The Woke Mind Virus

"The only thing that matters, is the individual, clearly..."  Tucker Carlson.  E Pluribus Unum, indeed...

It's always important to understand what a Republican actually means when they say something; when Republicans or rightwingers denounce "Woke", understand they are attacking basic human compassion.  The simple dignity of calling someone what they'd like to be known as becomes the biggest affront to conservatives.  "Woke" is simply the latest rightwing talking point disseminated to every conservative automaton who dutifully absorbs and retransmits en masse the totally original idea of anti-Wokeness.  You see this expressed all over social media where uniformly and ironically every conservative calls liberals "NPCs" or "Sheeple" as they celebrate their individuality by all telling the same damn unfunny joke; My Pronouns are...

"This is what happens when you swim in warm baths of wokeness..."  Ben SShaprio complaining about Twitter.

The real end goal of being "anti-Woke" is the coarsening of American society and weakening the bonds of shared humanity between Americans.  This is not a new effort, we saw it clearly post-911 with the Republican mistreatment of Muslims and we have seen the brutal rightwing Government violence directed at immigrants coming to the Nation.  Previously, gay people were targeted for violence from conservatives and concerted violence from Police across the Nation.  Remember the incident which led to the SCOTUS Lawerence v. Texas (2003) happened 25 years ago.  Rightwingers are hoping to get the chance to dust off criminal charges for "deviance".

Never forget Rightwingers always lie about what they supposedly believe in.  Conservatives don't believe in freedom or liberty or individuality those are just phrases right-wingers intone as shibboleths as Republicans have shown time and time again they are more than willing to use the awesome power of government to harass, harm, and kill individuals whom they have deemed as engaging in unAmerican activities.  One need look no further than the coordinated and murderous effort to eliminate the LGBTQ community.  Chaya Raichik and her Libs of TikTok site produces daily false outrage to goad conservatives into acts of stochastic terrorism and elected Republicans like Attorney General Ken Paxton have used their office to prepare lists of Transpersons.  Why would Ken Paxton want to create a database?  Well... Republican rhetoric towards LGBTQ persons has been eliminationist for a long time, in response the Proud Boys have attacked queer businesses, Matt Walsh fans threaten to blow up Boston-area Hospitals, and a Lauren Boebert inspired gunmen committed mass murder at Club Q in Colorado.

Republicans & Rightwingers have undermined the concept of American society through a steady barrage of propaganda designed to divorce people from unity and community.  Now, several generations shell-shocked by Republican efforts to slash the Social Safety Net and consistently fed agitprop of Makers&Takers 24/7 have turned their backs on The American Melting Pot and adopted the phony Rugged Individualism Republicans were offering. 

Much of this goes back to money and destroying the middle class (a goal of Republicans since the 1960's) It was a brilliant maneuver to slash taxes on the Ultra-Wealthy and Big Businesses thus shifting the bureaucratic burden of the US Government onto the backs of the White Working Class and then following up that legislative coup by incessantly telling White people that they are poor and broke because of lazy you-know-whos, illegal immigrants, drug users, and liberal activism instead of the true causes, namely Republican economic policies.

The overarching arc of Republican propaganda of phony Rugged Individualism is one in which, You, the Real American can only rely on yourself, you should only care about yourself and maybe your immediate family, anything which helps someone else hurts you, there is a limited pie of wealth and benefits and anyone who gets something (say Obamacare) means you don't get it.

The current anti-Woke Mind screeds by Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Dennis Praeger, Shapiro, Elon Musk, Tim Pool, or whatever rightwing propagandist you can cite are designed to create the Pavlovian Fear & Anger response in their rightwing drones. Eventually, the goal is to afford the conservative the shorthand of saying "Woke" derisively the same way they say "Socialism".  Then the term can be applied to everything and anything Republicans wish to scuttle or complain about, no matter how inappropriate or paradoxical the claim is.

Of course, the coarsening of American society doesn't just harm the enemies of MAGA.  The targets of the propaganda campaign the White Working Class have absorbed these messages of Fear & Anger and turned it upon themselves as well.  In 2019, Jonathan Metzl called this Dying of Whiteness.  And since these segments of society can not have compassion for others they in turn end up not being able to have compassion for themselves and engage in self-abnegation, self-medication, and suicide.