Orion's Cold Fire

The woman to whom I am married, the mother of my children and the one who serves me splendiferous food every day is not a conservative.  By this I don’t imply that she is a progressive.  Far from it.  She’s a traditionalist who saw her career as raising children, grandchildren and various creatures like dogs, birds, hamsters, lizards, turtles, frogs and hermit crabs.  But she knows nothing of politics and doesn’t want to.  She also refuses to vote.  Ever.

She claims to be an Italian American peasant woman and nothing else.  And after years of trying to explain to her why the country is going to hell in a handbasket and failing to interest her in any of it, I gave up.  Other than uttering expletives about Biden and company in her presence I’ve let things be.

So, I was caught off guard today when she asked me, “What is woke?”

I was sort of dumbfounded, for a minute I was speechless.  But then I took the opportunity to capitalize on South Park’s handy-dandy formulation.  I said, “You know how recently Disney decided to remake “Snow White” with a Snow White that isn’t White?  That’s what woke is.”  I then explained what diversity, equity and inclusion means and summed it up as basically anti-white hate.  I told her the theory is that because of past injustices we can’t treat people all the same but must discriminate against white people.  And just because I love listening to it I, I played her the video of Cartman endlessly saying, “Put a chick in it and make her gay and lame.”

And afterward she said she understood.  I started to expand on how things like Drag Queen Story Hour and pediatric transgender affirming surgery were also the fruits of “woke” but at that point she had heard enough and moved on to other activities that were more pressing to her like getting the dogs out for some exercise.

So, I reflected on this strange situation.  Had the revolt against wokeness reached such a dominant place in American life that even an apolitical soul like Camera Girl had been exposed to it in her daily on-line routine which mostly revolved around basset hound and cooking videos?  I had to assume it was the case.  And now the outrage over the obvious idiocy of the policies being applied was no longer stoppable.  Powerful companies like Disney were being mocked openly and regular people were aware of the worthlessness of these policies.  Even the staunch defenders of the woke ideology have a hard time defending some of the transparently awful results.

Maybe we have finally reached the tipping point.  I thought the straw that broke the camel’s back would be the pediatric transgender clinics.  I assumed anything that dystopian and monstrous would wake up the masses and have them grab the torches and pitchforks and storm the barricades.  But if South Park and the race swapping of Jake from State Farm have to be the trigger then I say why not?  Is it any stranger than the Boston Tea Party?  Give me liberty or give me death or maybe put a chick in it and make her gay and lame.