From #staywoke to anti-woke

Why the right loves to hate "wokeness"

Part I of a series exploring the role of “anti-wokeness” in U.S. politics.

At only four characters, “woke” may be the Twitter-friendliest slur in in the Republican lexicon. Where “cancel culture” burns fourteen characters and “political correctness” burns twenty-one, “woke” is a thrifty four-letter word. It may be a character longer than “CRT,” but that extra character gets you the added snap of a “k” sound—matching the spiciest of the four-letter words.

Former Rep. Marcia L. Fudge in 2018, urging her Twitter followers to stay woke and vote

Woke delivers some additional bonuses for Republicans. By co-opting and mocking a phrase that originated in the African American community, “woke” reinforces the GOP’s cynical and divisive appeal to aggrieved whites. The meaning of “woke” is vague enough to encompass an endless string of cultural flashpoints, ranging from race to immigration to policing to queerness to gender to the alleged feminization of the U.S. military. Woke, is completely malleable. It can be anything that makes conservatives squirm. It’s an umbrella that covers the entire anti-left agenda of Fox News. By contrast, CRT is about race and race only. Race is its middle name

As useful as it has been as a partisan cudgel, however, “woke” may soon be passing its sell-by date. After a season of inflation, mass shootings, the Dobbs decision, and the January 6th hearings, the public’s anxieties have shifted from cultural abstractions to reality. Inflation, gun violence, abortion access, and the precarious state of democracy now loom larger. According to issue polling from Quinnipiac, and from Gallup, the woke agenda is not currently a top concern. Still, it has had a good run and given its continuing appeal to the MAGA base, it clearly has a few miles left to go.

Some Woke History

Nonny Uzo @NonnyUzo

This is happening. 1960s vs 2014 #StayWoke

#StayWoke became a hashtag on Black Twitter in the aftermath of the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. But the phrase is much older, dating back at least to the 1930s. One of its first documented uses came in 1938—in Lead Belly’s warning to Black people visiting Alabama. He tells them they should, “Be a little careful down there. Stay woke. Keep your eyes open.” (You can hear it at 4:26 in this recording)

For Lead Belly, staying woke was a shield against white hostility. For GOP politicians and pundits, however, it has morphed into a weapon of attack. It’s aimed against activists, Democrats, and even buttoned-down corporations that show concern and support for marginalized groups. In migrating from Black vernacular to white polemicists, the phrase “stay woke” was shorn of its verb. It’s no longer cautionary advice to remain aware—to “stay woke.” It’s now simply a sneering adjective— “woke.”

Andrew Sullivan is among the many who have fulminated against wokeness. His Weekly Dish on Ron DeSantis includes this screed:

The imposition of woke dogma… has been a deeply authoritarian movement, brooking no dissent. The Democrats have embraced this putsch, with Biden among the most strident, deploying federal government power to advance far-left ideas. None of his underlings can define what a woman is. All seem to view America as a form of “white supremacy”—and want to teach this as fact to kids…. At some point, we really do have to fight back and defend a liberal society.

With that, Sullivan may have authored the first polemic to call Joe Biden a strident authoritarian. Surely, “strident” is the last word most people would apply to President Biden. (And folks, I really mean it. No joking.) Where the left has long criticized Biden for being too accommodating and patient with Republicans, where the right portrays him the as a doddering puppet on the edge of dementia, Sullivan carves his own path, blasting Biden as a strident authoritarian. It’s an accusation with no resonance. What’s more, for Republican voters, strident authoritarianism isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. It’s a large part of what drew MAGA crowd to Trump in the first place. They are looking for a strongman to smite their enemies.

In the next Mickeleh’s Take, I’ll look at the two most recent waves of anti-wokeness: the Carville wave and the Desantis wave.