Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

What does ‘woke’ mean? Whatever Ron DeSantis wants.

Gray Rohrer of the news outlet Florida Politics was in the courtroom last week as staffers for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) were asked an interesting question: What does “woke” mean? The federal court in Tallahassee where the question came up doesn’t allow for recordings, Rohrer told The Washington Post, but he jotted down the offered responses in his notebook.

Ryan Newman, DeSantis’s general counsel, said the term referred to “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” Taryn Fenske, DeSantis’s communications director, said that “woke” was “a slang term for … progressive activism,” adding that the term also referred to a belief that there were systemic injustices in the United States.

Both Newman and Fenske can be called correct for linking the term to the idea that racism is embedded in American systems like the law and the economy. But Fenske’s description of the word as having become a slang term does a much better job of encapsulating how the expression is actually used — and why they and DeSantis were in that courtroom in the first place.

“Woke” entered common usage alongside “Black Lives Matter” and “critical race theory” over the past decade. The movement to draw attention to the disproportionate killing of Black people at the hands of law enforcement was centered on drawing attention to systemic racism, an idea that is a component of critical race theory. Being “woke” in this context meant being alert to the ways in which racism can be subtle.

This was necessarily inextricable from politics, but the extent to which it became entwined with partisanship was remarkable. Discussions of systemic racism (including some clunky, opportunistic ones) sat alongside an increasing sense among White Americans, particularly Republicans, that there was an effort underway to erode their own power and position.

The emergence of a new series of Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 led to Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy being opportunistically interwoven with race and perceptions of crime. Soon after he was inaugurated president, Fox News began focusing heavily on the purported threat of critical race theory in schools — or, more vaguely, the threat of America getting too “woke.” You can see the surge in mentions of “woke” on Fox News below.



That initial effort was heavily driven by a right-wing writer named Christopher Rufo. In March 2021, he was overt about his intent.

“The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory,’ ” he wrote on Twitter. “We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”


In other words, the goal was to make “critical race theory” a shorthand for common frustrations for “Americans,” here obviously meaning mostly White Americans. Over the next 20 months, this same outcome — turning the phrase “critical race theory” into a catchall phrase for ridiculous stuff — became reality for “woke.” Instead of meaning something like being aware of systemic biases, an idea considered ludicrous to people trained for decades to identify racism only at its most overt, the term “woke” was applied to a broad range of things that were generally embraced by the political left. It became, as Taryn Fenske put it, a slang term.

Consider how DeSantis himself has used it. He was a bit late to the effort, certainly, but he made up for lost time. Over the past 20 months, he has described the following things as “woke”:


The NCAA, for saying that it would not hold events in states that passed laws (as Florida did) governing the participation of trans athletes in sports programs.
Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, for expressing opposition to the policies of Israel.
“Woke” corporations in general.
Disney specifically, for opposing a bill that would restrict mentions of same-sex relationships in schools.
Certain math books, for purportedly using “critical race theory” in problems.
Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren — whose lawsuit against being removed from his post led to the testimony of DeSantis’s aides.
Last year, DeSantis championed an egregiously on-the-nose piece of legislation called the “Stop W.O.K.E.” Act. Roughly centered on the use of “critical race theory” — under its inflated, toxic new definition — it limited what schools, universities and private businesses could teach students or employees.

“I think what you see now with the rise of this ‘woke’ ideology is an attempt to really delegitimize our history and to delegitimize our institutions,” DeSantis said then. “And I view the wokeness as a form of cultural Marxism.”

This was meant literally, in part. A new training regimen on U.S. history meant to elide the insidious influence of “critical race theory” was derided by teachers as inaccurate and for downplaying slavery. But it was also meant in the abstract. “Woke” means accommodating the ways in which America is changing and in which non-White and non-cis Americans are incorporated into the public conversation. DeSantis and other Republicans understand that the narrow understanding of “woke” and “critical race theory” are less useful than broader ones in which those terms are slang references to something like “dumb stuff the left wants that undermines the way things have always been.”

When DeSantis easily won reelection last month, he carved out a part of his victory speech to address “wokeism.”

“The woke agenda has caused millions of Americans to leave these jurisdictions” — ones run by Democrats and “leftists” — “for greener pastures,” he insisted. “We have maintained law and order. We have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers, and we reject woke ideology.”

Channeling a MAGA version of Winston Churchill, he continued with a rousing bit of rhetoric: “We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.”

“Florida,” he pledged, “is where woke goes to die.”

Easy to accomplish when it means whatever you want it to mean.

Moricz told CNN that a few weeks before graduation, the school’s principal met with him and told him he couldn’t talk about that issue.
“He’d always been very supportive of me and my identity and I was really hurt,” he said.

Moricz came out during his freshman year and was the first openly-gay class president at the school, so he felt a responsibility to address the controversy. He told CNN that school is the only guaranteed space that kids have in the state.

“When you take that only guaranteed space and you make it one that victimizes an entire population of students, what you’re doing is you’re forcing kids to make the choice of either not come out safely or not come out at all,” he said.

So when it came time to speak at Sunday’s ceremony, Moricz took off his mortarboard hat and pointed to his head.

“I used to hate my curls. I spend mornings and nights embarrassed of them trying desperately to straighten this part of who I am. But the daily damage of trying to fix myself became too much to do,” he said in his speech. “So while having curly hair in Florida is difficult, due to the humidity, I decided to be proud of who I was and started coming to school as my authentic self.”

Moricz said his teachers were some of the first people he went to for advice because he didn’t have “other curly-haired people” to talk to and said the support he got at school helped him grow.

WASHINGTON — It is a case “with profound consequences for American democracy,” said J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge long a hero to conservatives.

Chief Justice Nathan L. Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court, a Republican, has said it is “the biggest federalism issue in a long time, maybe ever.”

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Moore v. Harper, a dispute between voting rights advocates and North Carolina’s General Assembly, which is controlled by Republicans, that could dramatically increase the power that state legislatures have over voting issues.

Just how much power is at issue could become clearer as the arguments play out. But there is no arguing how high the stakes are in this lawsuit. The court is being asked to decide whether state election laws and political maps passed by state legislatures — specifically, a Republican gerrymander of North Carolina’s 14 House seats that the state’s Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional this year — should continue to be subject to judicial review in state courts.

Republicans seeking to restore the legislative map have argued that the state court is powerless to act under what had been a fringe theory known as the independent state legislature doctrine. The theory argues that the federal Constitution gives state lawmakers sweeping power to draw maps and set election rules — even if they violate a state’s laws or its constitution.

The issue comes at a time when gerrymanders have become so extreme and technologically sophisticated that they can enable parties to almost indefinitely lock in political dominance. When new state legislatures convene next year, 28 will have a Republican majority (as will essentially Nebraska, which is nonpartisan in a Republican state), 19 will be Democratic and two will be split.

That is contentious enough by itself. But the Moore case also has a marked ideological cast. A Supreme Court increasingly in tune with the political right is being asked to ratify a legal concept favored by some ardent conservatives — one that four Supreme Court justices have already expressed at least tentative support for.

At the same time, many in the legal and political establishments see a dangerous subversion of democratic values.

Judge Luttig said that, absent changes in federal law governing the counting of electoral votes, an unconstrained legislature might be able to substitute its own slate of presidential electors for the ones voters had chosen on Election Day — the very strategy former President Donald J. Trump employed in trying to overturn his election loss in 2020.

The theory’s broadest reading would deny all other state government entities — courts, election administrators, governors, independent redistricting commissions — any say in rules on elections or districts.

You have to hand it to kids, they have ways to get around stupid laws grown-ups make.

A jury in Manhattan has found former President Donald Trump's company guilty of a long-running criminal tax fraud scheme that lasted into his presidency.

Though Trump and his company have repeatedly faced criminal investigations, this case marks the first time his company has been charged, tried, and convicted on criminal charges.

Trump built his political brand, in large part, on his claim that he was an aggressive and successful businessman.

In all, the jury found two entities controlled by Trump guilty on 17 counts of criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. The maximum penalty is $1.6 million.

Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) is projected to win the runoff race for U.S. Senate in Georgia, according to the Associated Press and Edison Research, defeating Republican Herschel Walker and giving Democrats a 51st seat in the chamber.

Hundreds of thousands of voters in the state cast their ballots to resolve the last outstanding Senate race in the country, in which more than 1.8 million people voted early. While Democrats would have controlled the Senate next year regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, a win by Warnock gives the party more leverage in the chamber, which has been evenly divided for the past two years.

Republicans are already using Herschel Walker’s loss to call on the GOP to move away from Donald Trump in 2024.

Prominent Iowa Republican Bob Vander Plaats, a former supporter of Trump, tweeted that a Walker loss would be “another blow to former President Trump,” adding that “conservatives across the country are tired of losing. #2024 is key to winning the future again: #Choosewell”

As some Republicans and donors shift away from the former president, Trump’s team was hoping for a win in Georgia to turn the tide and breathe energy into Trump’s lackluster third presidential campaign.

on the "model" of the Capitol storming.

Today, President Joe Biden traveled to Arizona to highlight how the CHIPS & Science Act is bringing innovation and jobs to the country. He visited a facility that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is building north of Phoenix, where he met with chief executive officers from several companies and with lawmakers. TSMC has recently committed to investing $40 billion in Arizona to produce advanced semiconductors, the very sort of investment the CHIPS & Science Act was designed to attract. 

Biden noted that this investment will bring more than 10,000 construction jobs and 10,000 jobs in high tech, and he emphasized that the Democrats’ investment in the nation’s economy is paying off. The country has added jobs in every month of Biden’s administration—10.5 million of them—and exports are up, helping the economy to grow at 2.9% last quarter. And Walmart’s chief executive officer yesterday said that prices are coming down for toys, clothing, and sports equipment, while the chief executive officer of Kroger says prices for fresh food products are also easing. 

But, Biden said, he is “most excited” about the fact that “people are starting to feel a sense of optimism as they see the impact of the achievements in their own lives. It’s going to accelerate in months ahead, and it’s part of the broad story about the economy we’re building that works for everyone: one… that positions Americans to win the economic competition of the 21st century.”

​​“Where is it written that America can’t lead the world once again in manufacturing?” Biden said. “We’re proving it can.”

Biden has apparently tried to undercut the radical right by ignoring its demands and demonstrating an America in which everyone works together to solve our biggest problems. His trip to Arizona was in keeping with that program, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre telling reporters that his trip was about “the American manufacturing boom we’re seeing all across the country thanks to, again, his economic policies… [and] in large part thanks to the CHIPS and Science Act the President signed into law—and a historic—let’s not forget—a bipartisan piece of legislation.” 

But reporters immediately asked if President Biden would visit the border in Arizona, bowing to a right-wing talking point. Jean-Pierre responded that Biden would not engage in a political “stunt,” as the Republicans have been doing, and was instead going to Arizona “to talk about an important initiative that’s going to change Americans’ lives, specifically in Arizona.” 

The follow-up? “If the President is not going to make time to visit the border during [this] trip…, will he do it… in the new year?” 

The news from the right-wing faction in the nation often seems to steal the oxygen from the sober, stable politicians trying to address real issues and doing so with more than a little success. 

Today, fewer eyes were on the $40 billion investment in Arizona than were on the verdict in the trial of the Trump Organization and the Trump Payroll Corporation. Late this afternoon, the jury found the two entities guilty on all counts for a range of crimes surrounding the company’s payments to its senior employees through apartments, school tuition, cars, and so on, to avoid taxes. The company was charged with scheming to defraud, criminal tax fraud, falsifying business records, and conspiracy. The key witness was Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud, grand larceny, and conspiracy last August and received a reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against the company (but not against former president Trump or members of his family).  

Trump promptly issued a statement. He blamed everything on Weisselberg and promised to appeal. 

House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told reporters today the committee will make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. Those referrals, a source told Sara Murray, Annie Grayer, and Zachary Cohen of CNN, “will be focused on the main organizers and leaders of the attacks.” The Department of Justice is engaged in its own investigation, of course, but such a referral places a marker from a bipartisan group of lawmakers—many of whom are lawyers—indicating that they believe crimes have been committed. 

Special counsel Jack Smith is now in charge of investigating the events surrounding January 6 as well as Trump’s theft of government documents, and news broke today that on November 22, just two days after he began work, he sent grand-jury subpoenas to officials in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, asking for all communications officials had with Trump, his campaign, or many individuals associated with the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.   

Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris administration continues to govern. Tomorrow, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff will convene a roundtable discussion with leaders from 13 Jewish groups from across the country to discuss the rise in antisemitism. Mr. Emhoff is the first Jewish individual married to a president or a vice president, and he has called out the escalating antisemitism as the former president elevates white supremacists. 

“I do not see this just as a Jewish issue,” Emhoff said. “This is an issue for all of us. Because we’ve seen this before. This is how it started 70 years ago. So I don’t want it to feel normal. I don’t want people to think, ‘Well it’s just words, it’s just Kanye.’ No. This matters.”

And finally, tonight, as I finished up this letter, the news networks called the Georgia Senate runoff race for Democratic senator Raphael Warnock, giving the Democrats a 51–49 majority in the Senate. This means that the Democrats will have the power to issue subpoenas without getting Republicans to sign on to them. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post pointed out a few weeks ago that Democrats could use this power to demonstrate what actual congressional oversight should look like, compared to House Republicans’ threatened investigation of Hunter Biden, perhaps drowning out the Republicans’ tactic of endless “investigations” to tarnish their opponents. 

After the results came out, Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser tweeted: “Huh, so Democrats managed to pick up a Senate seat in a cycle where they should have been crushed. Consider the possibility that Joe Biden is very good at his job.”

that post is sheer lunacy.

Storming the parliament with weapons and deposing the legitimate government is not seen as "peaceful protests" but as terrorism here.