'Woke mind virus'? 'Corporate wokeness'? Why red America has declared war on corporate America

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Twitter and Tesla, calls it “woke mind virus.” Populist Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis call it “corporate wokeness.”

‘Woke’ – a watchword long embraced by the Black community – has been co-opted by GOP activists, officials and lawmakers as a culture-war rallying cry against progressive activism. And conservatives across red America are using it to score political points as they try to stop corporations from taking public positions on political issues and social causes from abortion to immigration.

“We will never surrender to the woke mob,” DeSantis said during the inaugural address for his second term this week. “Florida is where woke goes to die.”

Republicans say they’re fighting back against the unchecked influence of liberal activists in executive suites and boardrooms.

Grievances include Delta Air Lines opposing Georgia’s restrictive voting laws and Citigroup paying for Texas employees to travel out of state for abortions. Companies suspending campaign donations to Republicans who denied the result of the 2020 presidential election following the Jan. 6 Capitol attack worsened tensions.

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“None of this has anything to do with running their companies,” said Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union. “Is it really the job of a corporate CEO to be the head of the DNC, the head of the AFL-CIO or the head of Planned Parenthood?”

Why conservatives are fighting ‘woke’ corporations

In a report prepared for the National Center for Public Policy Research, “Balancing the Boardroom: How conservatives can combat corporate wokeness,” the movement lays out its reasoning: “American corporations, hyper-politicized and corrupt as many may be, are among the few public institutions where there’s still a fighting chance to reverse course.”

Corporations have emerged as an important force in American life, says David Primo, a professor of political science and business administration at the University of Rochester.

“They are doing this because they believe the corporate voice matters,” Primo said. “If they didn’t think the corporate voice mattered, nobody would be pressuring corporations.”

Republican campaigns target CRT and ESG

The two largest conservative campaigns have gone after racial justice and sustainable investing.

Republicans appropriated the term critical race theory, or CRT, to take aim at how racism is taught, not just in schools but in private companies.

The GOP is also going after ESG, short for environmental, social, governance principles, claiming that the nation’s top money managers – BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street – are pursuing an ideological agenda at the expense of financial returns.

These campaigns are expected to grow with Republicans in control of the House and most state legislatures and DeSantis emerging as a probable 2024 presidential candidate.

DeSantis is chief ‘woke’ warrior in GOP

DeSantis has built his brand, in part, on attacking corporate America, from punishing Walt Disney for criticizing a state law limiting education about gender identity and sexual orientation in public classrooms to passing a law that restricts what kind of diversity training corporations can offer employees (legislation he dubbed the “Stop WOKE” Act.)

Also, Florida has pulled billions of state assets managed by BlackRock in a standoff with the world’s largest money manager over its ESG investment policies.

When DeSantis won reelection in November, he devoted part of his victory speech to “wokeism.”

“We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations,” he said.

How DeSantis defines ‘woke’

The term “woke” dates back to the early 20th century. Traditionally, it was a call to Black people around the world to “wake up” to anti-Blackness and racial oppression.

Greater vigilance was again urged after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

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DeSantis has been among the most prominent conservatives to co-opt the term and change its meaning.

Gray Rohrer of the news outlet Florida Politics was in the courtroom recently when DeSantis staffers answered that question.

Taryn Fenske, DeSantis’ communications director, said “woke” was a “slang term” for “progressive activism.”

Ryan Newman, DeSantis’ general counsel, said it was “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”

Newman said that DeSantis doesn’t believe there are systemic injustices in the U.S.

Congressional hearings to grill ‘woke’ executives

Corporations are bracing for 2023 to be a year of red-hot partisan rhetoric.

GOP scrutiny is expected to intensify with the Republican-controlled House planning congressional hearings.

“Corporations still have employees asking for more not less, so I think they will have to do this dance, where in-house they talk about inclusivity and how they treat their employees and about what kind of philanthropy they engage in and so forth,” said Abhinav Gupta, associate professor of management at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. “But staying out of the political news cycle is something they definitely want to do.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ron DeSantis, Republicans are at war with ‘woke’ business: This is why

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