Let me start by admitting I had tried to use the word “woke” in a meaningful way. To me it meant the bullying aspect of the left: shouting down speakers, kicking people out of conventions for expressing unpopular views, calling people who disagree “fascists” or “racists,” mobbing people on Twitter (sorry, “X”) for writing on topics not permitted to their skin color, calling for the firing of lawyers who take on disliked defendants, etc. The ones who declare “silence is violence” or “saying all lives matter makes you a Nazi.” In retrospect, I’m not so sure that was ever the predominant meaning of the term. Since authoritarian Republicans have started using the term, it’s become useless even if it had any value before.

This puts me in the weird position of agreeing with Donald Trump: “And I don’t like the term woke because I hear woke, woke, woke. You know, it’s like just a term they use. Half the people can’t even define it. They don’t know what it is.” He’s used the term a great deal himself, but for a passing moment he was right.
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