Right-Wing Activism

By Wayne Brown

DeSantis, GOP are fighting against 'woke.' But what does that mean?

After the stunning victory of reversing Roe-Vs-Wade, Right Wing Activists* are now going after how we think: blatantly shutting down any view of society and history that conflicts with theirs. DeSantis takes particular pride in actually shutting down or taking over educational institutions and curricula that teach "woke" stuff, such as how America really works from the viewpoint of people he doesn't like (or pretends not to like), such as LGTQ+, non-whites, Liberals and Democrats.

The movement itself seems to have gathered steam as a backlash against the Black Lives Matter protests.

What inspired me to write this is that "woke" now includes ESG Investing or what most of us would call responsible investing. The US Congress is attempting to force pension funds not to take ESG considerations into account. Biden will veto the measure, but the point is that ESG is now "woke." and anti-woke seems to be the theme of the Republican Party going into the 2024 elections.

Why this matters in this blog is that concern for the climate is now "woke," further polarizing the issue. For example, a "woke" investor would refrain from investing in new oil and gas infrastructure, exploration, or drilling**.

Such brute-force activism polarizes the issue further and acts as a mirror image of the activism that drives the "other side." It is similar to Fox News, which looks like a news network but isolates its right-wing audience from awkward news ("fake news").

So an anti-woke educational system will look like a regular educational system, but, to my eyes, it starts to look like 1984.

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* Hitler was a right-wing activist. Just saying.
** While I am skeptical of efforts to fight climate change, I think an important feature of a democratic society is the ability to vote with our dollars. In fact, sad to say, such votes have more influence than the paper we pop in a box from time to time. From a long-term investment point of view, it is quite sensible to worry that oil and gas assets will be "stranded" as alternatives are developed. Similar considerations apply to the other ESG categories. For example, a union busing company (such as Starbucks) is vulnerable to labor unrest, making investment risky or, to put a fine point on it, making the stock over-valued. You can have these concerns even if they are not "moral" in the usual sense.

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