Thursday’s CBS Mornings liberal newscast offered three teases, followed by nearly eight minutes of mocking and warning about the right’s opposition to wokeness.
CBS’s disjointed conclusion? The right will continue to slam the left for not being fully woken, leading to more political violence (though it’ll be primarily from the right).
Naturally, Tony Dokoupil, socialist co-host, took aim at Governor Ron DeSantis, R-FL, for what Dokoupil complained was “say[ing]” the word work “a lot.”
He promised to “explore the meaning of woke” in a second tease. “Republicans are using ‘woke’ to sum up America’s future battle” to further divide the country, while “the culture war” is a new front.
“Well, this morning we are discussing what is at stake during the midterm elections, and a buzzword that you’ve probably heard quite a bit recently is that of ‘woke’,” Dokoupil said as he began his lengthy report.
The poll also revealed that “two-thirds” of Americans believe their rights and freedoms “are what’s at stake in November.” This is a reflection that Americans have “very different visions of America right now and in the future, and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in Florida.”
Dokoupil then took aim at DeSantis, lamenting the fact that the Sunshine State leader “has what amounts “to his very own fight song”, “a campaign ad inspired Top Gun” and “the word woke serving to serve as the “one political goal he seems to favor over all others.”
Dokoupil then had an asidebar with Senator Rick Scott, (R-FL), in which he asked Scott for a definition of the term woke. Scott, after some meandering, suggested that it had to do with hatred for the country, and dividing Americans according to race.
Dokoupil was referring to Merriam-Webster’s definition of woke as “aware of important facts and actively attentive to them” and he shifted to James Davison Hunter at the University of Virginia. Hunter worries that the right has made “woke” into a “dog whistle for anyone on the Left and anything that smacks of progressive politics” and the latest culture war that dates back to Newt Gingrich and his GOP in the 1990s.
Does CBS listen to its own? It is ironic that CBS, one of the liberal networks bent on smearing Republicans and conservatives, is feigning outrage over divisiveness.
Hunter and Dokoupil zoomed in further to argue that the GOP’s talk about fighting woke culture has dangerous consequences (and, namely the insinuation of further violence by the right like on January 6). Dokoupil did interview a far-left Florida representative who was apocalyptic towards the GOP. Click “expand”:
DOKOUPIL: Hunter is worried that the fight for power has escalated and our ability to communicate with one another has been hampered. [TO HUNTER] In theory, politics is how we resolve conflicts.
HUNTER: Exactly.
DOKOUPIL [TO HUNTER]: We don’t come to violence.
HUNTER: Exactly.
DOKOUPIL [TO HUNTER]: Does politics still work?
HUNTER: This is part of the problem. Culture is driving politics today. People will choose other strategies to achieve their goals if they don’t see a way out of politics. There will be more violence in the future, I think.
DOKOUPIL: He predicts more violence, as well as more elections in which results are not accepted by all parties. That is the greatest threat to America, according to Ana Eskamani, Democratic Florida State Representative. [TO ESKAMANI] What does woke for you?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE, ANA ESKAMANI – (D-FL),: It simply means being aware about your history.
DOKOUPIL: Her Orlando office is filled full of slogans and pictures that show you where she stands on issues and give you a hint as to why she is so determined to fight. [TO ESKAMANI] Does there need to be compromise?
ESKAMANI : It’s very difficult for us to compromise on a policy which erases the history and culture of people of color. I was able to have this conversation with the Republican leadership about abortion. But, you know, where is the compromise? It’s difficult to compromise when I’m being told that I’m less than and that I don’t have the same rights — as you.
DOKOUPIL – This unbending attitude is also found on the Republican side.
SCOTT: They want freedom and control. They do exactly that. They do this with socialism. They take away your freedoms. It sounds great, right? It’s actually evil in the end.
Dokoupil retorted to hit DeSantis.
Many Americans believe that this is a distraction. This includes Charlie Crist who is running against DeSantis to be governor. He stated that Republicans create new boogeymen every election instead of solving problems and making people’s lives better.
Hunter suggested that violence was coming. He said again before going live with the frustrated co-hosts Gayle Kings and Nate Burleson.
Dokoupil used the occasion of Americans struggling to make ends met to have his co-hosts support him in arguing that democracy’s fate (or whatever it means) should be paramount. King stated that she was afraid of the future and was frightened. Click “expand” to see more:
DOKOUPIL – These are often referred to as distractions, when what really matters, is the economy and healthcare. But these are the core issues of who people are and who we are as citizens. The Black American culture is the origin of the term “woke”. It was used to discuss racial inequalities. It has been a way to talk about racial inequality.
(….)
KING: Yeah. I love the professor, and what he is saying. This is extremely important. Although I hope he is wrong, I believe he means that you can expect more violence in the future. Tony, I already see signs of this.
DOKOUPIL: Oh, absolutely.
KING: They look very scary.
DOKOUPIL: In the 90s, a professor at University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture wrote a book called “Before the Shooting Starts”. It was about how shooting wars always precede culture wars. He was referring to violence around abortion. He came up with the title five days before the first right-wing attack against an abortion clinic in America. He’s very adept at anticipating what people internalize to be motivations for violence. His current message is that when there is no compromise and one side is saying evil, the other side is saying you’re not — you are denying my humanity, these are terms for violence.
Advertisers such as Crest, Nature’s Bounty and Crest made CBS’s outrage at the right’s divisiveness possible. Follow these links to view their contact information on the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back Page.
Click here to view the October 13 CBS transcript.
