From Ron DeSantis's anti-woke presidential campaign to Bari Weiss's FAIR war on woke, the concept of "wokeness" has become an ideal devil in right-wing and right-leaning politics—even if (or especially because) no one can really define it. But as Derek discusses, a recent deep dive into FAIR shows, anti-woke crusaders are suffering from internal conflicts and coming up with troubling non-solutions, while monetizing their platforms along the way.
Show Notes
Is it possible to be both moderate and anti-woke?
Morning Joe: June 5, 2023
Daily Wire host defends book bans
Journalist or Heretic? | Bari Weiss | EP 175
Plandemic 3 Red Carpet moment
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Last week, the conservative television host and former congressman Joe Scarborough had an interesting take on the fundraising emails he was receiving that contained the word woke.
If I get a newsletter and it says woke in the headline, I erase it immediately.
It's seriously, it is the pet rock of 2023 politics.
It was a thing a couple of years ago.
But when you have the head of Berkeley Law School, when you have the head of Yale, when you have the head of all of these elite universities going, come on, you guys have gone too far.
Like enough of the heckler's veto.
There has been a correction that Ron DeSantis, and by the way, when suddenly you have right wingers.
Saying racist things about Chick-fil-A and trying to cancel Chick-fil-A as being, quote, woke for basically talking about their devotion to Jesus Christ.
They jumped the shark a long time ago.
A few moments later, the panel talked about how the right had used cancel culture for a while, and then the term CRT, but they abandoned it once they recognized that their base had no idea what they were really talking about.
As someone like even Donald Trump knows all too well, the lowest common denominator plays best to the broadest crowd, and that's a cognitive trait that he mercilessly exploits.
And so, his main competitor on the Republican side, Ron DeSantis, is on his anti-woke crusade, woke being the term du jour in right-wing politics.
And while the pundits on Morning Joe acknowledge that there are some instances of far-left politics playing out on college campuses and on social media, the real issue here is a liberalism on the right.
Illiberalism involves non-democratic, and sometimes authoritarian, practices being used behind formerly democratic institutions and procedures, which succinctly sums up the MAGA brand of politics at the moment.
The practice is hypocritical to its core, as evidenced recently in Utah, where one school district took its Republican government's law banning pornographic or indecent books from school seriously.
The Utah decision was made this week by the Davis School District north of Salt Lake City after a complaint filed in December 2022.
Officials say they have already removed the 7 or 8 copies of the Bible they had on their shelves, noting that the text was never a part of the students curriculum.
Now this isn't the first state to ban the Bible.
Last year, a Texas school district also pulled it from shelves due to its violence and sexual allusions.
For example, in Ezekiel, the author writes, You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made
of gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution
with them.
The male idol being, of course, a dildo.
Not that I want the Bible or any book banned, but it gave a moment of pause and perhaps even
of self-reflection to the right-wing book banning frenzy that's currently going on across the country.
But like Trump saying the debt ceiling is only sacred when he's president, there's no dearth of hypocrisy when it comes to these initiatives.
As The Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said unironically about banning books earlier this year.
If the banning is being done by bad people who are not going to help you become educated, then I guess you should go read the book.
If the book is being banned by just and wise and prudent authorities, then maybe don't read the book.
Depends what the book is.
If the book is Hamlet, then you should go read the book.
If the book is gay porn, as is turning up in lots of schools, then don't read the book.
If it's pornography of any kind, don't read the book.
You will not be edified by that.
You will not be educated by that.
But what is Stephen King suggesting?
All books, Gender Queer by Maya Kababi, we should read that.
Maybe, I don't know, Mein Kampf.
Listen, they don't want to teach you Mein Kampf in schools.
You better go out there.
You're in sixth grade.
You better go read Mein Kampf.
Is that what he's saying?
No, I don't think.
I mean, even if you're going to read Mein Kampf as a sort of historical study, maybe wait until you're, I don't know, like 16, 17.
Does anyone really think that's appropriate for a child?
I don't think so.
I think there are plenty of books that are not appropriate for a child.
I think Ulysses by James Joyce.
I don't know, do we really, that's something we have to read?
No, of course not.
Of course not.
It's a very shallow and glib and liberal and modern idea that you should never ban or suppress any book.
I mean, give credit to Knowles for laying it out so clearly.
Ban the books I don't like, or in the common parlance of the right, that Western civilization deems appropriate.
This is as good a heuristic as you can find for the broader War on Woke going on across America.
