Democrats are picking up their marbles and going home. 

It’s Republicans’ fault, of course. According to Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, the GOP has “weaponized” “wokeness,” rewriting a word that to Democrats means “awareness about inequality and injustice” but thanks to Republicans is now synonymous with “anything progressive, liberal, or Democratic.”

To the Right, according to Parker, “woke” means “ugly. Or stupid. Or uncultured.”

Since political punditry is just semantic posturing by eloquent charlatans, let’s skip the bull**** and focus on the actual examples of Republicans using “woke” as a way of “name-calling” progressivism. 

Example №1: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Parker says McConnell “called out ‘woke companies’ for turning against GOP voting reforms in Georgia and elsewhere.”

McConnell did call out Coca-Cola, Delta, Merck, and Major League Baseball for being duped into believing fake news about Georgia’s election reform laws. But there was no mischaracterization. Parker’s own newspaper actually awarded Joe Biden “Four Pinocchios” for his blatant falsehoods about the new laws. 

“Woke” in this context meant “misinformed about election security reforms,” not ugly, stupid, or uncultured.

Example №2: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) “called out the ‘woke mob’ for pressing a publisher to cancel publication of his book,” according to Parker.

This actually happened. 

Simon & Schuster refused to publish his book on the power of Big Tech following the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, something he had nothing whatsoever to do with. 

Not only was Simon & Schuster pressured into cancelling Hawley, but so was Regnery Publishing, which eventually published the book anyway. 

It’s not fair to point to Twitter as an example of reality, but if Parker’s word is Gospel I wouldn’t point her disciples toward a hashtag search of #HawleyHitler, #BoycottHawley, #BoycottSimonSchuster, or #BoycottRegeneryPublishing. 

This isn’t a partisan issue. Even Netflix, which is Big Tech, showcases documentaries on the destructive influence of Big Tech. Hawley was only cancelled because he’s a rising star and a populist Conservative, which, as Trump showed, causes problems for Democrats.

Hawley clearly did not mean ugly, stupid, or uncultured in calling out those who were attempting to cancel the publication of his book. “Woke” in this context meant the type of “cancel culture” exercised with a vengeance by the Left whenever someone of influence has an opinion they disagree with.

Example №3: Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) “attacked the ‘woke’ state of Washington,” Parker wrote, “for refusing to source its electricity from coal mined in his state.”

Nothing is as simple as a DC pundit can make it seem. At issue is whether the State of Washington can violate a contract for energy produced from coal (effective 2023), and whether the state of Montana, where the energy is produced, can write legislation that interferes with a private business contract. 

The full quote is more sympathetic than Parker’s synopsis: “Affordable power generated in Colstrip (MT) helped build Seattle’s big tech economy, but now woke, overzealous regulators in Washington state are punishing the people of Colstrip with their anti-coal agenda,” Gianforte said.

The use of “woke” in this context described the hypocrisy of big-city liberals gutting the very industry that allowed them to become so woke. The Montana governor neither said nor implied that woke meant ugly, stupid, or uncultured — though considering what happens to states that rely on “renewable” energy for power (see California and Texas for the most recent disasters), perhaps “stupid” was implied.

Parker 0. Context 3. 

Not that anyone’s counting. Pundits write “opinion” pieces, which are exempt from anything regular Americans would understand as reality (repercussions, consequences, shame for being wrong, castigation for lying?).

But her wadded panties are understandable. That Republicans have turned Leftists against their own term is proof of Conservatism’s power of influence.

“Elijah Watson, news and culture editor for hip-hop site Okayplayer, recently suggested on NPR that it’s time to retire ‘woke’ — a word that was ‘something that we were taking seriously and then it kind of transformed into something ironic and then it became a meme and then it became a trademark,” Parker wrote.

Even Clinton-era Democratic strategist James Carville came out against “wokeness” in an interview with Vox, saying, “Wokeness is a problem, and we all know it.” 

“According to Carville, Democrats are in power for now, but they also only narrowly defeated Donald Trump, ‘a world-historical buffoon,’ and they lost congressional seats and failed to pick up state legislatures. The reason is simple: They’ve got a ‘messaging problem.’ ”

I disagree. 

Actions speak louder than words. The reason the Left is cancelling its own language is because “woke” only means “awareness of inequality and injustice” in theory. In practice, “woke” manifests as corporations punishing states for securing their own elections, cancelling books they disagree with, and decrying reliable energy sources. It means taking their opponents out of context to shift blame from their own actions.

Which is about as stupid and uncultured as it gets.