Republican voters don’t really care for the war on woke. That doesn’t mean it will end.
It was nearly two hours into the first Republican primary debate before any of the eight contenders on stage uttered the word “woke.”
The silence on what has been a rallying call for some Republicans, many of whom were on the stage, was notable, and adds to a growing body of evidence that Republican attacks on schools and curriculum may not be resonating, even with their own voters.
Republicans have been waging a “war on wokeness” since Donald Trump took office, even though it had not yet been assigned that name. Recent polls show, however, that Republican voters don’t care much for it. A July New York Times and Siena College poll of Republican voters conducted nationally found that candidates wouldn’t necessarily gain support for simply focusing on quashing “wokeness,” or left-wing ideology, in schools, corporations, or culture at large. Instead, they were more interested in candidates who focused on the economy or on “law and order.” Perhaps Republicans got the message and pivoted away from the term just in time for the debate.
But even if Republicans back away from the rhetoric of anti-wokeness on the campaign trail, the policies and atmosphere they have promoted continue to affect people’s lives.