-government extremists who are embracing antisemitism. Of course, antisemitism is on the far-left as well. There has been a rapid, marked increase in antisemitic rhetoric coming out of the far-left as well.”

The terrorist who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011 and another who killed a woman in the attack at the California Chabad of Poway synagogue in 2019 left manifestos denouncing cultural Marxism’s effect on Europe and blaming Jews for coming up with it, respectively.

Groups like the Proud Boys have also used cultural Marxism as a catch-all term for anyone they view as an enemy, Lewis said.

“What we’ve seen in recent years has been an intentional effort, by far-right extremists to launder antisemitism, launder white supremacy, launder anti-LGBTQ narratives and hate speech against everyone who’s not effectively in this in-group, which is largely white, largely Christian,” he said.

Dangers of communism

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a 45-page report in 2022 about how cultural Marxism threatens the U.S. In it, the think tank states cultural Marxists have infiltrated the country through college campuses and public schools. They also credit DeSantis for showing a path to dismantle cultural Marxism.

“Today’s cultural Marxists believe that the reason economic, social, cultural, academic, and health outcomes (to name just a few) show persistent racial disparities is because of a pervasive, systemic racism that can only be eliminated by smashing the system itself,” the report states.

Subcommittee chair Republican Rep. Alex Rizo of Miami-Dade, last week defended the bill, stating that students don’t learn enough about communism.

“When we talk about antisemitism I equate antisemitism a lot with communism. … I love that this bill will come up with some sort of curriculum to start teaching what communism really does other than an economic theory that was brought up by Marx and Engels, two philosophers, and I use that term very loosely, in the 19th century. Because we do have curriculum in almost every single grade level K through 12 that talks about the sins of slavery, that talks about the horrors of the Holocaust, but does not yet really address the over 100 million people who were victimized, murdered, displaced in about 100 years worth of communism in our society,” he said.

The Florida Department of Education standards related to communism include the evaluation of economic systems in seventh grade and the identification of political ideologies (communism and totalitarianism) that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy in high school.

Lawmakers also discussed last week how the material would be taught in an age-appropriate manner to younger students. Republican Rep. Thad Altman of Brevard said his wife, a first-grade teacher at a Catholic school, teaches kids through hands-on simulations.

“I think these kids understand capitalism and communism more than a lot of college students, especially if they go to an Ivy League,” he said.

Other things students would learn about through the House bill or analysis include atrocities committed in foreign countries under the guidance of communism, the Cultural Revolution in the People’s Republic of China, the communist policies of Cuba, and the spread of communist ideologies throughout Latin America.

---

an 2 24

Middletown Township, Pennsylvania man was arrested after claiming to have beheaded his father, a longtime federal government employee, and posting gruesome video of what he said is the severed head to social media. The suspect, 32 or 33 year-old Justin Mohn, is facing first degree murder charges. He also decried “far left woke mobs,” BLM and LGBTQ people, President Joe Biden, the federal government, and spewed other right-wing conspiracy theories.

“Some of the talking points made by Mohn echoed those of prominent online conspiracy theorists and far-right political commentators,” local news outlet LevittownNow.com reports.

“Mohn made inflammatory statements advocating for attacks on federal employees and properties. He expressed hostility towards illegal immigrants, President Joe Biden, senior federal officials, communists, ‘far-left woke mobs,’ Black Lives Matter supporters, and members of the LGBTQ community,” LevittownNow.com added. “In his rant, Mohn discussed Christian scriptures, called for debt cancellation, called for more adherence to Judeo-Christian values, spoke about human trafficking, and accused a major tech company of tax evasion. Additionally, he claimed that militias should protect him and mentioned previous FBI threats of arrest.”

WPVI, a local ABC affiliate, adds that “Mohn referred to himself as a militia leader and called his father a traitor to the country for being a federal employee for 20 years.

“In the video, which YouTube has since removed, the son called his father a ‘traitor’ and said he’s happy that he is dead,” The Philadelphia Inquirer adds. ”’He is now in hell for eternity,’ he said, according to the complaint.”

The New York Post notes that in the since-removed YouTube video, “the man, who identifies himself as Justin Mohn, says to the camera before going on an unhinged rant against the government in line with QAnon conspiracy theories, calling for ‘militias’ across the US to unite and kill federal officials ‘on site.'”

“Mohn faces charges of first-degree murder, abuse of corpse and possessing instruments of crime, according to a Middletown Township Police Department criminal docket viewed by The Post,” the paper adds

---

https://www.alternet.org/desantis-post-birth-abortions-wokeness/

def fail

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June 26, 2023

If you missed the right-wing Road To Majority conference last week, we can pretty much sum it all up for you in just one word: Woke.

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/200-things-fox-news-has-labeled-woke

no lnx see sep node)

RESEARCH/STUDY

200+ things that Fox News has labeled “woke”

WRITTEN BY HELENA HIND, ALICIA SADOWSKI & JANE LEE

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM KATHERINE ABUGHAZALEH & ISABELLA CORRAO

PUBLISHED 06/08/23

For the past three years, Fox News has been obsessed with “wokeness.” Since the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by police in May 2020, Fox News personalities and guests have applied the label “woke” to a staggeringly wide array of topics. Few entities have escaped the network's demonization, from the military to M&M’s, New York prep schools to NASCAR, social media to mall Santas.

The progression of “woke” from its origins in the Black community to its eventual status as a conservative dog whistle has been well-documented, yet right-wing media — including Fox News — can’t seem to settle on a definition. However, the lack of a clear definition hasn’t stopped Fox from indiscriminately throwing “woke” at hundreds of things.

The problem is a two-way street: Fox personalities struggle to define “woke” because they have attributed the term to nearly everything under the sun, stripping it of any meaningful definition andsurrendering it to right-wing dog whistles. In doing so, Fox News has solidified the word’s status as a derisive catch-all for anything involving marginalized groups or progressive policies, arguably increasing its effectiveness as a means of inspiring outrage among its audience.

Here is a list of over 200 things Fox News personalities, guests, and writers have called “woke.”

A PDF of this report can be accessed here.

America

Fox host Greg Gutfeld claimed, “As America – our government keeps pushing its way towards wokeism.” [Fox News, The Five, 8/25/21]

Fox host Laura Ingraham claimed that under Democratic House and Senate leadership, “America is going broke, woke and becoming a joke.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/17/22]

Anchor Bill Hemmer noted that “woke culture” has gotten its “tentacles into the brains of so many Americans.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 2/22/23]

Artificial intelligence

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk declared that artificial intelligence will “become a woke super-weapon,” specifying that OpenAI’s ChatGPT will “make the left’s takeover of the West more efficient.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/21/23]

:{:{}:

Banks

Ingraham criticized the Net-Zero Banking Alliance and some banks’ reluctance to lend to oil and gas companies, and former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt blamed “woke banks” for high utility rates and rolling blackouts. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 10/19/22]

BlackRock

Fox News host Carley Shimkus blamed BlackRock’s “woke investment practices” for Missouri pulling “$500 million in state retirement funds” from the company. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/19/22]

Fox News host Pete Hegseth said, “BlackRock, by the way, it’s not just another woke corporation” because they use ESG investment practices to “virtue signal” about equity and climate change. [Fox News, Unfiltered with Dan Bongino, 10/29/22]

Federal Reserve

Fox Business host Charles Payne criticized the “woke Fed” for failing to raise interest rates to curb inflation. [Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 1/14/22]

Fox Business guest anchor David Asman said, “There's a lot of pressure being put on banks by the already woke people in the Federal Reserve and other banking regulatory institutions not to give out loans to oil and gas companies.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 3/31/22]

Silicon Valley Bank

Asman claimed the Silicon Valley Bank failure “was caused by adherence to woke beliefs and policies. The woke belief that you can just print money without consequence.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 3/13/23]

Fox News host Jesse Watters said, “Silicon Valley Bank is a woke Biden bank. They were holding seminars on Lesbian Visibility Day and national Pride Month.” He added, “This was Biden's Green New Deal bank. So if this bank fails, so does Biden's green agenda. Biden can't let a woke green bank blow up on his watch. He’s got an election to win.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 3/13/23]

Biden administration

Fox News contributor Tyrus blamed the Biden administration’s “woke attitude towards everything” for the lackluster Federal Emergency Management Agency response to Hurricane Ida in Louisiana: “They’re more focused on looking for fraud than helping families.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 9/8/21]

Fox News host Sean Hannity claimed that President Joe Biden is sending a weak message to China: “While Biden and his woke handlers project weakness abroad, our allies are scared to death.” [Fox News, Hannity, 10/6/21]

Fox host Harris Faulkner said: “The Biden administration is appearing to go woke” for factoring race and ethnicity into the COVID-19 treatment rollout process. [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 1/10/22]

Frequent Fox News guest Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said the Biden administration is “a hard, woke, left administration” because it is “race-obsessed” and “gender-obsessed, in terms of trying to deconstruct genders.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/26/22]

President Joe Biden

Tyrus criticized Biden for the way he handled WNBA star Brittney Griner’s incarceration in a Russian prison, despite being a “woke president.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/6/22]

Former deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy Sam Brinton

Co-host Jeanine Pirro declared, “The woke apocalypse is upon us” before showing a mugshot of then-Department of Energy official Sam Brinton, who was charged with grand larceny after stealing airport luggage. After singling out Brinton’s non-binary gender identity, Pirro continued, “Republicans now hope that President Biden has learned a lesson on woke hires.” [Fox News, The Five, 12/14/22]

Attorney General Merrick Garland

Fox News Primetime guest Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said Attorney General Merrick Garland “sounded like he had gone to a woke reeducation camp” during his confirmation hearing. [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 3/11/21]

Vice President Kamala Harris

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett dubbed Vice President Kamala Harris “the wokest of the woke.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/9/21]

Policies

Economy

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow called the Biden administration’s economic policies, including the Child Tax Credit, “woke economics.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 7/15/21]

Energy

Ingraham Angle guest Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said, “President Biden's energy policy is both weak and dumb. He and his woker friends have eliminated, terminated, ended America's hard-fought energy independence.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 11/23/21]

Environment

Fox & Friends guest and Independent Women’s Forum senior fellow Ellie Cohanim: “Joe Biden has crushed the American energy industry because of his woke climate change policies.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/7/22]

Foreign policy

During a segment about Biden’s 2022 trip to Saudi Arabia, former Trump State Department adviser Christian Whiton criticized Biden for leading “with this woke foreign policy.” [Fox News, Your World With Neil Cavuto, 7/15/22]

LGBTQ

Hannity claimed, “The Biden administration is now pushing a woke sexual agenda for children,” before lambasting supposedly taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care for transgender youth. [Fox News, Hannity, 4/8/22]

Black Lives Matter

Former BLM leader Rashad Turner complained to Ingraham about teacher unions participating in “woke BLM marches.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/2/21]

Capitalism

Ingraham said “breaking woke capitalism” is “the focus of tonight’s Angle” before monologuing at length about how big business supposedly favors the left’s agenda over conservatism. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/12/21]

Faulkner praised Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) for “publicly [taking] on the rise of so-called woke capitalism” after backlash from banks over the Georgia voter suppression law. Scott later elaborated, “You’re talking about the largest banks in our country, with the type of fire power and political power to really crush opponents when they sign onto a letter that literally -- about a law that they haven't read and positions that they haven't really understood. It's stunning, the impact that woke capitalism will have on our nation.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 5/27/21]

Biotech investor and manufactured presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said, “The first commandment of woke capitalism” is “the more ruthless your business is, the more woke you have to act.” [Fox News, The Five, 8/13/21]

Children’s books

Conservative pundit Bethany Mandel described the children’s book publishing industry as “a tidal wave of woke,” saying she was quoting a librarian. Host Pete Hegseth later responded that the Barnes & Noble kids section looks like “a woke rainbow.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/14/21]

CIA

On Fox News Primetime, a chyron reading “CIA gets officially woke” aired under a CIA recruitment ad that discussed intersectionality. Former Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized the ad, saying, “We shouldn't be talking about being woke as an attempt to recruit people.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 5/3/21]

Hannity complained about the same CIA recruitment ad, asserting that “political correctness, far left, woke cancel politics appears to be a top concern of America's spy agency.” [Fox News, Hannity, 5/4/21]

Cities/states

Fox Business host Jackie DeAngelis reported that Starbucks is closing stores in “woke cities” facing homelessness crises, due to drug use in the coffee shops and baristas being accosted. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 9/1/22]

California

Ingraham stated, “Democrats sure don't want voters to see the plain fact that states like Florida are getting more prosperous and states like California, so woke they are, are suffocating.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/1/21]

Los Angeles, California

Fox & Friends Weekend host Will Cain said singer Katharine McPhee blamed the “woke voters” of Los Angeles for violence in the city, and contributor Johnny Joey Jones praised her and said she’s providing “an objective truth.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/7/22]

Portland, Oregon

Fox News Radio host Jimmy Failla said, “Portland’s so woke, I don’t think you can call them homeless. I think you have to call them free range now.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 10/3/22]

San Francisco, California

Faulkner called San Francisco “woke” after “voters kicked out their progressive district attorney.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 6/8/22]

Seattle, Washington

During a segment discussing a park on the Seattle waterfront, which guest anchor Shannon Bream said “some are calling the ‘wokest’ in the country,” and a chyron aired reading: “‘Wokeness’ in Seattle: Liberal messaging and art displayed on waterfront.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 6/1/21]

Reacting to what Fox described as an entrepreneur who wants to build the “first woke city,” Tyrus commented: “We've already tried this. Has anyone been to Portland and Seattle lately? Didn't Seattle have a whole area that was wokeville? There was no police, there was no jobs, there was no competition, no capitalism, and seven days in, ‘Help me, get out, we can't -- where are the police?’” Tyrus added that he could draw what a woke city would look like: “Just draw fire, people running away, and good old boys in blue running in to save the day.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 9/8/21]

Washington state

Fox contributor and former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner complained how “the woke state of Washington” progressed on the issue of transgender athletes in such a way that it now allows athletes to “compete in a manner that is consistent with your gender identity, meaning you just identify as being trans and you can compete on the women's team.” [Fox News, America Reports, 11/21/22]

Corporations

Reacting to tech corporations that banned Donald Trump’s accounts, Hegseth raged, “What stops companies to say you can't stay at my hotel? You can't fly on my airline. You can't take Uber. You can't use my cable provider. You can't get a mortgage from me. You can't use credit cards. Where does it stop when people are deemed unacceptable when woke corporate companies decide they have to virtue signal?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/9/21]

Fox & Friends guest Erick Erickson argued that one way to unite conservatives is to “start pushing Republican governors to stop giving special interest tax breaks to woke corporations” because “the woke corporations need to understand if you are going to go woke, we will make you go broke by taking away your tax incentives." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/6/21]

Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) said that “there's hundreds of millions of dollars to pay big, woke corporations to make their buildings green” outlined in the Green New Deal. [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 8/14/22]

America’s Newsroom guest and radio host Clay Travis said, “Think about how much time we spent saying, oh it's so brave of American athletes to take knees when they get awarded by woke corporations millions of dollars in endorsements for this.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 11/29/22]

Fox & Friends Weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy showcased a new report that she said revealed “how woke corporate America has become.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 2/12/23]

The airline industry

Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) argued that since “the airline industry is so subsidized … they will always, you know, follow the woke method because they have no fear of going broke.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 1/11/22]

Amazon

Hannity guest Adam Carolla complained that Black Lives Matter took money from “big woke corporations” like Amazon and “squandered it on mansions.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/6/22]

American Girl

Fox & Friends guest and Independent Women’s Forum senior fellow Nicole Solas said parents can’t trust the American Girl company “because you don't know if they're going to be slipping in this dangerous woke indoctrination,” referencing a book that includes a section on transitioning. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/8/22]

Anheuser-Busch/Bud Light

Reacting to the controversy surrounding Bud Light’s partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, Hannity complained, “Corporate woke insanity, well, it reached new heights this week.” He later offered to sponsor the beer on Fox News and his radio show, so Bud Light could “meet the woke crowd and you’ll meet normal Americans.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/6/23]

Ben & Jerry’s

Hannity claimed that “woke ice cream company” Ben & Jerry’s is responsible for any unrest following the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. [Fox News, Hannity, 11/15/21]

Boy Scouts

Cain declared that Boy Scouts is “the next to go woke” because of a diversity, equity, and inclusion badge requirement for Eagle Scouts. [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 5/17/21]

Chick-Fil-A

Hegseth reported that Chick-Fil-A is “facing calls for a boycott over accusations of being woke” because the company employed a vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/31/23]

Coca-Cola

Hegseth praised former Arkansas governor and Fox contributor Mike Huckabee for calling Coca-Cola “woke-a-cola” due to the company’s decision to oppose the Georgia voter suppression law. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Sunday, 4/4/21]

Delta Airlines

Host Sandra Smith said corporations like Delta and Coca-Cola were “backing this whole woke culture” because they publicly opposed the Georgia voter suppression law, as if it was “some sort of racist law that is being enacted in the state of Georgia.” [Fox News, America Reports, 4/2/21]

Goodyear Tires

Reacting to Goodyear’s policy that he said allowed employees to “promote BLM and transgender activism,” but not the Trump campaign or the police, then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson quipped, “Until more businesses and politicians take action against this, you’ll need to be woke to get your tires.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/20/20]

Hasbro

Gutfeld claimed that Hasbro was “slurping from the woke trough” after the company announced it would focus on gender inclusivity. [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 2/27/21]

Kaiser Permanente

Frequent Fox guest and failed Republican National Committee chair candidate Harmeet Dhillon decried gender-affirming surgeries for children and claimed “woke ideology” was behind Kaiser Permanente supposedly “pushing this surgery on children at younger and younger ages.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/23/23]

Lego

Faulkner announced that “Lego is going woke” after the company unveiled new characters with missing limbs and Down Syndrome. [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 2/22/23]

Lockheed Martin

America’s Newsroom host Trace Gallagher declared that Lockheed Martin is “making no bones about going woke” because employees were “going through training courses to address white male culture.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 6/9/21]

Microsoft

Fox host Brian Kilmeade claimed that Microsoft Word was “playing to the woke crowd” by updating its word suggestion feature to suggest gender-neutral language. [Fox News, The Five, 1/14/22]

Miller Lite

Co-host Emily Compagno criticized Miller Lite’s viral advertisement apologizing for its sexist beer ads: “Miller Lite is essentially saying ‘Let’s just wipe away the past.’ Thanks, woke culture.” A chyron aired reading, “Miller Lite accused of going ‘woke’ with viral ad” during the segment. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 5/16/23]

Nike

During a segment criticizing Dylan Mulvaney’s brand deal with Nike, a chyron reading “‘Woke’ corporations insult biological women” aired over an over-the-shoulder graphic depicting Nike’s logo. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/6/23]

The North Face

Chaffetz criticized The North Face for releasing an ad featuring a drag queen, despite growing backlash “against multiple corporations for inserting woke politics into the marketplace.” A chyron reading “Backlash growing to woke promos by brands” aired during the segment. [Fox News, Hannity, 5/26/23]

Pantene

Fox & Friends guest Dave Seminara criticized the hair care company Pantene’s commercial because “they’re sort of promoting a trans story.” Seminara complained, “I don't want to be bludgeoned over the head with left-wing woke politics in a commercial.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/6/21]

Pizza Hut

Faulkner began a segment by declaring, “The issue of children and woke gender pushes into the national spotlight,” and then cited Pizza Hut promoting “a book for children for children as young as pre-k which celebrates drag queens.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 6/6/22]

Target

OutKick host Charly Arnolt explained that parents feel “ticked off” about Target’s release of trans-friendly bathing suits because the “woke agenda is being force-fed to their children.” She added, “You can’t even peacefully shop at Target as a family.” [Fox News, Hannity, 5/23/23]

Target, Home Depot, Nordstrom, Ulta Beauty, and Levi’s

Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy said, “It’s time for a ‘woke up’ call” for retailers that were previously “supporting defunding the police.” A chyron reading “‘Woke’ retailers ask Congress for help with crime” aired under photos of Target, Home Depot, Nordstrom, Ulta Beauty, and Levi’s. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/17/21]

Victoria’s Secret

Outnumbered guest Buck Sexton claimed that Victoria’s Secret’s decision to ditch the concept of Angels showed that the brand was “trying to go a little bit woke.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/17/21]

Walmart

Gutfeld suggested Walmart was teaching its employees “critical race theory” because “if you go woke, the activists will overlook how you eliminated mom-and-pop stores.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 10/18/21]

Xbox

Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt complained that Xbox’s new power-saving feature proved the company was “going woke … because of climate change.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/24/23]

Yelp

Gutfeld claimed Yelp’s public attention alerts allowing users to flag businesses accused of racist behavior were “an effort to appear woke.” [Fox News, The Greg Gutfeld Show, 10/17/20]

COVID-19

COVID-19 relief spending

During a segment of The Faulkner Focus discussing federal taxpayer funding in schools, a graphic titled “Woke COVID-19 relief $pending” included various examples of racially inclusive policies. [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 5/27/21]

Distribution of COVID-19 treatments

Faulkner said the government is “in woke conversations” about who gets COVID-19 therapeutics “based on the color of their skin.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 1/13/22]

Instituting/following public health guidelines

Former Fox contributor Lara Trump praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for taking “a common sense approach to COVID” instead of “caving to the woke politics and saying, like, shut everything down.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 4/12/21]

Criminal justice reform

Jarrett complained, “The woke crowd these days wants crime without punishment” before listing various progressive criminal justice reform policies, including defunding the police and “cancel[ing] jail.” [Fox News, Hannity, 11/22/21]

America Reports guest Joe Gamaldi said, “We have politicians, academics, and activists pushing these woke, no consequence criminal justice policies” who “gaslight the American public into thinking this is going to make your community safer, without any data to prove it's going to do that.” [Fox News, America Reports, 6/3/22]

Abolishing the police

Hannity declared, “In the new, radical, far-left socialist Democratic Party, it is now officially woke to abolish the police.” [Fox News, Hannity, 6/5/20]

Bail reform

Failla blamed “the woke bail reforms that have more empathy for the criminal than the cop” for large-scale robberies. He added, “If you are a retail worker — ok? — are you really going to risk your life for some toothpaste, knowing the cops are letting this person right back out on jail?” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 11/17/22]

Defunding the police

Carlson claimed defunding the police “means a woke militia policing our cities, enforcing Democratic Party orthodoxy.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 6/8/20]

Democrats

After claiming that Democrats want “institutionalized segregation,” Ingraham complained, “The woke jokes have essentially purged moderates from the Democrat Party.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/16/21]

Campos-Duffy argued Hispanics are abandoning the Democratic Party because it’s “a secular party, a woke, Marxist party that protects oligarchs and people who are going after American jobs.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/8/21]

Hannity guest and former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer claimed that the Clinton-era Democratic Party is “dead,” replaced by “the woke Democrats, the progressive Democrats, who have really taken control of the party.” [Fox News, Hannity, 11/9/21]

Fox host Steve Hilton said the Democratic Party is “completely controlled now by these activists, these ideological zealots, these woke extremists.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 8/19/22]

Andrew Cuomo

Reacting to sexual harassment allegations brought against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, frequent Fox guest Victor Davis Hanson said, “I think he thought as a liberal Democrat that he had woke insurance.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 8/3/21]

Gavin Newsom

After California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted that California wouldn’t do business with Walgreens due to its decision to cease offering mifepristone in 20 red states, Compagno complained that Newsom prioritizes abortion rights because people who want abortions are “more important to his woke, nodding political aspirations” than people in prison struggling to get access to their medications. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 3/13/23]

Lori Lightfoot

In reaction to former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s decision to refrain from taking questions from white male reporters, The Story with Martha MacCallum guest Dan Henninger responded, “What she’s trying to do is ridiculous, but, you know, it is of a piece with progressivism and the idea of being woke.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 5/21/21]

Steve Adler

Fox & Friends guest Leo Terrell, a Fox News contributor, described former Austin, Texas mayor Steve Adler as “a woke Democratic mayor.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/4/22]

Disney Corp. and its movies, shows

Hemmer introduced a segment with right-wing activist Christopher Rufo: “Our next guest describing the transformation of Disney into the wokest place on Earth.” A chyron reading “‘Woke’ Disney embraces critical race theory” aired throughout the interview. [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 5/10/21]

Doocy said that “the wonderful world of Disney” is now “the woke world of Disney.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/30/22]

Fox contributor Sean Duffy reacted to leaked footage of a meeting where Disney employees advocated for using LGBTQ-inclusive language at Disney Parks: “Disney is not the Disney of our childhood, right? They've gone very progressive, very woke. I mean, the fact that they want to sexualize our children and our children's childhoods for their own political agenda is incredibly disturbing.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 3/30/22]

Watters lamented Disney’s criticism of the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” law: “Yet another big American company going woke. Disney caving to the liberal mob and pledging to help repeal the new parental rights bill that just signed into law by Florida governor Ron DeSantis.” [Fox News, The Five, 3/30/22]

Hegseth claimed, “They've got a whole woke corporate industry inside Disney” because the company employs diversity, equity and inclusion advisors. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/3/22]

Lightyear

Fox host Kayleigh McEnany said Disney’s Toy Story spinoff Lightyear failed to impress at the box office because it was “a bit too woke.” She specifically mentioned its same-sex kiss scene, which “left some conservatives to blame what they call the movie’s woke agenda.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/21/22]

Muppets Babies

A Fox chyron claimed “The Muppets Go Woke” as Fox & Friends hosts complained about a storyline in which Gonzo wore a dress. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/3/21]

Peter Pan & Wendy

Fox correspondent Jacqui Heinrich listed Disney’s Peter Pan & Wendy as another example of Disney “updating its classic films with woke themes” because of the inclusion of girls in the lost boy characters. A chyron reading “Peter Pan fans slam trailer for ‘woke’ remake” aired during the segment. [Fox News, America Reports, 3/2/23]

The Proud Family

Kilmeade listed Disney+ cartoon The Proud Family as a reason for people to be “concerned” over Disney going “woke” because the show discusses anti-Black discrimination in America. He asserted that the cartoon’s “goal” is to teach white kids that they’re “the enemy.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/7/23]

District attorneys

Kilmeade accused George Soros of being “behind so much of what’s going on … with our criminal justice system, with these DAs who are woke.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 7/21/22]

Duffy said, “It’s the Democrat Party and it's Democrat donors that are electing woke DAs that aren’t enforcing the law.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 8/30/22]

Campos-Duffy claimed that George Soros is “spending millions of dollars” to elect “woke district attorneys.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/9/22]

Then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said crime is rising because Democrats “elected woke DAs who don’t believe in putting people in jail." [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 10/6/22]

Earhardt: “These liberal cities, the DAs are so woke. They have lenient policies and they don't lock you up, and these criminals know it.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/7/22]

Alvin Bragg

Shortly after Alvin Bragg’s election as Manhattan District Attorney, Earhardt described him as “so woke” and decried his stance on equity in criminal justice. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/28/22]

Chesa Boudin

During a segment discussing shoplifting, Orange County District Attorney and America’s Newsroom guest Todd Spitzer (R-CA) criticized “woke DAs” who won’t prosecute theft. He singled out “Chesa Boudin in San Francisco” who “won’t prosecute homeless for stealing.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 12/7/21]

George Gascón

Fox anchor Julie Banderas teased a segment: “Critics blame LA’s rampant crime on the policies of woke DA George Gascón.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 10/14/22]

Kym Worthy

During a report on a man accused of setting his girlfriend on fire, Shimkus mentioned that “the woke Democrat DA in Wayne County Kym Worthy” wanted a higher bond despite her support for bail reform. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/24/22]

Mike Schmidt

After claiming that “there’s a civil war happening within Portland between cops and prosecutors,” Fox Business host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery blamed Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt for not charging criminals because “he’s woke and emotional, and he’s on their side.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 9/1/20]

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

Ingraham criticized DEI training in her opening monologue, complaining that corporations employ diversity experts to “oversee this woke training and compliance.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 10/6/22]

Matthew Wielicki appeared on Fox Business to discuss his resignation from the University of Alabama over climate change and DEI with a chyron warning of a “Woke Tide.” [Fox Business, The Bottom Line, 1/26/23]

Education

Fox contributor Newt Gingrich claimed, “The most racist things going on in America today are woke instruction, teaching white people they should feel guilty, dividing up the world basically by race.” He continued, “Let's be clear, it's the left which represents the new segregation, the new racism, the new desire to imprint across the whole society a race-based model. … What they are teaching is pure racist propaganda.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/19/21]

Ramaswamy claimed that teachers were spending time teaching students about “the new woke doctrine” rather than “things that they ought to be teaching them, both about math and science, as well as about civics and history.” [Fox News, America Reports, 6/1/21]

New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz declared, “We need to fight this wokeness” in schools, adding, “Million-dollar idea, multimillion-dollar idea: nonwoke schools. Make it happen.” [Fox News, America Reports, 1/18/22]

In a town hall with failed U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, Hannity listed “woke education” as a top issue in the 2022 elections. [Fox News, Hannity, 10/19/22]

Advanced Placement African American studies

Hannity defended DeSantis’ ban of AP African American Studies, calling the course “woke indoctrination.” He continued, “There is a lot of really important history that we ought to be teaching kids, that they need to know, that they need to understand. The good, the bad, the ugly. And that gets lost once you invoke this woke agenda.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/25/23]

Earhardt also sided with DeSantis, claiming the course contained “wokeness.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/2/23]

California school districts

While Shimkus reported that a number of California school districts were moving from failing students to allowing them to retake tests or redo the work, Fox & Friends aired a chyron reading “California’s ‘woke’ high school policy.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/14/21]

Colleges

In a segment on parents fighting against critical race theory in K-12 schools, Doocy said colleges have long been “woke”: “We've heard about how woke the colleges have been for a very long time, but it's not like a parent of a college kid is going to go complain to the university.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/15/21]

Faulkner highlighted a report from Young America’s Foundation that said 53 of the top-ranked 100 U.S. universities were expected to host liberal commencement speakers in 2022, including the University of Delaware, where Joe Biden was speaking. Sean Duffy responded, “This is the center of wokeness: college campuses,” elaborating, “Conservative thought isn’t welcome.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 5/17/22]

Correspondent William La Jeunesse reported on colleges that demand professors demonstrate dedication to diversity in order to receive tenure: “If you want to teach here or any other major university, you have to pass a litmus test. Sign a loyalty pledge, if you will, that you are committed to racial and social equity. Effectively, are you woke enough to teach? And I'm not kidding.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 8/25/22]

Fox News published an article titled “How the woke college cartel shakes down taxpayers to pay for elite endowments.” [FoxNews.com, 1/20/23]

Columbia University

Fox anchor John Roberts reported that Columbia University planned to hold multiple graduation ceremonies “segregated by race, sexual orientation, and income level.” Later in the segment, Roberts added, “There are some people who think this is just further fostering divisions in this country and is another example of woke culture, causing people to grow apart as opposed to growing together.” [Fox News, America Reports, 3/16/21]

Critical race theory

Davis Hanson complained about critical race theory and getting canceled, saying, “This woke critical race theory intolerance, where we're in a Salem witch trial climate, where we're canceling people going back through their entire lives on social media, anything they said privately — it reminds me not just of the McCarthy period, but something out of the French Revolution.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 6/2/21]

The Dalton School

Hegseth attacked The Dalton School for incorporating an antiracist curriculum and accused the school of going “fully woke.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/31/21]

Douglas County School District in Colorado

Hemmer said Douglas County, Colorado voters replaced school board members over “the district’s woke education policy.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 11/4/21]

Georgetown University

In a segment on Georgetown students protesting a speech by former Vice President Mike Pence, The Five ran the chyron “Woke Georgetown students walk out of Pence speech.” [Fox News, The Five, 10/21/22]

Harvard University

Hegseth labeled the Harvard Kennedy School “an elitist institution, fully infected by leftist groupthink. It's the woke of the woke.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 12/1/21]

Ivy League schools

Guest Douglas Murray accused Ivy League schools of “pumping out the worst of the basically neo-racist propaganda” and being “the most woke.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/9/21]

Kindergarten

Carlson blamed George Floyd’s death for “enshrined open racism” against white people: “You see it everywhere — from corporate hiring quotas to woke kindergarten lesson plans.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 3/10/21]

Loudoun County School District in Virginia

Outnumbered guest and Fox contributor Joe Concha said the Loudoun County School Board is called “the wokest and worst school board in America by parents there and for good reason.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/23/21]

Campos-Duffy: “Loudon County, Virginia has emerged as the epicenter for parents battling against woke agendas in schools.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/15/21]

Math

Ingraham claimed that the Minneapolis public school district was incorporating “woke math” into its curriculum. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/18/22]

Medical school

Campos-Duffy agreed with Davis Hanson for warning, “Our universities are lost, we are seeing our K-12 being lost, and our medical schools are being taken over by the wokeifieds.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/6/21]

After he claimed that “some medical schools are now reportedly denying biological sex altogether,” Kilmeade asked, “What happens when woke ideology undermines future doctors?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/28/21]

Harvard Medical School

Harris Faulkner claimed there was “more woke lunacy, you might say, this time at Harvard Medical School,” because “the elite college is now offering a course on how to provide health care to infants who are supposedly LGBTQ+.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 1/11/23]

University of Florida Medical School

Fox correspondent Charles Watson reported on a “bombshell report” on “critical race theory” in the University of Florida College of Medicine’s admissions process. A chyron during the segment read, “FL medical school accused of woke indoctrination.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 11/23/22]

The Merchant Marine Academy

Kilmeade said that the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy has a “woke ideology they want to jam down their [students’] throats.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/3/23]

Mount Holyoke College

In a segment about Mount Holyoke College supposedly programming students to believe in “woke ideologies,” Faulkner commented, “Apparently they went from Holyoke to holy-woke.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 11/28/22]

New York City prep schools

Guest Jon Levine claimed that elite New York City prep schools were forcing “woke indoctrination” on parents. [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 10/25/22]

The Ohio State University

Ingraham accused Ohio State University of “amassing armies” of “woke bureaucrats.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 12/7/21]

Oxford University

FoxNews.com reported, “Oxford University blasted for considering hiring based on ‘woke score’ of academics: report.” [FoxNews.com, 12/19/21]

Princeton University

Hegseth celebrated the Department of Education’s investigation of Princeton, describing the university as having gone “full woke, 1619, all the way.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 9/18/20]

Private schools

Campos-Duffy claimed, “There are a lot of private schools that have this woke ideology.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/8/21]

Public schools

Ingraham said of public schools, “The left is determined to turn all of them into woke reeducation camps.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 11/22/21]

Teachers

Fox host Lawrence Jones claimed that students were “being indoctrinated by far-left professors who value being woke over being right.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 3/5/21]

Cain hosted Christopher Rufo to tout Florida’s Stop W.O.K.E. Act, priming him with the question, “How does it stop a woke teacher from preaching neo-racism to my children?” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 12/16/21]

Teachers unions

Hegseth claimed, “These unions have been woke for a very long time and captured by the left,” adding, “Critical race theory, which was once taught as an abstract Marxist theory, is front and center in our classrooms.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/8/21]

University of Central Florida

Hemmer designated the University of Central Florida’s social justice in public service graduate certificate a “woke curriculum.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 5/27/21]

West Point

Faulkner suggested that West Point should be called “Woke Point” after reports that the academy was teaching “critical race theory.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 6/21/22]

Environmentalism

On Hannity, former Trump Secretary of Energy Rick Perry (R-TX) implored Biden to reject his “woke left climate crazies” and lift regulations on the oil and gas industry. [Fox News, Hannity, 3/7/22]

On Fox & Friends, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) claimed that Democrats have lost support from the working class because they prioritize “an ideology of wokeism,” which is “largely centered around environmentalism.” He continued, “They deify, they actually worship these gods of solar power and wind power.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/16/22]

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing

After Kilmeade bemoaned high utility bills and low 401(k) returns due to supposed low prioritization of oil and gas, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes blamed ESG investment practices, saying “these woke ESG initiatives… don’t actually help the environment.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/3/23]

The federal government

The Census Bureau

Hemmer claimed that the U.S. Census Bureau was “going woke” by “requesting at least $10 million to study the best ways to ask about sexual orientation and gender identity.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 6/17/22]

The Department of Justice

Former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland argued on behalf of then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who had accused Department of Justice prosecutors of politicization, saying, “What he sees inside Washington is that there are two sets of justice. One is justice. And then the other is injustice for the people in the Trump administration or the people who disagree with the woke Department of Justice.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 9/18/20]

The Federal Aviation Administration

Duffy blamed Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for the Federal Aviation Administration going “completely woke” after discouraging the use of gendered language. Banderas responded, “Woke culture has no place in the skies.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 1/10/23]

The IRS

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) lamented that “a woke and a weaponized IRS” is recklessly taxing citizens to pay for the Green New Deal. [Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 2/15/23]

Gender-affirming health care

America Reports guest and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey defended his decision to file an emergency regulation preventing children from receiving gender-affirming surgery, claiming gender-affirming care as a whole is “a woke, left-wing ideology that’s masquerading as medicine.” [Fox News, America Reports, 3/24/23]

The Green New Deal

After complaining about Biden’s supposed lack of visibility as president, Hannity asked, “Who is running the country?” He answered his own question, “It probably is AOC, now, or a cabal of woke green new green deal socialists.” [Fox News, Hannity, 10/18/22]

Hollywood, celebrities, shows and movies

Ingraham claimed that Hollywood elites “will bend over backwards to appear woke at home, [but] they will sell out their alleged concerns about human rights and free speech in a millisecond to avoid offending China.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/25/21]

Lahren complained, “It's not guns they are seeing on TV. It's not guns in their video games” that will make a difference on the issue of gun violence. “And nothing that Hollywood does to give us more woke movies or more musicals is going to change that.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/16/22]

Hegseth praised Dukes of Hazzard actor John Schneider for exposing that “woke Hollywood refused to fund or distribute [Schneider’s new] film because of its pro-America message.” The actor later claimed that “patriotic thought is the enemy to woke Hollywood.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 10/23/22]

In reaction to the director of Love Actually expressing regret at the film's lack of diversity, co-host Harold Ford Jr. reported, “Woke Hollywood seems to be eating itself alive.” [Fox News, The Five, 12/2/22]

Batgirl

In response to the release of the movie Batgirl being canceled, Failla asked, “If it was too woke, should it not be called Batgirl? Shouldn't it be Batperson? Why are we assuming gender for our superheroes?” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 8/4/22]

James Bond

Fox contributor Raymond Arroyo claimed the new James Bond movie “intentionally neuters 007,” saying, “If they keep neutering James Bond the audience may very well live and James Bond die.” A chyron during the segment read, “The name’s Bond, woke Bond.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 10/1/21]

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry

Campos-Duffy called Meghan Markle and Prince Harry “the ultimate hypocrites. They are the most annoying woke couple in the world.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 9/26/21]

The Met Gala

Failla: “The punishment for going to the Met Gala is going to the Met Gala, because you spend three hours with those woke, obnoxious celebrities.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 12/8/22]

NCIS

After CBS hired “police reform advisers” for the show NCIS in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, Fox contributor Katie Pavlich cautioned the show not to “change the storyline too much and inject the wokeness because as they say, ‘Go woke, go broke.’” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 8/13/20]

The Oscars

In a handoff between shows, Hannity told Ingraham, “I’m dying to hear your take on the wokeness Oscars.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/26/21]

Judges

McEnany criticized “woke judges” after a California court declared a mistrial after a defendant spent the previous night in a jail cell without a bed or blanket. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 9/7/22]

Lawyers

The Story with Martha MacCallum guest Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) claimed that “woke lawyers in the Justice Department and the woke lawyers for the ACLU” are going to give payouts to migrant families who entered the United States during the Trump administration. [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 11/5/21]

The left/leftists

Fox contributor Ben Domenech claimed “today's woke leftists hate many, many things.” The list included “the Constitution, Donald Trump, Fox News, comedy, and, of course, you. But … there's really one thing that woke socialist progressives seem to hate more than anything else, and that's babies.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 8/4/21]

Fox contributor Tammy Bruce claimed that the “left’s woke agenda” led to the Biden administration’s “indefensible’ withdrawal from Afghanistan. [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 9/2/21]

M&Ms

Gutfeld attacked M&M's: “The whole end result of wokeism is that it blands everything, it shaves down any kind of individuality that a human being might have in favor of what is best to describe them. So you are no longer an individual, you belong to a certain type of group. And now they’re doing this — even like, candy, you know, this is the diabetic starter kit is being affected by this.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/21/22]

Hannity mocked M&M’s “vow to make the candy more inclusive” as “yet another example of far-left woke self-parody.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/21/22]

Harris Faulkner complained, “M&M’s, the candy, back to pushing woke politics. The company now introducing a new progressive pack of chocolates — women M&M’s.” She asked, “Why are we all upside down on the packaging? Are they trying to make a statement about us?” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 1/9/23]

Carlson teased a forthcoming segment, announcing, “Woke M&Ms have returned. The green M&M got her boots back, but apparently is now a lesbian maybe?” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 1/9/23]

Failla complained, “There’s a really valuable message here for companies around the world: If it ain’t woke, don’t fix it. And what I mean by that is M&M's injected a social justice initiative into a bag of candy, and nobody asked for this initiative.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/24/23]

Hemmer reported, “A bit of a makeover for M&Ms, the candy company is ditching its woke mascots after an uproar online, tweeting that the mascots have been, quote, ‘polarizing.’ Meanwhile, Maya Rudolph is set to become the face of the company.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 1/24/23]

The media

Carlson praised Fox Corp. Chair Rupert Murdoch for claiming other media outlets followed an “awful woke orthodoxy.” The host continued, “There's nothing worse for the country or for journalism, by the way. Every publisher, every owner of every media company should be saying this in public every single day. But they're not, only ours is. No wonder they hate us.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 1/25/21]

Harris Faulkner claimed that the “woke media” fall for lies from people like Jussie Smollet because they look for narratives to add to the “river of goo of wokeness” to “drown out the truth.” She concluded, “It’s a steaming river of poo.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 11/29/21]

Fox Business correspondent Charlie Gasparino said that the media criticized Elon Musk because “the media is woke.” [Fox News, MediaBuzz, 4/10/22]

Gutfeld suggested that CEOs engage in corporate social responsibility because “they want to make sure that they appear compassionate to the media, who are very woke.” [Fox News, The Five, 12/8/22]

The New York Times

After The New York Times released a statement against a published op-ed written by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) calling for the military to be used against Black Lives Matter protesters, the senator blamed the response on the “woke child mob of employees [that] rose up against them.” [Fox News, Hannity, 6/8/20]

Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz claimed that the Times sent “a message that if a piece isn't acceptable to the woke culture of the newsroom, it is not fit to print.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 3/4/21]

Fox Nation host Piers Morgan criticized The New York Times for allowing the “woke mob in that newsroom” to define ”what journalism is” and to “decide what kind of op-eds appear.” [Fox News, The Five, 10/19/22]

NPR

Carlson mocked NPR’s coverage of arts and entertainment for highlighting diversity. Carlson continued that the coverage is “still not enough for NPR’s own hyper-woke employees. National Public Radio has been so thoroughly radicalized, it’s on the verge of destroying itself from within.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 1/10/22]

USA Today

America’s Newsroom guest David Mastio discussed his op-ed in the New York Post accusing USA Today of catering to “woke newsrooms,” over a chyron reading “Fmr op-ed writer: ‘woke’ USA Today ‘out of touch.’” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 6/29/22]

The Washington Post

Hannity blamed “dozens of woke publications,” including The New York Times and The Washington Post, for not covering leaked text messages from Hunter Biden. [Fox News, Hannity, 6/9/21]

The military

Hegseth lamented that “we've seen the woke ideology make its way into the military.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 3/28/21]

Conservative commentator Rob Smith said that “the job of the military” is not to “respect your pronouns” or “get woke.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/19/21]

Harris Faulkner criticized the “6 million man-hours and more than $1 million spent on woke training across the U.S. military, and topics range from extremism, diversity, equity, inclusion training, to climate change education.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 2/15/22]

Carlson described “the degradation of the U.S. military” as “politicized, woke, weak.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/1/22]

Pompeo said that Kelisa Wing, an official who has led diversity efforts for the Department of Defense, is a “symptom of what we see throughout a more woke military” because “this is another institution they have every intention of tearing down.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 9/14/22]

Ingraham suggested that turning the armed forces “woke” is a Democratic plot to “break the military.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 9/29/22]

Tucker Carlson Tonight guest Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) criticized Democrats for giving aid to Ukraine when they “have made our military woke.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 10/25/22]

The Air Force

Hegseth claimed that “instead of training, our leaders are focused on turning our troops woke.” A chyron during this segment read, “Air Force implements woke ‘safe space.’” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/19/22]

The Army

Arroyo criticized a new recruiting commercial and claimed that the Army is enticing volunteers by “celebrating their wokeness.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/14/21]

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley

McFarland complained, “Gen. Milley is a political general, he’s a woke general.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 9/15/21]

The “defense-industrial complex”

Ingraham asked why Republicans should “keep voting for this woke defense-industrial complex, given how it’s working against classic and traditional American values and just fairness.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/10/21]

Drafting women

Fox chief Washington correspondent Mike Emanuel asked guest Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), “The annual defense bill that just came up before the Senate included a provision for a female draft. Is that part of the woke priorities?” [Fox News, America Reports, 12/9/21]

Generals/military leadership

McFarland honored the late Colin Powell by saying, “I just wish we had a lot more Colin Powells right now and a lot fewer woke generals.” [Fox News, America Reports, 11/5/21]

Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway claimed that “woke generals” are “destroying” the military and represent an “existential threat to the country.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/22/22]

Ingraham said that “our military is suffering a severe recruitment crisis because our military leadership is more focused on being woke and following Dr. Fauci than winning wars.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 7/20/22]

Fox contributor Johnny “Joey” Jones claimed that the United States is behind in military readiness because “we have woke generals instead of warring generals.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 8/9/22]

Navy SEALs

Carlson attacked Special Operations Command Chief of Diversity and Inclusion Richard Torres-Estrada for supporting Black Lives Matter. Carlson noted, “This is the guy who now oversees hiring for the Navy SEALs. If you are wondering whether our military leadership has gone woke, you can consider that question settled for good.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 3/26/21]

The Pentagon

Kilmeade claimed that at book signings, people told him the Pentagon has “become a total woke place.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 12/21/21]

Ingraham complained that there are never efforts by conservatives to defund the Defense Department, “no matter how woke the Pentagon is.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/9/23]

NASA

Cain complained, “Since Biden took office, the CIA and even NASA have gone woke.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 6/24/21]

Nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to SCOTUS

Ingraham claimed Biden only made the campaign promise to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court to appear “really woke and so cool,” while “also effectively discriminating against the vast majority of the adult population.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/2/22]

Police

Arroyo called the New Orleans Police Department the “most woke police force in the country.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/5/21]

Hemmer reported that Austin, Texas, “had to spend $10,000 a day on anti-racist training for police officers in this town.” A chyron during the segment read, “Austin, TX pumps money into woke police training.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 8/4/21]

The publishing industry

America’s Newsroom guest and president of right-wing Regnery Publishing Thomas Spence explained that publishers “come under tremendous pressure from their employees, particularly the younger ones,” to not publish conservative books. Spence continued, “The publishing industry is filled with young and very woke people." [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 1/21/21]

Social media/Big Tech

Hegseth criticized social media companies for banning Trump after the January 6 insurrection: “It's not just government authoritarianism, this is corporate authoritarianism. This is technological. … This is moral authoritarianism which is the idea of being woke, you can only have one particular point of view.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/8/21]

Ramaswamy declared that Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Apple were a part of the “woke industrial complex.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 1/29/21]

Facebook

Mandel blamed the “woke people behind the screen at Facebook” for the platform disabling ads for her group Heroes of Liberty, saying “users are triggered by seeing conservative content.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/4/22]

Fox & Friends guest and conservative author John Cribb claimed that an advertisement for his latest book was rejected by Facebook because it had received praise from former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett, and consequently “tripped up some woke algorithm or woke ad-checker at Facebook.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/28/21]

Google

Hilton claimed, “Google is working with organizations to impose a woke agenda on schools in terms of reading this to children in schools.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 4/30/21]

Twitter

Dhillon blamed the suspension of the Article III Project’s Mike Davis’ Twitter account on “woke young people” staffing the platform and following “politically powerful voices with blue checks.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 5/16/22]

Morgan complained about Twitter’s “very woke workforce who have basically been shadow banning conservative commentators from Twitter for a long time,” and that they’ve “been almost exclusively banning people on the right without banning people on the left for similar offenses.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/31/22]

Roberts reported that Elon Musk is “pushing to weed out the woke at Twitter.” [Fox News, America Reports, 11/17/22]

Sports/athletes

Lahren encouraged the Fox audience to ignore athletes: “I think the best thing that we can do when these athletes want to virtue signal … I think the best thing that we can do is just ignore it, they are doing it for attention, they are doing it for the virtue signal, they are doing it to be woke so if we just ignore them maybe they will stop doing it.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 3/31/21]

Bruce lamented, “Individual athletes seem more interested in scoring woke points than actual ones.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 7/26/21]

Travis complained that “woke sports” works “to destroy everything by identity politics and slicing and dicing us.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 2/13/22]

Aaron Rodgers

Campos-Duffy commented that Aaron Rodgers is “a little bit woke.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/14/21]

Brittney Griner

Watters said that Vladimir Putin targeted Brittney Griner because Griner was a “woke hostage.” Watters continued, “He knew by choosing a Black lesbian celebrity, it would put the political squeeze on Biden.” [Fox News, The Five, 12/8/22]

Cleveland Indians being renamed Cleveland Guardians

Banderas said that the Cleveland Indians being renamed the Cleveland Guardians seemed “a bit too woke.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/23/21]

Colin Kaepernick

Hannity mocked Colin Kaepernick as a “one-time backup quarterback turned woke profiteer." [Fox News, Hannity, 7/12/21]

ESPN

A chyron reading “ESPN goes woke” aired as Domenech labeled the sports network “a constant force for division.” He complained that ESPN drives “race and gender focused narratives” and lauds “leftist acts of political protest.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 10/5/21]

Gwen Berry

The Faulkner Focus guest Jason Meister attacked Gwen Berry as “a phony,” “a fake,” and “a fraud.” He continued, “She went woke to cash in and she is probably trying to get a Nike deal.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 7/1/21]

LeBron James

Hannity bragged that the “politically charged finals featuring a very woke LeBron James averaged only 7.5 million viewers — that is a 50% decline over the previous year.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/26/21]

Ramaswamy praised Enes Kanter Freedom for forcing “the woke, including LeBron James, into the one arena they don't want to enter, the arena of debate.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 11/23/21]

Los Angeles Dodgers

Hannity teased an upcoming segment: “The Dodgers have given in to the woke mob, and they’re honoring now a controversial, anti-Catholic trans group,” the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. [Fox News, Hannity, 5/23/23]

Megan Rapinoe

Travis complained that Megan Rapinoe was “one of the woke athletes” that is “making more money” because Democrats support her beliefs. [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 8/30/22]

MLB

Hannity guest Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) attacked the MLB for being the “woke enforcers for the Democratic Party.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/12/21]

Lahren complained, “Baseball is going woke … these activists that want to kneel for the anthem or not participate in the anthem, they make it about themselves.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 5/30/22]

NASCAR

Ingraham asked, “What’s going on with the wokification of NASCAR?” OutKick founder Clay Travis agreed that NASCAR has “tried to go the woke route” and is “alienating their audience.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/31/22]

NBA

Travis attacked the NBA for going “super woke.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 6/5/22]

NCAA

Kilmeade complained, “The NCAA is becoming as woke as some of these CEOs and some of the sports leagues.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/16/21]

Sexton attacked the NCAA as “obviously quite woke.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/9/22]

Jenner said the NCAA allowing trans swimmer Lia Thomas to compete represents a “woke world gone wild.” [Fox News, America Reports, 1/20/22]

NFL

Gasparino blamed the low ratings for the Superbowl on the NFL becoming “incredibly woke.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 2/16/21]

Lawrence Jones complained the NFL is “so woke.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/1/21]

Duffy criticized the NFL for playing both the American and Black national anthems before football games: “The NFL wants to convey to us, ‘Listen, we’re woke.’” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 9/10/21]

NHL

Carlson claimed the NHL was pushing “woke propaganda on its fans” by aiming to bring more diversity to the sport and acknowledging the existence of trans women. A chyron during the segment read “NHL executives: Let’s go as woke as we can.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 11/30/22]

Ingraham attacked critics of San Jose Sharks goalie James Reimer for not wearing a pride jersey during a themed night. A chyron during the segment read “NHL goes full-woke with pride night gear.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/20/23]

The Olympics

America’s Newsroom guest Michael Loftus said track and field athlete Gwen Berry would be one of the “villains in the woke Olympics” for protesting the national anthem. [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 8/2/21]

U.S. Soccer

Kilmeade asked, “U.S. Soccer as a body, are they too woke?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/22/21]

Miscellaneous

ACLU

Fox News reported that the ACLU made the “Worst of the Woke” list by The New Tolerance Campaign. [FoxNews.com, 12/22/21]

Anthropology activists

Fox anchor Dana Perino reported, “Woke activists who are dead set on erasing race and gender are taking it another step further and that is, right into the graveyard.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 7/19/22]

Antisemitism

McEnany said that there was “woke forces of society, media, Hollywood, the Democratic Party have essentially green-lighted one form of discrimination and that is antisemitism.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 5/26/21]

AP Stylebook

Fox News reported that the AP Stylebook issued “new woke guidance for journalists to avoid using the word ‘woke.’” [FoxNews.com, 5/7/23]

Asians discussing white supremacy

Ingraham claimed white supremacists were victims of a smear campaign by “woke Asian elites.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/14/21]

Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Fox News declared, “Australia’s ‘ABC’ rings in New Year’s with an ‘embarrassing’ ‘woke’ bang, gets blasted as a 'disgrace.’” [FoxNews.com, 12/31/22]

Autocorrect

Cain attacked Google Docs for “offering PC alternatives for ‘non-inclusive words.’” Cain continued, “They are essentially taking political correctness and wokeism into autocorrect.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 5/19/21]

Billionaires

Guest host Mark Steyn claimed that there is “a cartel of woke billionaires controlling almost all dissemination of ideas in the public square" [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 4/8/21]

Book burning

Gutfeld claimed, “It's only a matter of time before book burning becomes justifiable because now it's under the guise of woke fascism. Before, you know, if Stalinists burned books that was bad, but if it's a social justice warrior, that’s okay.” [Fox News, The Five, 7/6/20]

Boris Johnson

Tucker Carlson Tonight guest Thomas Corbett-Dillon accused former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson of becoming “woke.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 7/7/22]

Chinese Communist Party

America Reports guest Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) said the Chinese Community Party would “co-opt a lot of the woke anti-American narratives out there” to increase division in the United States. [Fox News, America Reports, 11/28/22]

Climate change

New York Post columnist Miranda Devine criticized Joe Biden for “prioritizing woke concerns like climate change.” [Fox News, America Reports, 7/14/22]

Comic book characters

Kilmeade lamented, “Comic book characters are getting a woke makeover” and praised his guests’ new brand of anti-woke heroes. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/21/22]

Dating apps

Carlson warned, “Online dating apps are already reordering human relationships and maybe sapping some of the joy from them, but now they’re getting woke too.” He explained, “OkCupid is running ads encouraging users to fill out questionnaires about their political beliefs.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 2/14/20]

Democrats raising children

Ingraham attacked Democrats for being “willing to project their own freaky phobias and radicalism on their own kids,” resulting in the “next generation and beyond to become woke.’” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/23/21]

Dressing like Mick Jagger

Kilmeade suggested that men like Harry Styles and Timothée Chalamet are dressing like Mick Jagger to “show that they are woke.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 4/28/22]

Economics

Kudlow claimed, “All of this woke, progressive Keynesian economics has just failed dismally.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 9/26/22]

Emojis

Former Trump administration State Department official Morgan Ortagus complained that technology companies “have been woke with the emojis for a long time,” after an update included emojis including a pregnant man and pregnant person. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 1/28/22]

The European Union

Earhardt reported that French President Emmanuel Macron was “ripping into the woke European Union” after the “EU was forced to roll back a ban on gendered words such as man-made and ladies and gentlemen.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/8/21]

The gender debate

Faulkner complained, “The gender debate is now woke beyond words.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 5/19/22]

Grocery store chains

After some grocery stores in North Carolina recalled “patriotic products,” Faulkner claimed that there was no difference between grocery store chains and their leadership and Democratic candidates: “They're woke and they’re yolked.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/23/22]

High school debate judges

A chyron reading “Woke judges censoring high school debates” aired during a segment about a high school student who was discouraged from bringing up Trump during a debate. [Fox News, The Five, 5/31/23]

Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s documentaries

Banderas reported that Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of Gavin Newsom, is “raking in big bucks from public schools that basically are in line showing her woke gender films.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 1/31/23]

Joe Biden’s speechwriters

Hannity warned the “woke social justice warriors that are writing Biden’s speeches” that lying about impending economic crisis would not distract Republicans. [Fox News, Hannity, 11/5/21]

Mall Santas

Duffy declared, “Enough of the woke Santas” after a mall Santa asked a kid to wish for another present besides a toy gun. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/8/20]

Martha’s Vineyard residents

Hannity called Martha’s Vineyard residents “uber-wealthy, uber-woke.” [Fox News, Hannity, 9/16/22]

Mental health destigmatization

Guest Michael Shellenberger claimed that “woke” efforts to destigmatize mental illness in criminal justice lead to violent crime. [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 10/24/22]

Millennials

Domenech blamed the “woke religion of the millennials” for corporations having progressive “cultural values.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 4/22/21]

Monticello estate

Hegseth lamented that Monticello was trying to make “Thomas Jefferson into a bad guy in his own home” by talking about slavery too much. A chyron during the segment stated, “Jefferson Monticello estate accused of going woke.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 7/10/22]

My Little Pony

Compagno complained that My Little Pony was “ruined” because the show is pushing the narrative that “the most dangerous thing in your neighborhood is the patriot flying the American flag.” Tyrus added that his family doesn’t have time for “My Little Woke Pony.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 9/30/21]

Notre Dame Cathedral

Hemmer reported that critics are calling renovations to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France a “woke theme park.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 11/29/21]

Person behind the Roe v. Wade leak

Sunday Morning Futures guest Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blamed “some left-wing, woke twit” for leaking a draft opinion on Roe v. Wade. [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 5/8/22]

Physician-assisted dying

Ingraham Angle guest Sheila Gunn Reid claimed that because companies in Canada supported reproductive rights, they would “align themselves with this next anti-human, anti-life thing” of physician-assisted dying in order to remain woke. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 11/29/22]

Racism

Fox & Friends guest and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares argued that there is a new “woke racism” consisting of “reverse discrimination against the wrong groups and those individuals’ minds.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/10/23]

Real estate websites

Shimkus teased a segment: “Woke real estate websites are doing away with crime reports in an effort to advance racial bias. Is that fair to future homeowners?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/21/21]

The Salvation Army

Cain claimed that the “woke ideology has destroyed” the Salvation Army because the charity asked “white donors to reflect on their racism and to stop trying to be colorblind.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 12/15/21]

Sam Bankman-Fried

Gasparino said that Sam Bankman-Fried was “wickedly into woke politics.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 11/18/22]

Sandia National Laboratories

Carlson declared Sandia National Laboratories a “woke factory” after the company running the nuclear research facility had executives participate in a diversity training. [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/13/20]

The Sims 4

Roberts declared that “wokeness is now embedded in” The Sims 4 after the video game allowed players to have avatars with scars that come from breast removal surgery. Roberts continued, “Parents are outraged, claiming that the game is promoting transgender surgery.” [Fox News, America Reports, 2/1/23]

Snitching on your parents

Ingraham attacked a “woke 18-year-old” for reporting her mother to the FBI for participating in the January 6 riot. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/9/21]

Supporting immigration in the UK

Morgan said that only “people on the extreme woke side of the argument” believe that the United Kingdom “should let everybody in and have pretty much an open border.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/6/23]

Teaching children to identify racists

After Kilmeade described children in D.C. being asked to “identify racist members of their family,” Tyrus blamed “woke progressives.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/3/22]

Transformers

Ingraham attacked a new Transformers streaming series for including a “non-binary robot” who goes by the pronouns they/them. A chyron during the segment read, “Transformers caught peddling Dem woke agenda.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/12/23]

Using accessible language

When discussing Vice President Harris describing her physical appearance during an introduction with a roundtable with disability rights activists, anchor Martha MacCallum’s The Story ran a chyron stating, “VP Harris criticized for woke roundtable intro.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 7/27/22]

Valentine’s Day

A Fox & Friends chyron deemed Valentine’s Day “woke” after a private school suggested children bring inclusive, age-appropriate cards given out in class. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/8/22]

Vocabulary

Bruce said that “so-called woke vocabulary,” including terms like “systemic racism” and “voter suppression,” is “infecting every corner of our culture.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 4/27/21]

Wanting to dismantle the patriarchy

Hegseth complained that a consequence of being “woke” is that Democrats say “the patriarchy has to come down.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 11/13/20]

“Wildlife ideology”

Jesse Watters Primetime guest Tom Nelson said that “woke wildlife ideology” has led to valuing animal life over human life. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 12/7/22]

“Wokefishing” dating

The Outnumbered co-hosts discussed a new online dating trend of “wokefishing” where “singles pretend to be progressive to score dates.” Failla warned that “wokefishing to land a progressive woman sounds like a good idea until you are on a date with a progressive woke woman and know you have to listen to her ramble on about the patriarchy and yell at you for eating meat and cows.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 2/18/22]

Women’s History Month

An America Reports chyron declared “women’s history has gone woke” for including transgender women. [Fox News, America Reports, 3/3/23]

The World Economic Forum

Hannity warned of “woke socialist anti-conservative B.S. at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/19/23]

The World Health Organization

Roberts claimed the World Health Organization was “going woke” after a new guidance said that sex is not binary. [Fox News, America Reports, 7/13/22]

THE LATEST

Linda Yaccarino just started as Twitter’s new CEO, but Elon Musk already destroyed the platform for advertisers

06/08/23 9:27 AM EDT

200+ things that Fox News has labeled “woke”

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the Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro is fond of saying, "Facts don't care about your feelings," while others on the right have a more in-your-face slogan: "F*** your feelings." Liberals and progressives, the argument goes, are easily "triggered" and need to grow a much thicker skin.

"Real Time" host Bill Maher, himself a liberal with libertarian leanings, believes that liberals per se aren't the problem, but argues that "wokeness" is a departure from traditional liberalism — and that Americans are sick of having to "walk on eggshells" because of "woke" people who are constantly offended. Maher, however, is also a scathing critic of MAGA Republicans he considers hypersensitive.

Right-wing hypersensitivity is the focus of an op-ed written by journalist Joe Berkowitz and published by the Daily Beast on June 5. Berkowitz emphasizes that "the same MAGA Republicans who once wore 'f*** your feelings' t-shirts to Trump rallies now exist in a perpetual state of emotional outpouring."

"Being a conservative these days sounds emotionally exhausting," Berkowitz laments. "At any given moment, you might find out, for instance, that your favorite light beer sent a brew to a transgendered influencer and get so mad about it you have to film yourself using that beer for target practice. Or you might discover —gasp! — that Target is selling t-shirts with little rainbows on them for Pride Month and simply have no choice but drive to the nearest Target, threaten employees with violence, write a song about it, and whine that the song is being censored.… That's just how it goes in the United States of Wokemerica: another day, another space that is not safe."

A common MAGA argument, Berkowitz points out, is that being easily offended makes liberals "unfit to hold the majority in a tough world that demands a thicker skin."

The journalist, however, observes, "January 6, (2021) proved once and for all that 'f*** your feelings' never meant that feelings themselves were frivolous signs of weakness, only that yours are…. The years since the insurrection have seen conservatives retreat into constant, shrieking victimhood."

triggered’ Marco Rubio blasted for criticizing Biden official’s 'accurate' description of Republicans ›

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despite once claiming that “Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world,” CEO Elon Musk is using the site to amplify dangerous conspiracy theories and right-wing talking points. In just the last few days, Musk has peddled conspiracy theories about a mass shooting in Allen, Texas, fearmongered about migrants, and seemingly suggested that white people are being discriminated against.

After a gunman in Allen, Texas, killed eight people and injured seven last weekend, Musk followed the lead of right-wing media, undermining reporting that the shooter expressed neo-Nazi beliefs. In the days after the shooting, Musk tweeted, “this is either the weirdest story ever or a very bad psyop” and seemingly expressed doubt about reported connections to far-right ideology. (He did so without providing any evidence and disregarding multiple reports from research centers and outlets that confirmed the shooter had expressed neo-Nazi beliefs online.)

Musk has a history of flirting with bad actors and dangerous content on Twitter; he has previously amplified and seemingly given credence to conspiracy theories, boosted a QAnon influencer at least two dozen times, and catered to right-wing accounts that promote bigotry, extremism, and misinformation. And in recent days, he has done more of the same.

Here are a few examples of Musk amplifying and engaging with right-wing users and misinformation within the last few days.

Musk has engaged with right-wing figures to fearmonger and push anti-immigrant rhetoric

This week, Musk has engaged with multiple right-wing media figures about immigration, seemingly agreeing with Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk that “America is being invaded” by migrants and responding to anti-immigrant Fox News reporter Bill Melugin’s fearmongering tweets with “Wow.” After Collin Rugg, co-founder of conservative site Trending Politics, wrote that the end of Title 42 will lead to “an invasion along the southern border,” Musk responded, “This is next-level!” Musk also ostensibly agreed with right-wing account End Wokeness after it bashed the Biden administration for its immigration and other policies, responding with “!!”

Musk is engaging with dangerous rhetoric that is evocative of the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory. Anti-immigrant “invasion” language has previously contributed to real-life incidents of violence, including the 2019 El Paso, Texas, shooting where 22 people were killed by a shooter who expressed similar anti-immigrant beliefs. Additionally, the Biden administration has already announced plans to further secure the southern border after Title 42 ends, and blaming the current White House for a broken immigration system is disingenuous, as the GOP has and continues to obstruct immigration reform policies.

Musk has engaged — and seemingly agreed — with far-right users who claim that white people are being discriminated against

After Jordan Neely was held in a chokehold on a New York City subway and later died, some on the far right have “pushed unsubstantiated, misleading, and false information to suggest that the media is only covering the story because Neely was Black” and the other rider was white — and Musk was quick to latch on to this anti-white bias narrative.

Musk interacted with a series of posts from QAnon influencer KanekoaTheGreat, who seemingly argued that the media are biased against white people, and thus are at least partly responsible for the “division and polarization of society.” (The posts included graphs created by two different employees at the right-wingManhattan Institute, one of whom is a self-proclaimed “wokeness studies scholar.”)Musk engaged with these posts by replying with responses like “interesting,” “wow,” and “I wonder why.” Quote-tweeting another user who previously wrote an essay attacking the “Woke Left,” Musk also claimed that the media are engaging in “massive public manipulation” for apparently using the terms “racist,” “racists,” and “racism” more frequently within the last decade than before.

zach goldberg https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4005227

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-great-racial-awakening<[ton bad code] AUGUST 05, 2020 zzz

Popular Information debunked Musk’s suggestion that the media display an anti-white bias: “Since the 1990s, research has shown that the media propagates negative stereotypes of Black people as criminals.” Also, not only do the media struggle to fairly cover race, but the Center for American Progress found that Black Americans are actually overrepresented in the media as perpetrators of crime.

Additionally, Musk and his right-wing allies have shared these graphs about the media’s coverage without the necessary sociopolitical context of the last decade; police officers have killed scores of Black Americans, white supremacist violence is becoming an increasing concern, and former President Donald Trump “upped the ante on race.”

Musk has responded to bad-faith actors' suggestions for Twitter features and encouraged his followers to subscribe to their accounts

One doesn’t need to scroll long to see an example of Musk engaging with a right-wing user. In just the last few days, Musk has laughed at anti-trans content, instructed his followers to subscribe to at least two different right-wing users, and mocked Vice President Kamala Harris.

After anti-LGBTQ bigot and Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dilion begged for people to subscribe to The Babylon Bee’s Twitter account, snarkily prefacing the ask with, “We know you have important things to spend your money on, like reparations and other people's student loans,” Musk responded, “I subscribed!”
Wannabe governor of California Michael Shellenberger wrote a Twitter thread about “woke” culture war issues and pleaded for subscribers, to which Musk responded, “I recommend subscribing.” Musk is also evidently one of his subscribers.
Musk responded to requests for new Twitter features from conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec and QAnon influencer Ron Watkins, who may have posted as “Q,” with “coming” and “coming soon.”
Responding to right-wing personality ALX, Musk posted a laughing emoji on an anti-trans tweet and made fun of a decision to name Harris “AI Czar.”

Musk is working to court back advertisers that have previously fled his platform, but they should take caution, considering the sort of content their ads might run alongside. As BBC reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh wrote on Twitter competitor Bluesky: “These days, if you want to find the latest conspiracy theories trending on Twitter, the easiest thing to do is to check the tweets Elon Musk replies to, you’ll find most of them.”

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https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirks-conspiratorial-fearmongering-and-retaliatory-fantasies-reach-dangerous

no lnx many vids

Charlie Kirk's conspiratorial fearmongering and retaliatory fantasies reach a dangerous new level

Kirk: "We are living in an enemy-occupied country. They have taken over the government and we have to think as dissidents.”

WRITTEN BY SOPHIE LAWTON & JACK WHEATLEY

PUBLISHED 04/03/23

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In late March, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk repeatedly told his audience that they must take action against a demonic and tyrannical force that is targeting them for their conservative political views. While Kirk is no stranger to extreme rhetoric, his noticeably more incendiary and alarmist rhetoric is primarily in response to three news stories from the past week — the March 27 school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee; recent reports that the IRS visited the home of journalist Matt Taibbi; and the March 30 indictment of former President Donald Trump by a New York grand jury.

Trump indictment

As reports of Trump’s indictment in New York emerged on March 30, Kirk held a special livestream to speculate about the news and reasoning behind the sealed charges. Kirk claimed that the indictment is a distraction from the shooting in Nashville and is actually a “designed campaign” to goad conservatives into violence. Kirk stated, “They would love nothing more than for people to act uncharacteristic. They need to try to incite you to right-wing violence to justify their mass takeover of the country.”

Kirk also called for retribution against his political opponents, who he claimed are “acting like Stalinists,” and said “we must make them pay a price and a penalty” by indicting Democrats. “They crossed the Rubicon,” Kirk claimed. “They have declared quote-unquote the Roman Civil War.”

Video

CitationFrom the March 30, 2023, edition of Real America's Voice's The Charlie Kirk Show

As a guest on Thursday night’s edition ofThe Ingraham Angleon Fox News, Kirk took to spreading more conspiracy theories following the news of Trump’s indictment. Kirk again insinuated that the left and the “national security state” are “almost trying to incite the American conservative community to act uncharacteristic” and carry out right-wing violence which, in turn, would be used to presuppose the creation of “a Patriot Act 2.0, and that could then further justify their power grab across the country.”

Later on in the segment, Kirk claimed that Trump’s indictment was an act of revenge by those still upset over his election in 2016, saying that “it seems as if there is this bloodthirsty appetite and desire at the highest level of the Democrat eliteto quote-unquote get Trump.” Kirk went on to claim there’s a “kind ofStalinization of the American criminal justice system” that he hopes independent and moderate voters will recognize before the upcoming presidential race. Fox host Laura Ingraham agreed and added, “It’s like Stalin’s purges, right? That’s what we’re seeing.”

Addressing his audience the day following Trump’s indictment, Kirk said the only way to “bring the country together” and “heal” is for conservatives “to win,” then told his listeners that winning will include “a lot of our side going to jail, a lot of their side going to jail.” Kirk reminded his audience to stay peaceful though quickly reverted to inflammatory rhetoric, saying, “The country we grew up in has ended, a new country is born. Who’s going to control it? If we want it, we can win.”

In the same March 31 episode, while introducing an interview withDonald Trump Jr., Kirk told his listeners, “You should be angry today. And this is a time for action, and this a time to realize that the country we love has slipped away and we have to get it back.”

Video From the March 31, 2023, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show

Nashville school shooting

In the wake of the tragic school shooting in Nashville on March 27, Kirk unleashed vile attacks on the LGBTQ community following police reports that the shooter was transgender.

On his March 28 show, Kirk claimed that activists are becoming “trans jihadists” in the name of “this lie of a quote-unquote trans genocide” adding that “people think they’re on kind of a holy crusade.” He said that “there’s a lot of violent fantasies, unfortunately, among the trans radicals,” and went on to specifically blame the transgender community for the tragic attack in Nashville, claiming that they have “a violent undercurrent that tragically manifested in three dead kids and three dead teachers yesterday.” (Labeling all transgender people as violent is a common anti-trans trope.)

In his Tuesday episode with guest and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, Kirk read a statement from a group called the Trans Resistance Network referencing the shooting in Nashville and claimed the group “is blaming us, is blaming Michael Knowles, blaming Matt Walsh, blaming Jack Posobiec, blaming all of us for the massacre of children.”

After discussing the Nashville shooting again on his March 29 podcast, Kirk told his audience, “The trans movement is almost on a jihad.They have been told that people like us want them deadand I’m afraid they’re on some sort of unholy crusade,” adding, “We have to stop it immediately.”

Supposed IRS targeting

IRS agents reportedly made a recent house call to Substack journalist Matt Taibbi, according to a statement from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Republicans on the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government based on Taibbi’s own claims. Kirk told his audience that the supposed IRS visit to Taibbi was just the beginning of a “targeted campaign to chill speech” and that the government will be visiting “Real America’s Voice listeners and viewers, grassroots conservatives” first. Kirk called the visit “Stalinistic, Maoist behavior from the Biden regime.”

After once again referring to the IRS visiting Taibbi as “theStalinization of America”during his March 29 show, Kirk called it “full outright Gestapo behavior.” He then told his audience that “we are living in an enemy-occupied country. They have taken over the government and we have to think as dissidents.”

Video From the March 29, 2023, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show

Kirk’s fearmongering about the government targeting “political enemies,” specifically conservatives, included claiming that “the IRS is one of the most dangerous” and “powerful government agencies that is able to ruin your life,” telling his audience that “political force” will be used to “try and crush you.”

Kirk also suggested the government planned the IRS visit to scare Taibbi out of testifying against “the liberal quote-unquote street gang,” claiming, “If you want out, they beat you up, they kill you.” Kirk questioned, “You have to wonder did somebody plan the IRS visit so Matt Taibbi would reveal his sources? Did they do the house call to his front door the day he was going to testify for the purpose that he would break? Was it the equivalent of waking up with a horse’s head in your bed, how the mob used to operate?”

Other extremist comments

On his March 29 podcast with guest Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Kirk defended the Second Amendment by claiming someday Americans may need guns to fight against a “tyrannical, usurpatious government.” Kirk claimed that “the last 100 years shows 150 million people slaughtered because they were disarmed.”

At a Turning Point Faith event that same day, Kirk suggested that conservatives know evil is happening but are afraid to act on it because “the cost is being called something they wish they would not be called. Racist, bigot.” Kirk then said that “racism and bigotry mostly comes from the left,” saying. “We are such a decent, not racist country, that the incentive structure is to fake your own hate crime.”

At the same Turning Point event, Kirk compared the existence of transgender people to “homeless encampments” and said, “We should not have tolerance for public degeneracy or depravity of our streets.”

During an earlier live event on March 28, Kirk went on a rant about how the “woke mind virus” is a product of Satan sent to “destroy the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world.”He encouraged American pastors “excommunicate … the demons of the woke,” stating, “Evil should not be tolerated in the American church.”

Video From the March 28, 2023, Turning Point Faith event, livestreamed on YouTube

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At the March 28 Turning Point Faith event, Kirk also attacked universities and academics, claiming their actions are “rooted in anti-whiteness” and that “I think they’re trying to start a race war in this country.” Throughout his seemingly endless stream of extreme comments, Kirk also issued calls to action to his listeners.

At the same event, when asked about critical race theory, Kirk called the educational theory a “tumor” in our schools that happened because “good people have allowed evil to spread.” Kirk then called on the audience to be part of stopping such “evil,” claiming it will ”require good people with courage and boldness to stand up against what seems to be an overwhelming force and to say stop.”

“CRT has spread, andnow it’s time for us to remove the tumor,” Kirk concluded.

Video From a March 28, 2023, Turning Point Faith event streamed live on YouTube

Kirk used the “tumor” metaphor again when discussing a recent Wall Street Journal poll showing a decline in patriotism in America. Kirk claimed this generation of Americans are “the most depressed, most suicidal, most alcohol-addicted, most drug-addicted generation in history.” He then told his listeners, “Sometimes you need to get harsh, honest news and then have a battle plan, a plan of attack to remove the tumor” — implying the need to remove unpatriotic people from the country.

vid From the March 27, 2023, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show

Kirk has not specified what he means when he tells his audience to “stop” transgender people or critical race theory, but he’s also promoted preparing for future events by investing in gold and “buying a lot of bullets.”

Video From a March 28, 2023, Turning Point Faith event livestreamed on YouTube

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Charlie Kirk's conspiratorial fearmongering and retaliatory fantasies reach a dangerous new level

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Fox's Mark Levin: Classified documents are “safer at Mar-a-Lago" than "at the National Archives”

04/03/23 11:33 AM EDT

Anti-civil rights activist Chris Rufo has extensive ties to Christian nationalist-led Center for Renewing America

04/03/23 11:25 AM EDT

Media Matters’ Evlondo Cooper discusses broadcast news' lack of attention to people of color and environmental justice with A Rude Awakening

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With conventional abortion pill regimens likely to be pulled, anti-choice activists are increasingly attacking a safe alternative

04/03/23 11:01 AM EDT

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Right-wing media react to report of Trump's indictment

03/30/23 6:26 PM EDT

Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, and a QAnon conspiracy theoristare all boosting a far-right Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate

03/21/23 2:27 PM EDT

Right-wing media rally behind Michael Knowles’ eliminationist anti-trans rhetoric

03/08/23

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https://www.mediamatters.org/critical-race-theory/anti-civil-rights-activist-chris-rufo-has-extensive-ties-christian-nationalist

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anti-civil rights activist Christopher Rufo has extensive ties to a leading MAGA-aligned think tank led by a Christian nationalist that’s at the heart of several high-profile political battles in Washington, D.C. The think tank, the Center for Renewing America, was founded by Russ Vought, who has called for an “army” of believers with a “biblical worldview” to transform the federal bureaucracy into an ideological weapon to further his hard-right agenda. Vought and Rufo are both conservative media mainstays, and each appears frequently on Fox News and right-wing streaming shows.

Rufo’s ties to CRA are not hidden, but nor are they particularly well-known outside of the cloistered bubble of conservative activism. Although Rufo is primarily known for his rhetorical attacks on critical race theory (which he has admitted he knows nothing about) and LGBTQ people, he shares CRA’s goal of taking over existing institutions and remaking them as supposed paragons of conservatism.

That desire has been most clearly realized in Rufo’s hostile takeover of New College of Florida, facilitated by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to appoint him and several other hard-liners to the school’s board of trustees. Rufo and DeSantis’ scheme bears significant resemblance to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s remaking of Central European University in Budapest, one of many points of overlap between U.S. conservatives and their European counterparts. Rufo is currently spending a month in Hungary, according to his Substack newsletter.

Vought and CRA have been at the forefront of advocating for a policy known as Schedule F,a Trump-era scheme that allowed the administration to sidestep job protections for non-political career staffers. In an appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show, Vought and Kirk promoted the idea of implementing “ideological purity tests” for federal civil servants, and Vought estimated that he would need to fire around 10 percent of the workforce at federal agencies and departments. Vought has also argued the House of Representatives should adopt new rules to allow the chamber to target and possibly remove individual civil servants.

CRA occupies a divided position in the conservative political landscape at the moment, seemingly straddling the line between the Trump and DeSantis camps. Vought, the organization’s leader, is a frequent guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room, which has taken a pro-Trump, anti-DeSantis editorial position. The think tank more broadly is often described as being aligned with Trump as well. But Rufo is closely associated with DeSantis, for now at least, due to his appointment to the board at New College. And CRA senior fellow Ken Cuccinelli recently launched a pro-DeSantis PAC, urging the governor to run for president.

Probably the most important link between Rufo and Vought came during the Trump administration. When Rufo was able to transform critical race theory from a relatively obscure legal discipline into a right-wing bogeyman — thanks in large part to an appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight— it was Vought, then the head of the Office of Management and Budget, who was tasked with carrying out Trump’s order to remove any mention of CRT from federal trainings. Since then, their affinity appears to have grown.

Rufo reportedly recently held a private summit at the Santa Monica, California, outpost of The Manhattan Institute, where he is a senior fellow.The gathering’s focus was “planning for the next White House,” a priority Rufo shares with CRA. In a short video summarizing his thoughts on the event, Rufo praised Vought’s behind-the-scenes efforts in Congress’ ongoing battle over the federal budgetas an opportunity to inject far-right values into final legislation.

in the video, Rufo argued that earlier generations of conservatives tried to win budgeting arguments using dry facts and figures, but that that’s changing now.

“Some people, most notably Russ Vought, who is President Trump’s former OMB director, have pioneered a new approach to talking about the budget that I think has enormous potential,” Rufo said. “Russ talks about the ‘woke and weaponized bureaucracy.’ He talks about defunding $150 billion that is currently being spent to advance left-wing priorities that are antithetical to the values of the majority of citizens.”

“He’s saying, ‘You know what? We want to defund thewoke bureaucrats and DEI commissars who are putting critical race theory in all of the agencies of the government,’” Rufo added. The official CRA Twitter account posted Rufo’s video, and Vought replied, thanking Rufo for the shout-out.

In the YouTube description of the video, Rufo praisesWade Miller, CRA’s executive director, who apparently attended the private summit. Miller, a former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), describes himself as anti-antiracism in his Twitter bio. He recently posted a racist tweet claiming, without evidence, that Stanford medical school awarded postings to new surgery applicants based on their race and ethnicity, and that those selected probably weren’t the most qualified. [twt]

rufo also has ties to CRA visiting fellow Michael Young, who is prominent on right-wing Twitter under the handle @wokal_distance, primarily for invoking 1990s nostalgia toward reactionaryends. Rufo worked with Young and CRA on his anti-LGBTQ pamphlet “A Parent’s Guide to Radical Gender Theory.” The two interact regularly on Twitter, praising each other’s acumen and execution.

Whether CRA can keep one foot in on either side of the Trump dividing line without drawing the former president’s ire is an open question, as is the impact that DeSantis’falling poll numbers could have on Rufo’s brand and influence. For now, Rufo and Vought are trying to find ways to find a broader audience for their cruel, anti-civil rights proposals, and they’re willing to burn down anything that stands in their way.

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it was the latest stop on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “where woke goes to die” tour. The focus was on higher education—specifically: diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at Florida universities. The roundtable event featured speakers like Christopher Rufo, the lead architect of the GOP’s crusade against critical race theorywho is now helping to mastermind the ideological makeover of Florida’s New College. The gathering followed the by-now-standard script of education-themed right-wing grievance: DEI initiatives are a scam orchestrated by the “woke mob,” and Florida is not about to submit to them—not if the governor and his brain trust have anything to say about it.

The event would make headlines after an Axiosreporter called the official press release “propaganda” and was fired as a result. But the ensuing furor over journalistic standards sidestepped what’s ultimately at stake in DeSantis’s war on the alleged woke excesses of the education establishment—a drive to deliver colleges and universities back to the rule of white male elites, and thereby turn back the clock on 75 years of progress.And at the center of this crusade is a West Coast bastion of cultural conservatism—the Claremont Institute, which served as a key intellectual recruiting ground for Donald Trump’s rise to power but has now shifted its allegiance to DeSantis.

DeSantis’s agenda was neatly distilled in the title of a new report by Claremont fellow Scott Yenor, who teaches political science at Boise State University: “Florida Universities: From Woke to Professionalism.” The paper was released in conjunction with theDEIroundtable, and claimed to document the unhinged course of DEI initiatives in Florida’s public university system, while also detailing steps the state can take to rein them in. Among Yenor’s recommendations: defund and dismantle all DEI offices in Florida’s colleges and universities, make collecting data on the basis of race and sex illegal, and scuttle any DEI-infused disciplines—education and law are particular targets—in favor of “science.” And that’s just the start. “From Woke to Professionalism” seeks to provide a playbook for Florida to go to war against the “reigning national civil rights regime.”

:{:{This means more than simply targeting the DEI establishment. Yenor also urges state officials to remedy what he sees as a core problem in higher education: too many women.}: State officials, he argues, should conduct civil rights investigations into academic programs, including education and nursing, in which women vastly outnumber men, while also ditching any curriculum or programs deemed “anti-male.” :{Disparate impact theory, a favorite target of the cultural right for its emphasis on systemic discrimination, gets repurposed here to boost the real victims of diversity policies: white men. MIRROR INVERT}:

The report’s pivot away from DEI-bashing to the systematic purge of female students is part of Yenor’s ambitious proposal to correct what he sees as the damage done by feminism. Last year, he gave a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in which he denounced colleges and universities as “the citadels of our gynocracy,” and derided career-oriented women as “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome.” Traditionally male-dominated fields such as engineering, law, and medicine should stop trying to recruit women, he argued. The culture should return to urging women to pursue “feminine goals”—chief among them, staying home and having children in the interest of restoring strong families, and through them, a strong nation. Yenor’s bid to dragoon the nation’s women back into the separate sphere of domesticity and child-rearing is but one key directive he’s undertaken as head of Claremont’s Center for the American Way of Life. Together with Rufo—another Claremont scholar—Yenor has been dispatched to the Sunshine State front lines in what Claremont director Ryan Williams calls the “fight against woke leftism.” He will serve as Claremont’s new senior director of state coalitions, based in the state capital of Tallahassee.

Claremont’s leaders have marshaled so much early support behind DeSantis because they see him as a staunch ally in thwarting the alleged march of “wokeism” through virtually every American institution: the media, corporations, and education, from pre-K through college. They view DeSantis’s legislative assault on diversity and inclusion—including stripping the Walt Disney Company of some state tax breaks, reversing diversity policies, and sharply curtailing discussions of race and gender in Florida schools—as a model for right-wing activism across the country. Claremont and DeSantis both are holding forth Florida as a red-state template—a militant Republican state government providing a “blueprint” for rolling back civil rights across the country.

this tight ideological alliance explains why DeSantis’s brain trust is stocked with Claremonsters, as the think tank’s staff and fellows refer to themselves, who now play an outsized role in shaping policy. Rufo, for example, advised DeSantis on his Stop WOKE Act, which prohibits schools, colleges and businesses from teaching students and employees anything that would cause anyone to “feel guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin. And when DeSantis orchestrated a takeover of New College, he tapped Rufo to lead the effort to remake the school as a “Hillsdale of the south,” referencing the fundamentalist Michigan college long positioned on the vanguard of right-wing culture warfare.

Even DeSantis’s new speechwriter has Claremont ties. Nate Hochman, a rising star in the intellectual right’s amorphous coalition of culture warriors, self-proclaimed economic populists, and unabashed America firsters, is both a former Claremont intern and a fellow.Hochman, who proclaimed earlier this year that he hopes that the “Republican party agenda is going to cohere around the culture war as its organizing, totalizing force,” now will be able to bring that mandate into the forefront of DeSantis’s campaign messaging.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Claremonsters will continue chipping away at what they see as Florida’s misguided dalliances with the woke. In his road map for higher education in Florida, Yenor holds up as his model the University of California, Berkeley–in the 1950s, before the Free Speech movement and the hippies wrecked everything. The University of Florida, he writes, should be a beacon of academic freedom and meritocracy for the country, just as UC Berkeley was back then. Of course, UC Berkeley was also an elite, and almost entirely white, institution in the 1950s. Some 90 percent of entering freshmen in the 1960s were white, and most hailed from families that were substantially wealthier than the typical Californian. And just one-quarter of students were women. For them, the school offered a 10-week course on marriage, jokingly known to students as “From Courtship to Venereal Disease in Ten Easy Lessons.”

Elsewhere, Yenor has argued more explicitly that returning college to the elites should be the goal. Only 8 percent of Americans attended college as late as 1960, he pointed out in a recent op-ed for the Christian advocacy organization American Reformer. “The United States should move toward 8% from its current 46%.”

“Too many of the wrong sorts of people go to college” is not exactly the stuff of campaign bumper stickers. DeSantis knows this firsthand, thanks to his ill-considered effort to escalate Florida’s assault on AP African American Studies into afull-scale attack on “Advanced Placement, Inc.” No doubt DeSantis and his corps of culture warriors calculated that the entire Advanced Placement program was a ripe target in the rolling war on wokeness, but the move was a political disaster. Parents in Florida regard AP classes not as a manufactory of left-wing ideological conformity but as a crucial path to getting their kids admitted to select colleges—and saving money when they get there. And they’re not wrong—so the politically savvy DeSantis has since moved on to other targets.

nor does Yenor’s wide-ranging campaign against the “gynocracy” seem likely to resonate with the suburban women to whom the GOP tries intermittently to appeal. As Daily Beast columnist Michael Daly pointed out, DeSantis’s wife, Casey, who tweeted enthusiastically about Yenor’s Tallahassee appointment, holds a BA in economics—one of the disciplines Yenor regards as subject to gynocratic infiltration. And her mother is a speech pathologist—another of the female-dominated fields that he wants dismantled.

There are also growing signs that DeSantis’s war on wokeness is losing its luster among Florida voters. A recent poll found that his marquee bill aimed at rooting out diversity efforts in the state’s higher education system is particularly unpopular. Sixty-five percent of voters, including 38 percent of Republicans, oppose it. And as his signature issue—limiting what students can learn and teachers can teach in Florida’s public schools in the name of parent rights—becomes synonymous with book banning, his popularity is likely to dim further.

Of course, the GOP supermajority in the Florida state legislature will continue to rubber-stamp increasingly outlandish bills on gender and diversity, regardless of whether the public supports them. Indeed, the pliant legislative body is a big reason Claremont is so bullish on Florida spearheading the nation’s return to the pre–civil rights era.

When DeSantis officially launches his candidacy, he’ll point to a long list of right-wing policy accomplishments. But using the levers of power to ram through an unpopular agenda is not the same thing as winning over hearts and minds. As he sells a retrograde vision of America with the help of a militant right-wing intellectual cadre, DeSantis is likely to learn that lesson the hard way.

Jennifer C. BerkshireJennifer C. Berkshire hosts the education podcast Have You Heard. She is the author, with Jack Schneider, of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door.

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an 3 23

https://www.alternet.org/aoc-republicans-horrifying-woke-agenda/

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) admonished House Republicans during a Thursday hearing on what constitutes "woke."

Ocasio-Cortez criticized conservatives for assigning the term to anything that they believe is too progressive or unnecessary without establishing a consensus on what the moniker actually means.

"We're having a hearing right now, and it's about what the, that the federal government is too woke. I mean, that's seriously what we're hearing, and then there's no definition of what woke is," Ocasio-Cortez said.

"But on paper, what's actually being criticized in this hearing is that the so-called woke policies are remote work for federal workers – especially those that live in rural areas – and those who have disabilities paying interns so that critical opportunities don't just go to privileged kids whose parents can afford to pay for their rent while they, while they go on a free internship. That's, that is what is woke here. That is what the other side is calling woke here," Ocasio-Cortez continued.

"Making sure that O[ffice] of P[ersonnel] M[anagement] makes – can create opportunities and federal careers for partners of military service members? That's woke," the congresswoman explained. "This is the woke alleged takeover that we have, that, that we wantwildland firefighters who are putting their lives at risk,increasingly so year after year that we wanna make sure that they stay on the job and have dignified conditions and not leave because they can earn more money as a greeter at Walmart? This is what is, this is what this whole term woke means. Or diversity and inclusion so that the people who work in our federal workforce are actually in proportion to the people that live in this country. This is this, this horrifying woke agenda that the other side is trying so hard to block."

Watch below or at this link.

"tastes like I'd rather be fat': GOP senator wails about kale and yoga mats while calling Democrats 'berserk'

Brandon Gage

United States Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) railed against "high-IQ stupid people" and "wokers" during a speech at a campaign stop for Georgia's scandal-plagued Republican...

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/sen-john-kennedy/

call crackhead for help ad

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lou Perez on That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

Comedian Lou Perez argued that cancel culture and “wokeness” are killing comedy and said that it’s time for comedians to fight back. This interview was conducted at FreedomFest, an annual…

157 VIEWS

NOVEMBER 6, 2021

LAST AIRED NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Author Discussion on Cancel Culture and Free Speech

Retired New York University Professor Michael Rectenwald (Thought Criminal) and Kentucky State University Associate Professor Wilfred Reilly (Taboo ) talked about cancel culture and the state of…

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9 22 MMA https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-and-christian-nationalist-russ-vought-promote-ideological-purity-tests

Christian nationalist Russ Vought recently appeared on Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk’s radio show to discuss plans to purge at least 10% of federal career staffers under a new Trump administration. Vought described that portion of the federal workforce as “the roots of the problem” that prevented former President Donald Trump from fully implementing his agenda. During the interview, Kirk suggested that the next Republican administration subject civil servants to “ideological purity tests.”

Vought ran the powerful Office of Management and Budget under Trump and now heads up a right-wing think tank called the Center for Renewing America, whose mission is to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God.”While at OMB, Vought helped develop a policy called “Schedule F” as a tool that would allow a new conservative administration to circumvent job protections typically enjoyed by federal workers who aren’t politically appointed.

Speaking on the September 23 edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, Vought claimed to have reclassified 90% of the workers in his own office under that job category

CitationFrom the September 23, 2022 edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

“Schedule F is an authority that we discovered and developed at the end of the Trump administration to give the president the ability to reclassify career civil servants, who normally have permanency within the bureaucracy, to turn them into essentially at-will employees,” Vought told Kirk.

When asked by Kirk how many career employees he’d like to potentially sack using this authority, Vought set the floor at 10% of current workers, but suggested that he considers as much as 80% of the federal workforce to be ideological opponents.

“I would say that within my agency, we had, you know, 80% of it was left-leaning,” Vought said. “Their paradigms were all rooted in this permanent class, ruling class that defines the milieu of Washington, D.C.”

“And you can reason and work with that crowd, but there is about a 10% of activists that are animated by the wokeism, the anti-racist movement, to be able to come into these agencies and they'rejust activists,” Vought added.

Vought then told Kirk that someone in the human resources department at OMB described themselves and their colleagues as “committed anti-racists.”

Kirk responded by calling that person the leader of “a sleeper cell of a woke communist ideology who's just right there within our federal government.”

“You're going to have to figure out how to solve that, I don’t know,” Kirk continued. “But ideological purity tests are an interesting approach, but let's break up the federal government first and then we'll go from there.”

In July, Axios reported on discussions Trump allies were having about staffing their next administration, with the Schedule F being central to the framework. Vought reportedly has been a leader in these efforts: As Media Matters reported a week prior to Axios’ story, Vought stated publicly that he wants to build an “army” of hard-right activists with “Biblical worldview” to run the federal agencies that he can’t outright destroy. He’s been very clear that the goal is to get “ideologically committed individuals up and down the agencies,” and he’s been similarly clear that Schedule F is the way to do it.

Right-wing propagandist Christopher Rufo – known for launching bad-faith attacks on critical race theory and targeting children’s hospitals that provide care to trans youth – has pushed for a similar course of action.

“The idea is to centralize ideological control over the federal agencies in the White House and create a team at the Office of Management and Budget to enforce it,” Rufo said in an interview with conservative website IM-1776 in July.

In furtherance of those shared goals, Vought has attempted to turn the Center for Renewing America into a shadow government-in-waiting for Trump or another conservative president. In June, Vought brought on Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice environmental lawyer and Trump’s top coup architect, as senior fellow at CRA. Kash Patel, another key figure in Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election, is a CRA senior fellow as well.

In the recent interview with Kirk, Vought expressed a common regret among former Trump officials that the administration wasted precious time in its first years adjusting to the steep learning curve of running the government.

“My hope is that we don’t have to do that again because we're laying the groundwork now,” Vought said, later adding, “We want to make sure that can never happen again and make sure that from day one, we can ensure that the agenda is being done.”

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woke math

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/ron-desantis-2657681938/

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an 922

From Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to former President Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans have been claiming that Democrats are undermining the U.S. military by trying to make it as “woke” as possible. Cruz, in a May 19, 2021 tweet, praised the Russian military for not being “woke” and “emasculated” — a tweet that received a scathing response from Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.

But the MAGA narrative claim that Democrats and so-called RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) are harming the U.S. military by making it “woke” persists. And Never Trump conservative Max Boot, in a September 26 opinion column for the Washington Post, argues that some disturbing motivations are behind this MAGA narrative.

“Donald Trump Jr., for example, claims a ‘militant female’ can become an admiral or general in today’s military ‘for no other reason other than they’re probably female,’ or “if you can say: Hey, I’m trans,’” Boot explains. “Tucker Carlson asserts: ‘It has been one calculated humiliation after another for the U.S. armed forces: vax mandates, anti-White ideology, sex changes, drag shows. Whatever is necessary to telegraph to the United States military you are worthless.’”

Boot continues, “Needless to say, these fanciful descriptions from bomb-throwers who never served in uniform bear no relation to reality. The U.S. military remains one of the most conservative institutions in America, with traditions dating back centuries. That the military now welcomes African-Americans, women and LGBTQ people — all groups that were kept out in the past — only strengthens an institution that needs to draw on the talents of the whole country to defend it. So, why are cartoonish inhabitants of the Fox News Cinematic Universe caterwauling about a ‘woke military?’”

The conservative columnist answers his question by arguing that the “MAGA brigades want to populate the military with far-right officers who will do whatever Trump or a Trump mini-me commands, no matter how illegal.”

Boot notes that Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “became anathema to Trump & Co. not by embracing ‘critical race theory,’ but by making clear that the military would place loyalty to the Constitution above loyalty to Trump.”

“All of these attacks against the military for being too ‘woke’ should be seen as part of the MAGA strategy to harness the armed forces — ‘the guys with the guns,’ as Milley put it — to advance their authoritarian agenda,” Boot warns. “Blake Masters, the ultra-MAGA Republican Senate nominee in Arizona, has even advocated firing all the generals — ‘they’re left-wing politicians’ — and replacing them with ‘the most conservative colonels.’

Unfortunately, there would be little to stop a President Trump or a President Ron DeSantis from doing precisely that as long as the Senate confirms their new generals. A MAGA president could even summon back to active duty loony retired generals such as (Gen. Michael) Flynn or Don Bolduc, the GOP Senate nominee in New Hampshire, and appoint them to senior commands as long as the Senate consents…. The growing chorus of MAGA complaints about the ‘woke military,’ nonsensical as they are, indicate that the challenges will only grow. A homegrown extremist movement that has already captured control of one of the two major political parties is now trying to bend the armed forces to its supreme leader’s malign will.”

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jon s salon an 7 22

A right-wing group in Missouri has launched a "woke heat map" documenting instances of "wokeness" in an attempt to fight back against "critical race theory" and alleged "grooming" in schools across the state.

The group, dubbed "Liberty Alliance," says it is "committed to fighting back against the Woke agenda that is permeating all across Missouri."

"The first step in fighting back is uncovering their crazy ideas – from Critical Race Theory to grooming toddlers with sexually explicit books," the organization states on its website. "That is why we have officially launched the Woke Heat Map – an interactive tool designed to expose the insane actions of the radical Left. This map will alert Missourians of craziness happening in their own communities."

"‘Liberty Alliance’ has launched a ‘Woke Interactive Map’ to warn MAGA about instances of woke behavior in a particular community. The site will alert people if either: 1. CRT, 2. Woke Extremism, or 3. ‘Action by a Crazy Leftist’ has taken place," Ron Filipkowski tweeted.

"This is the “Genderbread Person” & the latest example of the insanity that’s in Missouri schools," Eric Schmitt tweeted. "We launched The Students First Initiative to empower parents & bring transparency back to Missouri schools. This was submitted by a Fox C-6 parent We’ll keep exposing the extremism."

Another Twitter user added, "A reminder that on college campuses, anyone that doesn’t fall in line with the left are censored Where are you at @SLU_Official? These actions continued into the night and no one has been punished for vandalizing a peaceful #prolife @SLUSFL display #FreeSpeech [Students for Life]"

Liberty Alliance's map isn't the first of its kind. Over the years, numerous right-wing groups have created rankings, watchlists, and cluster maps to keep track of the left's alleged influence in healthcare and education as well as Corporate America.

Last October, Salon reported on a custom Google map created by trans activist Erin Reed that provides those seeking hormone replacement therapy with the names and locations of nearly 800 informed consent clinics throughout the country.By February of that year, Reed told Salon, her map was repurposed by anti-trans activist Alix Aharon as a resource for organizing protests against doctorswho provide gender-affirming care. That new map, called "The Gender Mapper," was quickly taken down over apparent copyright infringement. However, a new one has since appeared in its place, cataloging roughly 200 clinics in total.

On its website, The Gender Mapper accuses "Big Gender" of testing "experimental medication" on "confused and vulnerable children."

"GenderMapper volunteers work in secret, around the world to collate evidence and document what is occurring," the site adds. "Gendermapper volunteers are unsung [sic] heros- and data is our truth."

Right-wing groups have also sought to crack down on left-wing "indoctrination" on college campuses.

Notable among them isTurning Point USA, a conservative youth advocacy group, which runs a "Professor Watchlist" designed to keep right-wing students abreast of "college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."

"The project," its website says, "is comprised of published news stories detailing instances of bias, propaganda, or speech infringement on college campuses."

The site allows users to submit tips and search for professors by name or university. Some professors on the list include activist Angela Davis, linguist Noam Chomsky, author Ibram X. Kendi, and former FBI Director James Comey.As of 2016, there were roughly 200 academics on the list.

In the private sector, conservative are similarly hounding companies that engage in "woke" actions, arguing that Corporate America is prioritizing political correctness over profit.

Alliance Defending Freedom has its "Viewpoint Diversity Score," a 50-company index that "evaluates corporate policies, practices, and activities to determine whether companies respect their stakeholders' freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as a standard part of doing business." The list specifically breaks down each company's support of free speech in the market, the workplace, and the public square, analyzing everything from political giving to DE&I (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies.

On the index, companies like Facebook and Meta – which face baseless accusations of anti-conservative bias – have notably lower scores than most.None of the firms included on the list score higher than a 35 out of 100.

"The results of our inaugural Business Index reveal that there is much work to be done. Company scores ranged between 2% and 35%, with the average overall score an abysmal 12%," wrote Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement for ADF, in The Wall Street Journal. "The poor showing confirms that there is an alarming trend among major corporations to favor virtue-signaling even at the expense of fundamental American freedoms."

Corporations have no legal obligation to promote free speech, a constitutional right designed to protect Americans from governorship censorship and coercion.

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no lnx few

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/national-conservative-manifesto-a-plan-for-fascism-but-it-s-not-hypothetical/

'National Conservative' manifesto: A plan for fascism — but it's not hypothetical

[Viktor Orbán in 2014, Wikimedia Commons

Trump endorses strongman Viktor Orbán in Hungarian election: ‘He has my complete support’]

Kathryn Joyce andSalon June 24, 2022

Last November in Orlando, dozens of the right's leading intellectuals, writers and think tank staffers gathered for the first meeting of the National Conservatism conference since the COVID pandemic hit, drawing journalists from across the political spectrum seeking to untangle what this high-brow gathering of avowed nationalists was all about. The emergence of the "NatCon" movement several years earlier had alarmed many liberal, centrist and even mainline conservative observers with its efforts to rehabilitate the concept of nationalism.But it energized many on the right who were starting to describe themselves as "post-liberal," meaning they were no longer satisfied with the conservative marriage of convenience that had existed since at least the Reagan era and had drawn together the religious right, anti-communists and free-marketeers in a potent but sometimes uneasy coalition. That consensus, they declared loudly, was dead, and a new conservative fusion must arise to take its place.

After the disruption of the pandemic, the loss of the presidency and the rage of Jan. 6, last fall's NatCon II conference was focused on the goal of building that new coalition along nationalist and post-liberal lines: blending extreme social conservatism with a skeptical approach to some forms of laissez-faire capitalism and a sharp hostility to both global or international authority and what they see as corporate-driven liberal cultural hegemony.

Now, the movement has formalized its ideas in a new manifesto, "National Conservatism: A Statement of Principles," released last week by the Edmund Burke Foundation. This ambitious document calls for the creation of a "world of independent nations" as the sole bulwark against "universalist ideologies" that would impose a "homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe." The credited authors include some leading lights of the NatCon world: Israeli political theorist and Burke Foundation chair Yoram Hazony, former American Enterprise Institute president Christopher DeMuth, First Things editor R.R. Reno and American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher.

But the list of signatories is much longer, and also far broader, ranging from right-wing mega-donor Peter Thiel to former Trump administration staffers Mark Meadows and Ken Cuccinelli, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, anti-critical race theory activist Christopher Rufo, multiple officials from Hillsdale College — a nerve center of contemporary right-wing politics — and numerous other think tank staffers and writers from across the spectrum of conservative media.

The manifesto hasn't gotten much attention so far — which isn't surprising, considering how much else is happening in the political realm. A column by David von Drehle in the Washington Post declared its contents akin to fascism, and a more substantial fisking in The Bulwark by Cathy Young found it "a document steeped in thinly veiled and sometimes distressingly overt authoritarian ideology." That's not wrong. But it's also worth observing that, in the battle to build a new conservative coalition, much of the NatCon platform has already won.

As Young notes, many of the NatCon's 10 priorities read, at first, like banal restatements of conservative ideology in general: national independence, the rule of law, God and public religion, free enterprise, family and children. But in ways both subtle and unsubtle, those familiar terms don't all mean what you'd think.

The NatCons hope to divorce nationalism from its association with the Nazis, who they claim were not "nationalist" at all.

The first two items, national independence and rejecting globalism and imperialism, follow one of the core, if questionable, goals of the NatCon movement, which is to divorce the concept of nationalism from its most powerful associations, such as the fascist regimes of Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy, which National Conservatives see as imperialist. Instead, NatCons want to attach the term to smaller, scrappier scrappy countries that resisted the Nazis or Soviet Communism.

While the manifesto holds that "Each nation capable of self-government should chart its own course," in alignment with its own legal, cultural and religious traditions, it warns against their "transferring" authority to any "transnational or supranational bodies" and advocates opposing "imperialism in its various forms." Those forms include modern-day China and Russia, of course, but also "the liberal imperialism of the last generation, which sought to gain power, influence and wealth by dominating other nations and trying to remake them in its own image."

The "liberalism" described here, as in most NatCon contexts, isn't the center-left politics of the Democratic Party, but rather "classical" liberalism, focused on individual rights, free trade and pluralistic cultures, which until recently was embraced by most mainstream conservatives as well. But within the post-liberal and NatCon world, that small-l liberalism contained the seeds of conservatism's undoing, leading inevitably to the big-L liberalism of progressive ideology by creating a culture in which it's too hard to raise children along traditionalist lines. In this view, societies that uphold pluralistic tolerance and diversity are inherently unfair by denying the majority the right to live in a culture that supports their values — in essence, allowing the minority to oppress the majority.

While both Young and von Drehle read the jabs at boomer "imperialism" as allusions to the Iraq War — which is at least partly true — "empire" for NatCons also has a larger meaning. First, they believe that international compacts, accords and governing bodies like the European Union or the UN infringe on national sovereignty, particularly when it comes to social issues. In the movement's conference this March in Brussels, Hazony sought to align the NatCon vision with Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression. Vladimir Putin's disdain for borders and national independence, he suggested, mirrored the attitudes of bureaucrats in Brussels and Washington. The obvious subtext was that Hungary and Poland — two post-liberal, overtly nationalist countries greatly admired within the movement — were facing EU sanctions over a variety of human rights issues, which Hungarian and Polish leaders rejected as an attempt to squash the rights of the nation-state, and sympathetic fellow speakers cast as the workings of a new "evil empire."

"Empire," in the NatCon world, refers to the right's long, losing battle in the cultural sphere, these days largely waged against what American conservatives call "woke corporations."...

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CMD 3 22

...Pushing Back Against China, the Left, and a “Woke” Military

Placing China “at the heart of the greatest challenges facing the United States in recent years”—from Covid to currency manipulation, climate policies, and “undue influence over American corporations”—Economic War Room host Kevin Freeman led a discussion titled “The 21st: An American or Chinese Century?”

Freeman was joined in the panel by Beau Brunson, Consumers’ Research Director of Policy and Regulatory Affairs. Consumers’ Research has committed millions in dark money to fight environmental, social, and corporate governance concerns (ESG) and “woke” capitalism, where BlackRock has emerged as a top target of its campaign for its “hypocritical” investments in China.

CMD recently exposed Consumers’ Research as one of the largest sponsors of the State Financial Officers Foundation, a group of Republican treasurers, auditors, and staff from 16 states, which has also prioritized fighting the ESG movement and “woke” capitalism.

Also on the panel were Pete Hoekstra, former ambassador to the Netherlands under Trump, and Steve Milloy, a FoxNews contributor and paid advocate for Phillip Morris, ExxonMobil, and other corporations.

The three also participated in a CNP Action panel on “Countering China,” where they collectively worked “on ways to combat the increasing and pervasive threat China poses to the United States and American life.”

Leading an CNP Action panel discussion on “Defunding the Left,”Buckeye InstitutePresident and CEO Robert Altfacilitated a tutorial on how to cut off contributions to “left-wing causes” by targeting public employee unions, trial lawyers, and investment management firms. O.H. Skinner, executive director of Alliance for Consumers, and Bridgett Wagner, vice president of policy promotion at the Heritage Foundation, joined the discussion.

New CNP Executive Member Boykinled a panel discussion focused on the question: “Can a Woke Military Address Future Threats?” with Mike Berry, First Liberty’s general counsel, and Keith Kellogg, retired Army lieutenant general and co-chair of AFPI’s Center for American Security.The three talked about “extreme policies [that] have been implemented through the Department of Defense” and “how woke ideologies have influenced our armed services.”

Two other CNP meetings are scheduled for this year, May 18–20 in McLean, VA, and September 15–17 in Frisco, TX.

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4/22 edit bd

I don’t follow what every Democrat says. No one can. There’s no way for me to know whether the tenor and tone of their collective rhetoric changed last week. But it felt like it got stronger, sharper and angrier.

Consider Brian Schatz.

The Hawaii Senator took to the Senate floor to scorch his colleague Josh Hawley of Missouri, who’s been holding up appointments to the Department of Defense that are necessary to America’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Before he signs off, he said, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin must resign for his “failures” in Afghanistan.

Schatz said that’s rich coming from a guy who raised his fist in solidarity with the J6 insurrectionists and who voted to acquit the former president for the high crime of extorting Ukraine’s president.

“This comes from a guy who before the Russian invasion suggested that maybe it would be wise for [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy to make a few concessions about Ukraine and their willingness to join NATO.”

He added:

“They withheld lethal aid until, unless Zelenskyy released false smears against Joe Biden's son. Then [Hawley] voted to exonerate President Trump for this. So spare me the new solidarity with the Ukrainians and with the free world, because this man's record is exactly the opposite.”

His tirade amazed those of us longing for the Democrats to take a strong stand against the Republican Party’s lies and bad faith. Perhaps we’ll see more now that Greg Sargent put a brighter light on it.

The Post columnist interviewed Brian Schatz on Friday. “Democrats need to make more noise,” the Senator conceded. “We have to scream from the rooftops because this is a battle for the free world now.”

Let’s not forget what Schatz said, however.

He said Hawley is “doing a very specific thing.”

“He is damaging the Department of Defense.”

So far, Schatz is the only Democrat seeing what needs seeing.

Though he says he’s outraged by the US pullout from Afghanistan, Josh Hawley is also attacking, directly, the military leadership itself. (He won’t move on appointments until the secretary of defense resigns.)

Demanding Austin’s resignation is not a “reasonable request,” Schatz said. It can’t be. The point is sabotaging civilian control of the military.

You read that right.

The point is cleaving the ranks. The point is to create conditions in which military personnel feel inspired to take action that’s favorable to the Republicans’ (perhaps the former president’s) return to power.

They are picking up where the J6 insurrection left off. But next time, it won’t be a mob of schlubs. It will be an army of highly-trained insurgents bent on restoring whiteness to the center of the republic.

At gunpoint.

Everyone should see what Schatz sees.

So I interviewed Fred Wellman, founder of Beer Hall Projectand a 20-year Army veteran who served when Secretary Austin was General Austin. I called Fred after US Rep. Matt Gaetz failed to humiliate the secretary in testimony before the House Arms Services Committee.

Fred said: “A standing army can’t be a tool of a political party. Under the Trump years, it became more partisan. Now Matt Gaetz and his peers in the Republican Party are directly undermining the apolitical and nonpolitical nature of the military by dividing troops from leaders.”

Matt Gaetz and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Thoughts?

My main frustration has always been with the “performance wing” of the Republican Party. They don’t want to govern. They want to act.

In this case, Matt Gaetz tried convincing people that “wokeism,” or trying to get a more diverse American military force, is hurting our ability to fight wars. It shows how monumentally stupid he is.

He's dragging culture wars into national defense. That he does so while sitting on the House Armed Service Committee is outrageous.

It’s a committee responsible for oversight of the men and women in uniform, but it’s oversight partially provided by someone as monumentally asinine as Matt Gaetz – that’s just disgusting to me.

Good point. When a country sends people overseas, the presumption should be that leaders will take that responsibility deadly seriously. Deadly serious responsibility is the opposite of Matt Gaetz.

I'm a 20-year Army veteran. I rose through the ranks to be a lieutenant colonel. I retired after Desert Storm and three Iraq tours. I’m the son of a World War II Marine veteran. My son is an Army veteran. My son-in-law continues to serve in the National Guard.

But not everybody can serve.

Less than 7 percent of our nation is veterans. Less than 1 percent serve at all. Less than one-third of the eligible population is capable of serving. I'm talking about fitness, criminal record, mental health, etc. This is the reality of maintaining and growing an all-volunteer force.

That's the point of trying to increase the diversity of the officer corps. That's the point of trying to increase the diversity of the pilot corps. That's the point of welcoming all races and creeds. As Secretary Austin said, anybody who's eligible, who has the capability to serve, should be welcomed even if they're non-binary, gay, straight, whatever.

If they're capable of serving, of meeting the physical and mental requirements we need in our military, we've got to open our arms.

There are just not enough white dudes left.

When you have someone like the Florida congressman directly attacking that, that turns away possible recruits. Gaetz is literally undermining those who serve and who may serve in the future.

Sounds like you’re angry?

I amangry.

The Matt Gaetzs and Marsha Blackburns of the world are openly undermining good order and military discipline with a culture war for political effect. A representative sitting on the Armed Services Committee should understand the challenges of an all-volunteer force.

Civilian oversight of the military matters even though those civilians may never have served, may not have been qualified to serve. People like me, people like Secretary Austin – we understand that. Someone who rose to the rank of four-star understands he’s going to answer to some 25-year-old kid on the Armed Services Committee.

That's the nature of it.

But what frustrates me is the lack of respect for the office and a lack of respect for the military as an apolitical and non-political entity.

One of the biggest fears of our founding fathers was a standing army. They didn't want one and that undermined efforts early on in the republic because of rebellions. We had no army to address them.

Even Washington was like, man, we need an army.

A standing army can’t be a tool of a political party. Under the Trump years, it became more partisan. Now Matt Gaetz and his peers in the Republican Party are directly undermining the apolitical and nonpolitical nature of the military by dividing troops from leaders.

The troops love Trump, they believe, but the troops are being failed by “woke” leaders. Where the fuck do you think the leaders are? You don't just magically make a general. Secretary Austin started as a fucking second lieutenant. He rose through the ranks. This is dangerous.

I do not say this lightly.

This is incredibly dangerous.

They attack the military leadership as“woke”because they're trying to cause a break in the ranks. They're literally undermining good order and military discipline deliberately to break the chain of command.

I've never seen that in my lifetime.

You’re describing national security risk. Is that overstating it?

No, I don't think so.

The very nature of our republic relies on an apolitical military every American knows serves them, no matter their race, creed, religion, color, region, political party, whatever. Our republic depends on everyone knowing a standing army is not a threat to the country.

Many in the Republican Party are super-fans of Putin, let's be honest.They're having CPAC in Hungary, for God's sake, a country led by a rightwing dictator, a Putin fan. Imagine a scenario in which they’re in power and we can't fight because they’ve undermined the military.

It's terrifying to think where this could go.

I've seen reports of white nationalism gaining traction in the ranks of the military. There's an effort from above to deal with that.

I learned in military science 101 at West Point that an all-volunteer force is a direct reflection of our society. You raised your children for 18 years before they get into the military. I give them 12 weeks of basic training. That won’t overcome 18 years of raising them as racists.

All I can do is ensure they don't act on those beliefs and undermine good order and military discipline. If they do behave inappropriately, we use the separate military system to discipline them appropriately and remove them from the military as they're no longer a threat.

But we do know white nationalist and patriot front-type groups have been actively sending “their troops,” if you will, into the military for military training. Right-wing nationalist groups are infiltrating the ranks and recruiting veterans after they get out of the military.

At one point,10 percent of Jan6 cases were United States military and veterans. One of them is an active-duty Marine Corps major!

How horrifying that is.

Talk about the fundamental tension between universal values, like honor, and individual interest, like investment in whiteness.

Some really extreme right-wing politicians say universal values are an attack on conservative thought. It's not against conservative thought.

Conservative thought should mean taxes and “pulling up my bootstraps and raising myself up by going into the military” – that's fine.

Saying Black people are inferior soldiers, assaulting the ranks, inciting homophobia and transphobia and attacking fellow service members – That’s not conservative. That’s extremism, white nationalism.

That needs to be stomped out.

There have been several surveys of service members saying the biggest threat they face isn’t Muslim terrorists. It’s extremism in the ranks....

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3 22 digby

no lnx

Former president Donald Trump had another of his interminable rallies this weekend. He said the usual things delighting his South Carolina crowd and boring the rest of us into a coma. This time, however, he did add one memorable new line to the script which got people's attention:

As we watch the horrific carnage unfolding in Ukraine and the repressive crack down in Russia, comments like that are all the more chilling. He truly does want to emulate Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un. As the Washington Post reported recently, he has repeated his earlier admiration for Kim's "total control" as well:

He espoused praise for North Korea's brutal leader, marveling at how Kim's generals and aides "cowered" when the dictator spoke to them. "Total control," Trump said of how Kim ran the country, describing generals snapping to attention and standing up on command. "His people were sitting at attention," he added. "I looked at my people and said I want my people to act like that."

I have little doubt that if he wins another term, he will be much worse than he was in the first. He won't make the mistake of hiring people who might stand in his way a second time.

However, as we know, Trump isn't really serious about governing and wouldn't know how to do it efficiently even if he were. It doesn't make him any less dangerous, of course. His chaotic narcissism can do as much damage as a serious ideological authoritarian could. But he's laid out a style template for someone who is serious, showing them exactly the attitude that appeals to the MAGA base. And nobody in GOP politics is as ready to seize the mantle as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump 2.0.

The personality and affect have been evident since DeSantis won the governor's seat back in 2018. The Trumpian pettiness, the contempt, the reflexive hostility seem to come naturally to him. He treats the press like dirt and thinks insults are the highest form of humor. If he has any personal warmth or human compassion it's certainly well hidden. He even gestures like Trump.

But with DeSantis, it's more than just style. He's got the Republicans in Florida working together like clockwork to enact the most authoritarian agenda in the country, calibrated perfectly to appeal to the base in advance of his re-election campaign --- and a potential presidential run in 2024.

Florida has been at the leading edge of COVID denialism from the very beginning, but in recent days DeSantis and his hand-picked science-denying surgeon general have taken it to a new level. They had already turned masks into a battleground with the governor taking it upon himself earlier this month to scold high school kids for wearing them in his presence, declaring that it's time to end the "COVID theatre." This was ironic since it turned out that many of the kids had been told by their parents to wear them and DeSantis' numerous assaults on education over the past year have been rationalized as a defense of "parental rights." Then last week the surgeon general went even further, defying the CDC and most physicians by recommending that kids not get vaccinated for COVID-19. DeSantis and his medical henchman seem determined to keep the virus circulating as long as they can.

Meanwhile, the legislative season just coming to a close has produced such an astonishing array of right-wing culture war victories delivering on Desantis' "anti-woke" agenda that it's hard to know where to start. Building on last year's education wrecking ball in which they banned Critical Race Theory from schools despite the fact that they were not teaching it, instituted a requirement that schools teach about the "evils of communism" and passed a higher education law that allows for budget cuts to colleges based on student and faculty surveys about "viewpoint diversity" (which DeSantis defines as "indoctrination") this year they took it to a whole new level. Salon's Amanda Marcotte offered this tart analysis of the "Stop WOKE Act" "

The legislature also passed the "Stop WOKE Act," which bars both schools and businesses from having any training or program that supposedly causes an "individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin." This has been largely covered as a ban on any kind of diversity training, but it's even more expansive than that. As I note in Friday's Standing Room Only newsletter, conservatives can also block anti-sexual harassment trainings by claiming it's guilt-tripping men to tell them that ass-pinching is not allowed in the workplace.

The "fuck your feelings" crowd sure are sensitive snowflakes, aren't they?

Maximum leader DeSantis also got his wish for a first in the nation election police force which will report directly to him. I've got a tip for them: it turns out that the Republican Party in south Florida changed the registrations of hundreds of Democrats to Republican without their permission. That's a crime. In fact, DeSantis might end up regretting this one. If the election police are on the level (which is unlikely, I know) it's almost certain they will be putting many more Republicans behind bars than Democrats. Even Trump's Chief of Staff just blatantly committed it in the last election.

And then there is the grotesque "Don't Say Gay" law which prohibits teachers from discussing the subject in grades K-3. But because it uses the new vigilante system of civil law harassment, and is written so poorly, it will result in a chilling effect on all school districts and will result in small kids with gay parents being treated like aliens and many LGBTQ kids being shoved in the closet. If you doubt their intentions, just listen to DeSantis' vile press secretary:

Those of you who are of a certain age will hear the echoes of one of Florida's original homophobic crusaders Anita Bryant whose "Save Our Children" campaign was based upon the noxious lie that gays were "recruiting" the nice Christian children of the sunshine state.

Under pressure, the CEO of Disney, the state's largest employer and a major DeSantis donor belatedly objected to the bill and spoke to the Governor about it. DeSantis didn't budge and Disney announced that they will be suspending all political donations in the state of Florida after which the governor had a full blown meltdown:

Florida Republicans believe these Commie Symp mega corporations have no right to criticize them.

There was a time when business property rights were sacrosanct in the GOP as a matter of principle. But in the new authoritarian right, if a business doesn't toe their bigoted line, the government "won't stand for it."

Donald Trump is still likely to get the nomination and we can only hope and pray he doesn't win. His dictatorial impulses are well known. But Ron DeSantis is the future of the Republican Party and he's figured out how to take all that right-wing hate and grievance and put it into practice. You don't want to know what he could do on a national level.

---

aha: woke // RINO? no definition, just a label to hurl at anyone you don't like,?

odd/telling that trumpista GOP is turning on longtime allies held by americans in high esteem, military and corps, call them woke when not loyal to trump?

jbs called ike a commie --> end?

3 22

Fact checker shreds Trump Jr.'s claim about 6 million military hours being spent promoting the 'woke' agenda

Donald Trump, Jr. speaking at the 2019 Teen Student Action Summit, hosted by Turning Point USA at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C., Gage Skidmore

Meaghan Ellis March 03, 2022

A fact-checker is pushing back against Don Trump Jr.'s latest claim suggesting the military's last 6 million hours have placed an emphasis on the so-called "woke" agenda.

The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler highlighted remarks made by former President Donald Trump's son when he appeared at theConservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla. At one point during his speech, he criticized the U.S. military.

“Our generals, the great woke leaders of our military that spent 6 million man-hours training our troops about wokeness — not fighting, not killing bad guys," Trump Jr., said on February 27. "They wanted to learn about White rage, a term none of us had heard of prior to him [Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff] testifying, right?”

[Donald Trump Jr. Bashes Biden Over Ukraine Crisis In Fiery CPAC 2022 Remarks | Full Speech

youtu.be]

Kessler pushed back with the facts about the military's hours spent. He noted that Trump Jr.'s remarks would only make sense to conservatives who rely on information from far-right influential platforms like Fox News and Newsmax. He went on to explain why.

After tracking down the six million figure, Kessler acknowledged that it derives from a letter written by Milley that was addressed to Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), who is a high-ranking Republican official serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee. At the time, Inhofe had requested to know how much time had been dedicated to three key items as under the U.S. Department of Justice requirements. Those items, according to Kessler, are "an extremism 'stand-down' related to the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol, a climate change plan and a new diversity, equity and inclusion training program."

Although Trump Jr. claimed the military had spent a substantial amount of its time on the woke agenda,Kessler pointed out that they actually placed an emphasis on mitigating extremism.

"The biggest chunk of time was devoted to the extremism stand-down — nearly 5.4 million hours," Kessler explained. "Since nearly 2.5 million members of the military participated, that means about two hours per person, which Milley noted is “comparable to other Joint Force periodic training requirements.” The climate change plan (1,059 hours) and diversity training (529,711 hours) brought the total up to 5.9 million hours. But you can see that more than 90 percent of the total related to the extremism course."

Kessler also highlighted Trump Jr.'s attempt to bend words.

"Notice the sneaky trick that Trump Jr. plays here," he wrote.

The vast majority of the “6 million man-hours” and the “White rage” comment concerned the attack on the Capitol by supporters of his father — an attack that the former president has defended and even seemed to celebrate. But his son does not make that clear. Instead, he claims that this is all about a “woke agenda” imposed by the Biden administration. To some extent that might be a matter of opinion, but it seems like a real stretch."

He concluded saying that although the 6 figure number is an actual estimate of real-time hours, "there is no evidence that this relatively minor course detracted from any military training — and Trump Jr. entirely mischaracterizes what the training was for."

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kos

tag TAG https://www.dailykos.com/tags/Shellenberger

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/12/2063888/-With-COP-Closing-Deniers-Beclown-Themselves-Then-Cry-I-ve-Been-Cancelled-When-People-Laugh

With COP Closing, Deniers Beclown Themselves, Then Cry ‘I’ve Been Cancelled!’ When People Laugh

The disinformation around this year’s climate negotiations got off to a stupid start, got slightly funny and gross there for a minute, and then just gross as a TERF called climate reporters biased. But not to worry, it’s still getting stupider, and...

ClimateDenierRoundup

Nov 12, 2021 at 7:00 am PST

disinformation around this year’s climate negotiations got off to a stupid start, got slightly funny and gross there for a minute, and then just gross as a TERF called climate reporters biased. But not to worry, it’s still getting stupider, and more offensive!

On the stupid front, a member of the new denial PR pop-up CAR26 that we warned about last week tweeted on Monday that she was “chased” out of COP26, and had to do an interview while “hiding in the disabled loos.” But it turns out no one chased her out of COP26, she was just asked to leave a private meeting room at a side event, presumably because it was about to be used for, you know, a meeting.

“Anti-climate actors rely on a reactionary dynamic with ‘mainstream’ institutions, media, or experts,” Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) disinformation expert Jennie King told DeSmog, “and cultivate their brand, especially on social media, around being ‘cancelled’ or outcast by perceived elites.”

This dynamic is absolutely unmistakable across the deniersphere, to the extent that it even entices people who try to distance themselves from it, like “honest broker” author Roger Pielke Jr. While he’s long attempted to portray himself as sitting squarely within the consensus, and expresses support for a carbon tax, he’s also done plenty of work that’s immediately used by the sorts of people who cry persecution when they lock themselves in a bathroom, like alleging that Democrats have corrupted climate science.

And deniers return the favor by supporting him, for example with a new 20-page report published by GWPF detailing how, due to persecution, his university office is tiny and filled with boxes from his shuttered projects. Based on an interview with Donna LaFramboise, who’s past works have centered on smearing the IPCC, it’s built on the idea that the tenured professor who once complained about being silenced in the Wall Street Journal has been, as King described of the bathroom-dweller, “‘cancelled’ or outcast by perceived elites.”

:{(On Tuesday, } $_{a COP26 event}_$ :{ honored the lives of the 1,000+ }:environmental activists murdered:{ since the }:Paris Agreement in 2015:{, a third of whom were from indigenous communities. But everyone should really feel very sorry for Pielke, because his office is very small and doesn’t even have any windows!)}:

While most may not be moved by such a harrowing tale of being told you’re wrong, refusing to admit it, and facing consequences for your toxic actions, one person who did praise Pielke yesterday was **Michael Shellenberger. Also on the anti-elitist kick, Shellenberger tweeted a link to his new substack post a couple dozen times as well, so we took the bait and gave “Why Wokeism Is A Religion” a read. And surprisingly, we were glad we did!

Because for years now, Shellenberger has slowly been evolving beyond his brand as the liberal presenting hard truths in the name of a stronger and more successful progressive movement, and despite naming his post-Breakthrough spin-off “Environmental Progress,” he is moving fully into the reactionary, alt-right space. This undoubtedly confirms it.

Shellenberger’s new “taxonomy” of the “woke religion” is a project with fellow anti-woke-ist Peter Boghossian, who recently quit Portland State University after getting blowback for writing fake academic papersand in an apparent preemptive self-cancellation, as announced on the substack of fellow preemptive self-canceller Bari Weiss.

Similar to the TERFs and trans disinfo we talked about last Thursday, t:{his “woke religion taxonomy” links racism, climate change, trans people, crime, mental illness, and drug and homelessness issues by suggesting each has an “original sin” (history) committed by “guilty devils,” (white capitalists, mostly) perpetuated by “myths” (sociology) and impacting “sacred victims” (actual victims of racism) who “the elect” (((elite[)))](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_parentheses) protect with “supernatural beliefs” (facts) and by outlawing “taboo facts” (alternative facts) and “taboo speech” (hate speech), and can only be improved through “purifying rituals” (reducing emissions, being respectful of people's identities by using their pronouns) and by embracing “purifying speech” of words and phrases as outlandish as “Black,” “Renewables,” and “Trans women are women.”}:

Seriously, those are the actual examples!

Somehow, though, that’s not even the most disgusting content coming from a supposed ally of climate action yesterday. While the Republican plan to export natural gas as a climate cure would lead to a catastrophic 3.1°C of warming, apparently even that is too much climate action for so-called skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg.

In this week's Wall Street Journal column, Lomborg argues that a "reasonable alternative" to the COP26 talks is to allow for 3.5°C (6.3°F) of warming. But just the difference between 1.5°C and 2·°C of warming is significant, with _{upward of 1 billion additional people who would be at risk of dying from extreme heat if they spend a summer day outside}_ at 2°C (and half the world population is at risk at 4°C). Allowing fossil fuels to pollute us to{ to 3.5°C would put at }_}_{least}__{{ 275 million people’s homes under water}, including _{{entire island nations}}_ (and {Louisiana} communities) that will be submerged by _{{sea level rise after just 2°C of warming}}_, literally {committing cultural genocide}.

Experts were quick to debunk Lomborg's claims, for example pointing out that if you look at the updated version of the study he cites to justify that genocide, it now matches the Paris goals.

While the antics of obvious anti-climate activists hiding in bathrooms may be an entertaining distraction, it seems these days the real danger is coming from those “honest brokers” pretending to offer “reasonable” advice.

---

no lnx

How the right wing uses language as a weapon

Magdi Semrau May 04, 2021

Right-wing operatives have recently mounted a campaign against the idea and practice of "wokeness." The word has the pretense of a neutral reference, but is increasingly used to debase and belittle the underlying meaning of anti-racism and anti-bigotry. Similar rhetorical tactics have a long history in conservatism, as they allow the GOP to obscure policy objectives, while simultaneously evoking negative and positive emotions. Overall, the GOP benefits from imprecise language soaked with connotation. Unfortunately, journalists and some liberals keep falling for it.

In the case of "woke" and "wokeness," conservatives are undermining a positive idea with derisive figurative language. Consider a converse example, in which the Republicans advanced an ugly principle through positive framing: waterboarding. It was described as "enhanced interrogation" by conservatives, and that was repeated by the press corps. However, if you actually describe what's involved in waterboarding—making a person temporarily experience drowning—Americans respond with repulsion. Conservatives knew this, so they chose to be evasive. "Enhanced interrogation" is more palatable than both "torture" and "simulated drowning."

Language can be exploited to great political effect. Words convey meaning two ways. By denotations, the actual real-world reference of a given word or phrase. And by connotations, the feelings they evoke. The GOP systematically uses language that obscures denotation and advances connotation. The case of "wokeness" is not so different from "enhanced interrogation," but, in this case, the underlying denotation—awareness of social injustice—is good whereas the connotations are unfortunately negative. As they did with "enhanced interrogation," conservatives are using figurative language to obscure deeper principles and create a fog of feeling, rather than reason.

The GOP's use of such language—figurative, imprecise, but laden with connotation—gained prominence in their backlash to the civil rights movement. After a certain point, it was of little benefit to conservatives to explicitly state they were opposed to equal rights for Black Americans, so they adopted fuzzy terms. This strategy was famously outlined by the late Lee Atwater, a chief architect of modern GOP rhetoric:

You start out in 1954 by saying, '[n-word], [n-word], [n-word].' By 1968 you can't say '[n-word]'—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff, and you're getting so abstract. Now, you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. … 'We want to cut this' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "[n-word], [n-word]."

Here, Atwater specifically argued that, to advance racism, conservatives should embrace abstractions, given that racial slurs no longer confer electoral success. This tradition of linguistic manipulation continues to pervade our discourse. From "illegal alien" to "states' rights" to "politically correct" to now "woke," the Republicans have perfected the art of language devoid of concrete specifics, but charged with big feels.

That language has this power presents a challenge for journalists. Reporting should be informative and neutral. Yet with increasing frequency, the press corps uncritically adopts whatever linguistic frame has currency. The result, predictably, is neither informative nor neutral. What do Republicans actually mean when they criticize "wokeness?" It's unclear. Yet journalists repeat their rants without clarification.

Consider what "woke" actually denotes. The origin of the expression is unknown, but references to "staying woke" in African-American English can be traced back to Lead Belly's recording of "Scottsboro Boys," a song about young Black men who were falsely accused of rape. Recently, "woke" gained prominence during the 2014 Ferguson protests when it was used to signal awareness of anti-Black racism. "Woke" then proliferated online where its meaning broadened to describe anyone who was aware of systemic racism. Finally, the meaning shifted to encompass an awareness of bigotry in general. Now, lexicographers define "woke" as "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)."

While the current use of "woke" arose from African-American English, "awake" as a metaphor for awareness has deep cross-cultural roots. Wakefulness as revelation is referenced throughout both Buddhism and Christianity as well as in the work of poets and playwrights. It is, in fact, the same metaphor underlying the "Age of Reason"—or the Enlightenment—such that Kant wrote, "Enlightenment is the release of man from a state of bondage. … Have the courage to use your own understanding!" "Wokeness" was present in American political movements long before BLM. Republicans—proud descendants of Abraham Lincoln—might be interested to learn that an early anti-slavery faction within their own party called themselves "The Wide Awakes."

So, what "wokeness" denotes is overwhelmingly positive: awareness of bigotry and concomitant opposition. Yet, recently, as conservatives have co-opted it, the term has become derisive. "Woke" people are unserious. You're allowed to roll your eyes at them, because they are sensitive and sanctimonious. In this sense, "woke" has unfortunately become a dysphemism. Whereas euphemisms soften underlying meaning (the dead "passed away," for instance, or the woman is "with child"), dysphemisms do the opposite (the dead "croaked', for instance, or the woman got "knocked up").

What's denoted by "woke" has been eclipsed by connotations. When we hear "woke" now, we do not think of its history as a metaphor for awareness. We certainly do not think of the Enlightenment. We think of pious scolds. And then, perhaps unwittingly, we transfer this pejorative connotation to the underlying principles of social justice.

We can't expect rhetorical honesty from the GOP, but we can ask more of the press corps that reports on conservatives' use of "woke." When reporters repeat the GOP's derision of "wokeness" without explaining the underlying denotation of the word, they are serving as a conduit of conservative propaganda. Such reporting is neither informative nor neutral. The meaning of what's said is, at best, obscure and imprecise. Failure to report the underlying meaning allows the negative connotations to prevail.

So, if an elected official claims "wokeness" is bad, journalists should ask them what they mean! Journalists could ask, for example: "Is anti-racism bad? What about anti-bigotry in general?" If they refuse to define what they intend when they deride "wokeness," journalists should do it for them by citing the dictionary definition.

We are in an existential battle. The forces of bigotry are strong, and, in many ways, our electoral system allows them to flourish. However, the evidence is clear: the actual principle of "wokeness"—the broad "awareness of social injustice"—is increasingly popular. We cannot let conservative rhetorical manipulations muddy this fact.

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