The 'Woke Mind Virus' Is Eating Away at Republicans' Brains
JAMELLE BOUIE
The Woke Mind Virus Is Eating Away at Republicans Brains
May 2, 2023
By Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/opinion/ron-desantis-woke-mind-virus.html
"SNIP.........
Now, I can follow this as a professional internet user and political observer. I know that woke mind virus is a term of art for the (condescending and misguided) idea that progressive views on race and gender are an outside contagion threatening the minds of young people who might otherwise reject structural explanations of racial inequality and embrace a traditional vision of the gender binary. I know that cultural Marxism is a right-wing buzzword meant to sound scary and imposing.
To a normal person, on the other hand, this language is borderline unintelligible. It doesnt tell you anything; it doesnt obviously mean anything; and its quite likely to be far afield of your interests and concerns.
DeSantis is a regular offender when it comes to speaking in the jargon of culture war-obsessed conservatives, but hes not the only one. And its not just a problem of jargon. Republican politicians from presidential contenders to anonymous state legislators are monomaniacally focused on banning books, fighting wokeness and harassing transgender people. Some Republicans are even still denying the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, doubling down on the election-related conspiracies that hobbled many Republican candidates in the midterms.
Not only do Americans not care about the various Republican obsessions in a recent Fox News poll 1 percent of respondents said wokeness was the most important issue facing the country today but a large majority say that those obsessions have gone too far. According to Fox, 60 percent of Americans said book banning by school boards was a major problem. Fifty-seven percent said the same for political attacks on families with transgender children.
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