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What happened to the war on wokeness?
For the past few years, the battle against the “woke mind virus” has dominated Fox News’ nightly coverage, but lately, Fox has led with issues like immigration and inflation. Self-styled “anti-woke” 2024 GOP primary candidates Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy are already out of the race, and anti-woke crusader Ron DeSantis’ poll numbers fell by 20 points in the last year.
Does this mean conservatives no longer care about fighting the “woke mob”? Not exactly. Landmark SCOTUS rulings striking down things like abortion and affirmative action and upholding religious and gun rights have signaled to voters that progressive policies have successfully been dismantled, so there’s less urgency from the right.
But an anti-woke worldview is still very much a part of conservative identity. Just look at the backlash, especially on the right, to last month’s Congressional hearing about anti-semitism on university campuses, which quickly forced the presidents of Harvard and UPenn to resign. Republicans may no longer identify as anti-woke, but anti-woke by any other name is still the heart of conservative values.