When Republicans use the word "woke," it's a deliberate bit of obfuscation, a way to signal bigotry to their fellow travelers while pretending it's something else to those who call them out for it. But it's also pretty hard to ignore the bullhorn levels of racism that are often embedded in complaints about "woke" culture. When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., complains that it's "woke" to let Black women sing at the Super Bowl, for example, the only rational conclusion is that it's their skin color that offends her.
After the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the Republican obsession with blaming everything on "woke" hit a ridiculous new level, as the biggest clowns in the party — who happen to be the agenda-setters for the GOP — rushed forward to say that it was because the bank was "woke." This was met with a cacophony of laughter. How on Earth is a bank "woke" and how would "wokeness" force them to, as happened with SVB, invest too much in bonds that created a liquidation crisis when interest rates rose?
