Can Anti-Wokeism Be the Glue That Holds the GOP Together?
It would be both unconscionable and political malpractice of the highest order for Republicans not to defend the un-Woke, unwashed masses against the onslaught of Wokeism by aggressively targeting it
Can Anti-Wokeism Be the Glue That Holds the GOP Together?
A funny thing happened en route to a brawl between nationalist-populist MAGA world, MAGA-averse conservative groups, and GOP establishment organs heading into 2024.
Despite the internecine warfare in which these cohorts competed against one another in key races from Ohio to Pennsylvania to Arizona during the 2022 midterm elections, in at least one significant contest early in this cycle, the parties called a truce.
Contrary to corporate media predictions—or was it wishcasting?—of a coming GOP civil war in Indiana over a U.S. Senate seat set to open in 2024, the likes of Donald Trump, the Club for Growth, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee all set aside their differences in endorsing Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) to succeed incumbent Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), who is now running for governor.
Banks, a Hoosier congressman now in his fourth term, established himself as a force on the Hill as chairman of the Republican Study Committee—the largest caucus of House conservatives.
While there, he notably argued in a memo to then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) that Republicans ought to cultivate the working-class constituency that President Donald Trump had delivered them by building on the politics and policies that had so greatly appealed to such voters.
Pivotal to Banks' argument was the idea that Wokeism was a direct affront to the values and interests of everyday Americans of all races, colors, and creeds, and that it was incumbent upon Republicans to fight Wokeism in these voters' defense.
It is in this battle—against Wokeism—perhaps above all others, that Rep. Banks has distinguished himself. Just days before declaring his run for the Indiana Senate seat, the congressman announced he would be establishing the first ever Anti-Woke caucus. Wokeism, Banks argued last month, poses the "greatest domestic threat to America today." In a subsequent interview, Banks called Wokeism "a cancer in the federal government and American culture. We need to identify it and uproot it." The impending U.S. House Anti-Woke Caucus would therefore aim to expose Wokeism's march throughout every federal agency, and to defund it. "No bill that spends taxpayer dollars on leftist activities should pass out of committee without a recorded vote on an amendment to defund wokeness," he said.
With Congressman Banks making fighting Wokeism a central theme of his Senate candidacy—a unique aspect of a candidacy that has garnered support across the entire GOP spectrum—this raises a question: Could anti-Wokeism be the glue that holds the Republican Party together?
I make the case for it in a new piece at Newsweek, which you can read in full here.
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