DeSantis hates ‘woke’, but his view may not play so well in the rest of America | Opinion
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has done his best to turn the word “woke” into a stand-in for all things threatening and terrible, but a new national poll shows that a majority of Americans don’t see it his way. Woke, it turns out, has a lot of positive connotations for people across the country.
In a USA Today/Ipsos poll released this week, 56% of those surveyed said the term means “to be informed, educated on and aware of social injustices.” About 39% said it “involves being overly politically correct and policing others’ words.”
If Florida’s governor, who so triumphantly pronounced our state the place “where woke goes to die,” indeed runs for president, will his anti-woke message play on a national stage? Maybe not as well as he thinks.
DeSantis, as we all know, absolutely loves the term “woke.” He slaps it on anything he thinks could be used to stir up his base of voters, mostly white and mostly Republican, who are worried about losing their primacy in the world. For the past two years, that has been an ever-widening universe of targets: critical race theory, Disney, former Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, school books, school board members, drag queens, a National Hockey League job fair, the NCAA, diversity training at businesses, Democrats, the New College of Florida, coursework at universities, lessons from teachers, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and banks that dare to use socially and environmentally conscious factors for investing.
To name a few.
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Woke = bad
If you’re a bit bewildered, join the club. DeSantis uses woke as an elastic term that can mean almost anything as long as it instills fear and needs to be defeated — by him. He uses the word to reframe any issue that frustrates people, again, mainly white Americans and Republicans. It builds on the grievance politics that carried Donald Trump into office and then out again — the same kind of thinking that led a deadly mob to break into the Capitol and terrorize Congress.
Woke became a common term during the Black Lives Matter movement, a push to draw attention to the disproportionate killings of Black people at the hands of police and the ways in which racism can be embedded in institutions and policies. It quickly became a partisan concept. DeSantis, clearly, saw the possibilities and never looked back.
In Florida, his effort has been succeeding. After a resounding re-election and armed with full control of the Legislature, he no doubt will keep flogging the idea for everything it’s worth. But this poll gives us a glimpse into a national viewpoint that doesn’t quite line up with what DeSantis has made central to his unofficial presidential campaign: being the standard-bearer for anti-woke. Remember, this is the same country that rejected Trump and chose Joe Biden as president in 2020.
A few more things worth noting from the poll: By age, nearly half of older people surveyed — 50 to 64 — said woke means to be overly politically correct. But only 33% of younger people, ages 18 to 34, felt that way.
And some people simply didn’t know what the word means, the poll indicated. That was more prevalent with older people, but some people under age 35 said so as well.
State’s definition
You would think in a state that has dedicated so many resources to fighting this modern-day version of the Red Scare would have a clear definition. And there was one, of a sort, provided by the governor’s own lawyer during the ongoing lawsuit filed by Warren, the state attorney ousted from his elected position by the governor because he pledged not to pursue cases involving abortion rights.
Ryan Newman, DeSantis’ general counsel, said in court, that woke is “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address [them].”
That’s what Florida’s governor is opposed to? As John Oliver put it on his HBO show earlier this week, that’s “a helluva thing for someone to admit to everyone that you are against.”
Check out Woke Wars, a weekly opinion podcast by the Miami Herald Editorial Board which explores the culture war issues dominating Florida’s legislature. Listen to new episodes every Thursday on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
