Why white conservatives in the US have launched a war on ‘wokeness’

The day he launched his bid for the Republican nomination for the 2024 US presidential election, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned Fox News viewers “the woke mind virus is basically a form of cultural Marxism”.

With his trademark subtlety, DeSantis was pitching himself to the Republican base that still supports Donald Trump, the current front-runner for the nomination.

For those in the know, it was a signal. With a President DeSantis, there would be no more critical race theory. There would be fewer protections for LGBTQIA+ people. And there would be no more troubling ambiguity in textbooks or any suggestion the United States is anything other than the greatest country on earth, and always has been, and is going to be made great again. Or even greater.

Welcome to the “War on Woke”.

On Fox, DeSantis was trying to claim that he, not Trump, is the leading general in this war. But he is far from alone. Across the US, Republican-led state legislatures are unleashing a tidal wave of laws intended to enforce white conservative mores on the broader population.

The “war on woke” has involved brazen attacks on academic freedom in universities and schools; on the rights of transgender people, particularly children, to gender-affirming health care; and on any person, group or business deemed too...

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