Note: This post was written in April 2023
I previously commented that no commonly accepted antonym existed for the word “Woke.” In fact, it is hard to understand the meaning of “Woke.” Those on the extreme Right have defensively coopted the word to refer to virtually any perceived attack on their way of life, intelligence, or level of education. Even less extreme conservatives either slavishly follow or feel the sting of wokeness by reflexively providing aid and comfort to their more radical members.
The critics of woke are showing signs of apoplexy or aphasia. They have contorted the meaning of “woke” to such an extent that it is an almost meaningless word. The extremist’s use of “woke” is akin to a little boy’s obsessive use of “NO” during his terrible twos. Their childlike, fanatical use of “woke” demonstrates a lack of thought, substance, and creativity.
Unsurprisingly, the extreme Right became berserk when the term first arose in Black Studies. The original meaning referred to people becoming aware of hidden societal realities. Later the extreme Right conflated ANY opposing political position under the epithet of “woke.” If a moderate Republican Congressman proposes a sensible law to add more brakes to railroad cars, someone from the extreme Right may impulsively scream, “Woke, RINO, socialism, and government overreach.”
It is also hard to understand the cognitive dissonance of those on the libertarian Right who purport to have principles and ideas. These libertarians must flinch when their mind-numbing, autocratic MAGA colleagues attack all forms of personal freedom (religion, women’s rights, racial groups, gay lifestyle, etc.) One professor, when asked about the future of libertarianism, responded, “After Trump, libertarianism is dead in American politics.”
Do we remember the meteoric rise and fall into the obscurity of Rand Paul? Rand, like his father, has faded into the background and will become a footnote in history, like Gus Hall, the American Communist who ran for President four times. Judging by Rand’s recent call to put the Manhattan District Attorney in jail for the temerity of prosecuting the emperor without clothes indicates how low the leader of the Libertarian Movement has fallen. He is so desperate to retain his senate seat that he has become another groveling stooge to Trump, who despises virtually everything Libertarianism professes to represent. He violates the sacred wisdom of his namesake Ayn Rand, “there are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think.”
One of the new enemies of personal freedom and the new darling of the extreme Right, Ron DeSantis (or as Trump calls him, Ron DeSanctimonious), babbles continually about the dangers of wokeness. Like Ahab, he went to war with Disney World, a giant corporate whale, because of his paranoid fear of wokeness. Unfortunately, DeSantis was caught by his harpoon rope and went under as Mickey Mouse outwitted him and kept almost total control of Disney World in Florida.
In a fool’s errand to siphon off votes from Trump’s base, DeSantis has extended his attack on “Woke” to include any dog whistle, cultural war issue. His state administration recently crafted a Florida law to remove press protections in a bizarre gambit to defeat the woke media. [In his run for the 2016 presidency, Trump also THREATENED to relax the libel laws to allow the liberal media to be more easily sued.] DeSantis’ new law would remove many of the protections now afforded publishers from defamation lawsuits. Under the new law, media defamation suits in Florida would explode exponentially. There is no way such a law could be crafted to selectively protect just the news published by DeSantis’ friends in right-wing media. Unsurprisingly, his conservative media friends are among the prominent opponents of HIS new law. Duh…They reminded him that such a law would cut both ways. The inconvenient truth is that right-wing fanatics are far likelier to say libelous things not grounded in reality or facts.
There is only one Trump, and we all know it is impossible to out-Trump Trump. However, the Florida Governor is trying. He recently said he would refuse to extradite Trump from Florida, and his refusal would break the law. Instead of doing his job, DeSantis ignores systemic problems, tilts at windmills, restricts personal freedoms, and puts a fig leaf over American history. I predict Governor DeSantis will soon be on the same political rubbish heap as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. What were his nicknames…low energy Jeb and the joyful tortoise?
America’s Fantasyland, the Precursor to Republicana
America was never a Hollywood western, a fairy tale, or a White Christian country. From the beginning, America was a churning cultural melting pot that did not slavishly follow the religious, cultural, and scientific patterns of the conservative Old World. Instead, it progressively created the world’s first complex, large-scale democracy as defined by its religious tolerance, economy, culture, and science. America is still far from perfect, but until recently, it has been heading in the right direction.
America’s democratic progress and success seem to embarrass the extreme Right. Using the term perverse logic, they often appear to reflexively long for the freedom of a Putin gulag over the slavery of American democracy. Those on the extreme Right and their acolytes fervently desire a simple, White Christian past that never was.
Ironically, many now in the MAGA fold are from families of “recent” immigrants (within the last 120 years) whose ancestors fought the same prejudices of the White Anglo-Saxon Christian, proto-MAGAs at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many of the grandchildren of struggling immigrants have become anti-immigrants! An anthropologist might say this proves that the dark side of American acculturation works.
Most opposed to living in a complex, multicultural country suffer from their inability to contort America to fit the narrow, retrogressive cultural ideal of the John Birch Society, Libertarianism, Classical Liberalism, NRA, TEA party, and MAGA hoards. Their frustration leads to psychological problems such as excessive rationalization, anger, resentment, mendacity, cognitive dissonance, and absurdly irrational political positions.
The fanatical Right’s pat response after the predicable almost daily assault gun attack on a school, shopping mall, a lost neighbor, or religious institution is, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the recently departed, and we take great umbrage with anyone who tries to make this a political issue.” A growing number of awakened victim families and American bystanders are now effectively telling the Republican Party to “Stuff your prayers where the sun don’t shine.” They probably wonder to which deity these Republicans pray.
Nashville shooting victim, Evelyn Dieckhaus
The Future
Independents, moderate Republicans, and Democrats should vigorously oppose the MAGA/NRA path, which leads us away from our greatest assets, democracy, and our future. Those opposed to MAGA world do not need to agree on everything or even like each other. However, those opposed to this MAGA madness must confront this dead-end, anti-democratic cancer before it metastasizes and kills American democracy.
I am old enough to remember the red scare and the crazed Junior Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin. I remember the zealous warnings of Evangelicals and conservative politicians that the Beetle’s long hair would ruin civilization. I remember Archie Bunker yelling at Meathead (the fictional Michael Stivic) for not unreservedly supporting America in its war with Viet Nam. I remember the schizophrenia of the Democratic Party during the Archie Bunker period. The Democrats would have never won the election in 1976 if it were for the hubris and schizophrenia of the Nixonian Republican Party. This political schizophrenia acts like cancer that invades the body politic. However, like natural cancer, political extremism can be licked.
I think America will remain dazed and confused for some time. Still, I hope it will eventually return to the “narrative” I thought all elementary school children were taught…that American Democracy is our proud past and the path to our future.
I failed to devote the time to discover or invent a new antonym for woke. The common word is “anti-woke.” I think “sleepy” or “willfully ignorant” is more accurate, but labels take on a life of their own and become ineffective. [Ignorance is the act of ignoring, so “smart” people can be ignorant.]
The opposite of woke is embodied in those who espouse or support extremist, anti-democratic actions taken by people like Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Ron DeSantis, Dinesh D’Souza, Michael T. Flynn, Roger Stone, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Peter Navarro, Stephen Miller, Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, Rupert Murdoch, Mike Lindell, Lindsey Graham, Marjorie Taylor Greene, J. D. Vance, Tommy Tuberville, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Kevin McCarthy, Louie Gohmert, Greg Abbott, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Ronny Jackson, Jim Jordan, George Santos, and Donald Trump. Many more could be added, but I am running out of space.
I am not making ad hominem attacks on these individuals. Instead, I am simply identifying a group of fanatical, flag-waving extremists whose daily actions overtly and covertly demonstrate they favor lying, anarchy, and autocracy over American Democracy. True Conservatives understand the un-American and anti-Democratic activities of these fanatical extremists. Whether or not true Conservatives will come forward in great numbers to combat the MAGA hoards is still an open question.
However, one thing is sure. American history will record those listed above with other Americans who fell into the trap of fanatical extremism or sociopathic narcissism. Most will be largely forgotten, but the most egregious ones will be listed next to Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Jefferson Davis, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson.
Arnold, Burr, Davis, Buchanan, and Jackson had their day in the sun. The MAGA gang and the oligarchs are currently basking in their own sunshine. Their campaign to focus on a few hundred transgender children and the removal of Confederate statues clouded the message of their opposition and stigmatized “wokeness.”