Even a Stopped Clock: Trump Apparently Thinks the Word ‘Woke’ Is Overused by the Right

Donald Trump, who is set to run once again for president of the United States next year, has announced that he no longer likes the word “woke,” which conservatives have been increasingly using as a target for the ire they use to motivate their base. He claims that this is because it’s a term that is thrown around so loosely, and not many people actually know what it means.

While speaking in Urbandale, Iowa, at the Westside Conservative Club, he said, “And I don’t like the term ‘woke,’ because I hear ‘woke, woke woke.’ You know, it’s like just a term that half the people can’t even define it. They don’t know what it is.”

So if even Trump doesn’t want to use the word anymore, where did it come from? What does it actually mean?

Well, the term “woke” has been used since the early 1900s, among Black Americans, as a reference to being aware of (or awoken to) white supremacists and racism around them. Now, it’s used by both centrists and conservatives to describe leftist ideas. Centrists use it to describe certain ideologies that center around social justice—or when they believe someone has been called an “ist” or a “phobic” too quickly. Conservatives, on the other hand, use it for just about anything that they don’t like, and it’s therefore dismissed by some as a dog whistle phrase for movements, such as racial justice.

However, Trump saying that he isn’t a fan of the word is quite a U-turn. He recently said that Disney was “woke” on his social media platform Truth Social. he wrote, “Disney has become a Woke and Disgusting shadow of its former self, with people actually hating it. Must go back to what it once was, or the ‘market’ will do irreparable damage.”

Trump’s sudden change of heart is, of course, centered on the word itself, rather than saying the GOP should change course on the underlying issues they’ve deemed “woke.” As someone who’s obsessed with branding and appearances, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him publicly distance himself from the term if he doesn’t think it’s helping him gain support.

Or his sudden distaste for it could simply be a jab at his GOP presidential primary rival Ron DeSantis. The governor often uses “woke” and “wokeness” as buzzwords. DeSantis has described Florida as the “state where wokeness goes to die” as he’s set about restricting education about gender identity, sex, and racism in schools within the state. Though their obsessive issues with gender and the trans community are things they have in common, as the former president has made numerous “jokes” at plenty of his rallies about transgender women and their participation in sports.

Trump has previously written on his platform of DeSantis’s failure to punish Disney after they opposed his restrictions in schools, writing, “DeSanctus is being absolutely destroyed by Disney. His original P.R. plan fizzled, so now he’s going back with a new one in order to save face.” Trump sees how focusing on “wokeness” is working out for DeSantis public relations, and as usual, he’s happy to immediately turn against anyone and anything if it will benefit him.

But this could just be one of Trump’s tantrums, the man may calm down and tomorrow announce that woke is the best word in the English language, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see …

(featured image: Scott Olson/Getty Images)