A GOP lawmaker has slammed “the Left’s woke agenda” and vowed to create an “anti-woke” voting bloc in the US Congress. After gaining a slim majority in the Chamber, it appears Republicans will use their newfound power to attack wokeism which Representative Jim Banks called a form of “creeping tyranny”.
“The new House Republican majority can and will fight institutionalised wokeness. The path forward is clear so long as we act confidently, as our voters demand,” the Indiana Congressman wrote for the conservative publication The American Mind.
He claimed that “so-called oppressor groups” were being punished by “the Left” by “inducing self-hatred through indoctrination, stripping away their rights by not enforcing the laws on their behalf, public humiliation, hatred, expropriation, and ultimately violence.”
Banks blamed the Biden Administration for “imposing” these “woke” beliefs in schools, the military and in government agencies.
He said anti-woke House Republicans should band together, announcing his intention to form the first “anti-woke caucus” in the House of Representatives.
Republicans, who secured control of the House in November, can now form committees, launch investigations and will have considerably more influence in Congress.
If an “anti-woke” caucus were formed, the voting bloc would likely have an outsized influence on the chamber which the GOP holds by just a handful of votes.
The word woke became more mainstream around 2014, likely as a result of huge Black Lives Matter protests following several high-profile killings of unarmed black men (and women) by police.
Meriam Webster’s dictionary defines it as being “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).”
“By the end of that same decade [2020] it was also being applied by some as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning,” it adds.
The concept has since become a political buzzword synonymous with America’s raging culture war – fought between the left and the right over issues including systemic racism in America, gender identity issues as well as what is taught to children at schools.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSanits is one of the GOP’s more outspoken crusaders in the culture war and has branded Florida as a bastion against wokeism.
He even introduced an “anti-woke” law to the Sunshine State, which has been challenged and partially blocked in court.
During his second inaugural address last month, he proudly boasted: “Florida is where woke goes to die.”
Governor DeSantis is seen by pundits as the most likely GOP challenger to former President Donald Trump. It’s likely he will continue his crusade against wokeness, keeping the issue in the spotlight and shaping what has become a defining political issue in America today.
