I have to agree with Melissa Murray on The Best People with Nicole Wallace podcast, what the right means by “woke” is actually just modernity. It’s their way of signaling that they feel left behind, in some cases for decades. The term “wokeism” is essentially the language of civil rights, and that offends them because it forces recognition of progress they’d rather deny.
Of course, they point to the most extreme examples to define it — as one does with any belief system, political stance, or human identity when trying to discredit it. It’s like arguing that religion is dangerous by only pointing to cults; it’s dishonest, but it works on people already primed to fear change.
Abortion as Theology, Not Policy
Abortion is perhaps the clearest example of this fear-driven politics. What’s been sold as a political issue is really a theocratic one — a bulwark of today’s conservative movement and, frankly, a toxic one. It’s been weaponized by Republicans, particularly Christian nationalists, to impose theology under the guise of governance.
We have evolved as a people and as a culture to understand that mental health matters, even if our policy ranks it below dental care, which itself is below general healthcare. But forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy she does not want — or cannot physically or mentally sustain — is cruelty disguised as morality. Women have already died because of extreme Republican abortion laws that criminalize even the most reasonable, medically urgent procedures.
This isn’t left vs. right anymore. This is democracy vs. theology — and lately, it’s been theology weaponized in service of (the now not even...) creeping autocracy.
Personal Experience and Today’s Reality
I understand why abortion is such a flashpoint.
Pregnancy changes you. I’ve lived that truth, even in unexpected ways. Years ago, my wife stopped taking the pill for two months after we’d agreed to wait (I just wanted to pay off some bills and as I had said to her and, "Get even $100 in savings")... and she became pregnant.
I wasn’t ready, I wasn't happy, I felt betrayed, but when she miscarried, it altered us both. And so she got pregnant again, this time with me fully on board and then we had our son, and I am grateful for him.
But had that same miscarriage happened today in certain Republican-run states, my wife could have been investigated for murder simply because someone suspected she might have terminated the pregnancy?
That’s the dystopian reality these laws have created. And to those lawmakers? My honest response is unprintable.
Why Republicans Embrace Trump’s Poison
In just six or seven months, Donald Trump and his Republicans can wreak damage that will take decades to undo. After his last term, we needed a scouring — a national deep-clean — to rid the White House, the executive branch, and our politics of his narcissistic authoritarianism. And yet congressional Republicans cling to him.
Why? Because he supports their ideology, weaponizes their causes, and spares them from doing the actual work of governing. For decades, Congress — especially the Republican leadership — has preferred to abdicate power to the executive, so they can keep their seats, wealth, and influence without the burden of legislating. As long as Trump holds power, they do too. It’s not about public service. It’s about self-preservation and toxic ideology, especially Christian nationalism.
“Slug Mind” Politics
Here’s how I think of it: slug mind.
Too lazy for critical thought, too comfortable in a narrow worldview, these leaders have devolved to the easiest form of politics — authoritarian theocracy — just as slugs evolve to do the least necessary to survive. Trump went to a good university, but you have to maintain a degree for the rest of your life. He has not. Has no interest in it. Takes the easiest routes. A teacher once told me in high school to take the hardest route whenever you can because there lay a great education.
Or something like that. And so I did and I learned two things from that. One, he was right. Second, whenever you DID take a shortcut, it was way fasters than if you always took a shortcut. NOT because it merely felt faster, but because you saw or devised one that was better than you would otherwise have chosen or set up. Which explains so much about Trump's "administration" and "presidency".
Trump himself seems incapable of holding an idea for more than a moment. Once he says something, it’s gone from his mind until he’s forced to think about it again — and that’s when the anger comes. Contrast that with a mind that keeps turning over ideas, analyzing, and refining them.
I may be lucky to be able to think that way without effort. It may just be a function of ADHD. But someone with Trump’s mental approach (and lack of abilities and capabilities outside of his narcissistic autocratic "one trick pony" show) should never have been in ANY public office, let alone the Oval Office.
Melissa Murray called it plainly: what they deride as “woke” is simply the future. And their resistance to it...whether in civil rights, reproductive freedom, or democratic norms... isn’t just regressive.
It’s dangerous.
Because the fight we’re in now isn’t over policy disagreements. It’s over whether we remain a democracy or slide into theocracy enforced by these slug-minded, Christian nationalist emboldened authoritarians.
And if we lose that fight, cleaning up after them may well take generations and will cost us all vast sums of money, pain, and dispair.
No comments:
Post a Comment