STARTING TOMORROW: What the heck is "Woke?"

MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2023

On blue cable, no one knew: Stephanie Ruhle had assembled another all-star group for her weekly "Friday Nightcap." 

As the second half of her program began, she pretty much said so herself:

RUHLE (3/10/23): All right—you know what it's time for. Time for our "Friday Nightcap"—and it is a great one!

Presumably, she meant that her four-person panel was "a great one." Needless to say, the best thing about the four-person panel was this:

Every member of the blue-chip panel was going to say the same thing! That's the way pseudo-discussion now works on our own tribe's "cable news" channel!

Ruhle began the Nightcap with a discussion of Fox News and the Dominion lawsuit. Seven minutes in, she shifted to a vexing set of questions:

What do conservatives mean by "Wokeness?" And why would they say that it's bad?

Ruhle played a montage of short clips in which seven conservative figures made overwrought remarks concerning Wokeness and Woke. She included Trump and DeSantis and Tucker—and then, evincing total bafflement, the cable news star offered this:

RUHLE: What does one do with this, right? A "war on wokeness?" "The woke mob?"

The most recent mob in this country was on January 6—people storming our Capitol, threatening to violently attack members of Congress. But this is what we watch every night, and this has Americans fired up.

Plainly, Ruhle was baffled. Why in the world would anyone want to say bad things about "Woke?" Surely, the baffled star seemed to suggest, January 6 was far worse!

So began the Nightcap panel's pseudo-discussion of Woke. Based on what followed, none of Ruhle's panelists had any idea why someone might criticize Woke. 

Indeed, no one seemed to have any idea what the word even meant! David Gura agreed to go first:

GURA (continuing directly): It's a remarkable catch-all phrase that I don't think anyone would define in the same way. And I think—

RHLUE: What is it?

GURA: —if you were to ask any one of those people what it means, you would get a completely different answer.

"What is it?" Ruhle helplessly asked. Gura said the seven conservative critics wouldn't agree with each other at all!

At this point, Alex Witt said, with apparent surprise, that conservatives "use it as a pejorative." She went on to explain what the word really means:

"What it really means, it's a modern sort of way to describe people who are educated on, they're aware of social media, they're aware of social issues, they've kind of studied it. And I think that's what woke truly is."

It's just a modern way to describe people who are educated! That's what the word really means!

We're sorry to say that even Al Sharpton took part in this silly display. 

We've long admired Sharpton at this site. He's much sharper than the average bear, and he has an excellent sense of humor which he frequently puts to good use.

Indeed, Sharpton has often pushed back against some of the stances some critics would tag as "Woke!" But on this night, he may have known the role he was expected to play:

SHARPTON: What I always say to people when they start talking about woke. Well, what's the opposite? Asleep? 

[GROUP LAUGHTER]

The clowning continued this way. As the pseudo-discussion finally ended, Ruhle drew again from the well:

RUHLE: There's woke, and there's asleep. 

[GROUP LAUGHTER] 

And as Rev Al has said, "Democrats, you better redefine this and wake up." I think that's what he just told you.

Democrats need to redefine the term! That's the way this exercise in scripted stupidity ended.

The Nightcap panelists were utterly baffled this night. No one seemed to have any idea why anyone would criticize Wokeness or Woke, or even what the familiar terms might mean.

The fix was in on The One True Channel as viewers were sent off to sleep. As we watched this gong-show proceed, our thoughts drifted back to a pair of panel discussions in the fall of 1999.

The discussions occurred on CNN's weekly program, Reliable Sources. Media reporter Howard Kurtz had been in charge. 

To his credit, Kurtz asked two separate panels of mainstream journalists, appearing on two separate programs, why Candidate Gore was getting such negative coverage from the mainstream press. Here's what happened next:

Every panelist agreed with Kurtz's basic premise. They all agreed that Candidate Gore was, in fact, receiving hostile coverage from the mainstream press.

But how odd! None of the panelists could figure out why they and their mainstream colleagues were conducting themselves this way! They tossed out a few simple-minded suggestions, but none of the panelists seemed to have any real idea.

Those panel discussions had been a fairly obvious fraud. After making those two separate attempts, Kurtz abandoned the topic.

Hopefully, Ruhle's panel discussion this past Friday night was utterly phony too. 

Back in 1999, the journalists refused to squeal on the attitudes which obtained within their own news orgs. Last Friday night, Ruhle's collection of overpaid stooges were pretending they had no idea why anyone would criticize Woke.

In fact, it isn't just people like Tucker and Trump who criticize what they called Wokeness. And there isn't any mystery—none at all—concerning the sorts of behaviors these people have in mind.

Two hours before Ruhle's pseudo-discussion, we had watched a rebroadcast of Jake Tapper's hour-long interview with Bill Maher, in which Maher expressed his critical view of Woke. Elsewhere, criticisms of Woke are easy to find—criticisms coming from high-end liberal voices.

On Friday night, blue cable viewers were shielded from such ugly knowledge. Ruhle and her panelists agreed to pretend that they were baffled by the nature of any such complaints.

In this recent column in the New York Times, Michelle Goldberg has said that the GOP's War on Woke is unlikely to be effective. It may turn out that her assessment is correct—but on The One True Cable Channel, Ruhle's all-star panelists were pretending something different.

Why would anyone criticize Woke? Presumably, Ruhle's four stooges were all pretending that they had no idea! 

We'll recommend that you take a look at Friday's pseudo-discussion. You can find the video at this link, under the title "Friday Nightcap: Fox News exposed to the meaning of Woke."

What you'll be seeing is very stupid. It's stupid, and we can only hope that it's fake.

The War of Woke may crash and burn, but everyone knows what the war is about. We'll be spending the rest of the week dipping our toe in those waters.

Last week, we looked at life From Their Side Now. Starting with that braindead panel, we'll now be looking at the sheer stupidity which often prevails on our side.

Tomorrow: Maher and McWhorter and Packer, and on and on from there

Also here: You can watch last Friday's night entire program thanks to the Internet Archive. To watch the silly pseudo-discussion, just click here, then search on Woke.


62 comments:

  1. Woke has the bigots on the Right in a tizzy, even more than Biden's lowest unemployment rate in 5+ decades.

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  2. tl;dr

    "On blue cable, no one knew: Stephanie Ruhle had assembled another all-star group for her weekly "Friday Nightcap." "

    More brain-dead dembottery for your, dear Bob, brain-dead tribe? Tsk. Well... "no one knew" indeed.

    ...thanks for this useless info, we suppose...

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  3. The panel was right. Woke is meaningless except as name-calling. Gore is irrelevant.

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    1. Oh, "woke" is now name-calling? Like "shithead"?

      ...makes sense...

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    2. It's name-calling to herd a bunch of people into a name so you can insult them. Like "rich".

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    3. Is "woke" name-calling or not?

      And no, it's not name-calling to herd a bunch of people into a name that they themselves self-identify with. Whether you then insult them or not.

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    4. The Right gets to set the agenda (look no further than the media's obsession with the minority of the country's religious crackpots), so they also get to define what words mean (also through the media).
      This is how anything that inconveniences the Right is now called "woke". Just as the social safety net is "communism", criticism is "cancel culture" and misogyny is "freedom".

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    5. So, then, "woke" is name-calling, like "shithead".

      ...makes sense...

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    6. "anti-woke" is to be racist and anti LGBT civil rights. next question.

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    7. It's not just Republicans and conservatives who are turned off by the Woke narratives, like the CNN panel, and most "liberal" pundits on the subject, who represent a minority of the country, are clueless. You've got your narrative, and anything outside it is ignored, or characterized, brainlessly, as "racism."

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    8. Or characterized accurately as stupidity. FTFY

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    9. AC/MA -- it makes no sense to refer to conservatives and Republicans as being turned off by woke when they were never turned on to anything liberal in the first place. They are perpetually turned off, there is nothing that would make them more turned off than they are to begin with. These are people who have been taught that Democrats are Satan and eat babies to stay young. Who is pretending what here?

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    10. AC/ MA,
      This narrative?
      https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/08/gop-war-woke-most-americans-see-term-positive-ipsos-poll/11417394002/

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  4. Replies
    1. A couple of jokes about kids standing on your lawn, and you could make a decent living being a comedian.

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    2. Kids are OK. What I don’t like is dogs shitting on my lawn.

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    3. Well, OK, but I don't like kids shitting on my lawn either.

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  5. A good example of Woke mentality:

    https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-03-09/white-drivers-are-polluting-the-air-breathed-by-l-a-s-people-of-color-boiling-point

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    Replies
    1. They have to fill the newspapers with something.
      Free-market Libertarians begging Daddy Government to save them, isn't even news anymore.

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    2. Free-market libertarians live in a system where they must pay taxes on such measures despite their relative positions on the subject.

      Damn right they’re going to ask for it.

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    3. Ha ha.
      "Moral hazard" is in hiding, until the next time the government helps people who aren't filthy rich. Until then, it's a threat to the nation for the people who can afford it to take a bath.

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    4. Every Capitalist is a Socialist when it comes to protecting their profits.

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    5. Yeah, even the supper-pwogwessive Barney Frank, director of failed Signature Bank in New York.

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    6. Barney Frank has done some good things and some bad things.

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    7. Unless they live in Palestine, Ohio.

      Then they must beg.

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    8. Of course, Cecelia. Palestine voters chose the deregulated environment, so they are enjoying the fruits of their decision. I understand Donald J Chickenshit gave them some of his 10year old water bottles so they should be good to go now.

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    9. How do you know that they choose a “deregulated government” in the sense that there would be no disaster relief means via the government.

      That’s hard-core libertarianism and it’s hard to find to that extent even among them.

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    10. I said they voted for deregulations. I am quite certain they had no idea what the consequences of their favorite policy would be.

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    11. Anonymouse 1:22pm, they voted on not taxing small businesses thru the roof, in order for them to thrive.

      Their favorite policy has never been to get rid of FEMA…or the police.

      I’m not sure how that compares to SVB and tech millionaires (big political donators), but your take is revealing as to how you see regular people.

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    12. Regular people are better than irregular people.

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    13. Anonymouse 1:36pm, they’re no worse.

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    14. Right, Cecelia, they voted to eat their cake and have it too. And then they blame the Sec. of Transportation when shit hits the fan for being gay.
      I've been following this closely.

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    15. Libertarians wouldn't be in this predicament, if they hadn't wasted their money on avocado toast, lattes, and lobbyists who pushed through a change in the law about stress tests from the Fed.
      Of course, Peter Thiel shorting the stock and then starting a run on the bank, didn't help either.

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    16. I, for one, do NOT think Cecelia is too stupid to understand the people begging for government assistance think those other than themselves should face the consequences of their actions.
      She's far more of a suck-up to power, than she is an idiot.

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    17. Anonymouse 2:03pm, I think you live on a cartoon.

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    18. It's almost like Libertarians don't believe in the ideology they espouse, without the "It's almost like" part, of course.

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    19. It’s like people aren’t the caricatures you make of them.

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    20. If it weren't for bad-faith arguments, the Right wouldn't have any arguments at all.

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    21. Anonymice flying monkeys, it’s almost like you’re bots.

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    22. Cecelia thinks monkeys really fly.

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    23. Cecelia is a caricature.

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  6. It’s telling Bob doesn’t try to define it himself.

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  7. I have been watching "The Chosen" mini-series and it is interesting how the writers have Jesus preaching to his disciples and followers how they need to "awaken" or be woke.

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    1. Anonymouse 1:19pm, how do you think the term came about, but from the context of a moral epiphany?

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    2. I have an epiphany every year on the sixth of January.

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    3. The way you magats use the term, Cecelia, has very little to do with morality.

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    4. Anonymouse flying monkey 1:54pm, not as you illustrate it, which is by looking into a mirror and genuflecting.

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    5. Cecelia, you mean you’re proud that you contribute to the United States of America on April 15th?

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    6. April 15th is not a holy day for me.

      I’m proud of all the days of the year that I contribute too.

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    7. You mean contribute to, not contribute also.

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  8. Is Woke a big deal or now a catch all label for Right Snowflakes? A little of both? Bob has no real interest.

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  9. I agree with Bob that Al Sharpton is smart and says sharp things. However, I can't forgive him for his role in encouraging a mob to lynch Yankel Rosenbaum, just because he was Jewish.

    (BTW the term "lynch" does not just apply to hanging. The definition is, "to put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal approval or permission.)

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. If you watch the segment that Sharpton had with Ruhle (which Bob linked) you’ll see a hilarious moment with Al scratching his head as to why, oh, why…Fox News employees aren’t as savvy as his old drug dealing buddies who knew better than to call or text each other.

      You couldn’t make it up.

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    3. Rosenbaum was stabbed by Nelson, but he died because the hospital didn't notice his fourth stab wound for over an hour and treat it properly, which was the subject of a lawsuit. You also didn't mention that this happened as part of rioting, that Nelson was drunk, and that the rioting happened because the motorcade of a prominent Hasidic Jew struck and killed a seven year old black boy.

      In fairness, David, you should report all of the facts, not just the ones that put your preferred spin on what happened.

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    4. The last thing DinCA is interested in is fairness.

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    5. Are you serious, @8:53? Imagine that the victim was a black rather than a Jew. A black person accidentally kills a white person. A mob of white racists surround another black person -- not the person who accidentally killed the white. A rabble rouser encourages the mob to lynch the innocent black person. They do murder him. The the main killer being a drunk white racist. With better medical care, the black victim might have survived.

      Does this excuse the white racist rabble rouser who encouraged the lynching? Of course not.

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    6. Yes, David, this has happened. But why not give all the details instead of cherrypicking to make Nelson look worse? Thumbs on scales make you look dishonest.

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  10. Somerby hasn't voted Democratic since Al Gore lost. This has nothing to do with wokeness.

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  11. Can’t believe I have to post this, but sine no one else has, USA Today ran an article on the American public’s view of, “woke.” You’ll be surprised to read that most Americans have a positive view of the term.
    Here’s the article:
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/08/gop-war-woke-most-americans-see-term-positive-ipsos-poll/11417394002/

    Ipsos is a credible polling organization and I think Bob’s post seems a bit like Rube Running than a cogent analysis of Rhule’s segment.

    While the Right may think they have a sure fire bat to hit Democrats with, I think this is another example of more heat than light.

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  12. "Maher and McWhorter and Packer, and on and on from there..."

    Finally! Alfred Packer is going to get his due! I can't wait for tomorrow!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibal!_The_Musical

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