Thomas Massie

"What does ‘woke’ really mean, anyway?"

That question came from my brother-in-law the other day. He’s smart and tries to keep up with things, but he’s not a news junkie. Given how the word "woke" gets nonsensically sprayed around by conservatives − like a Roundup attack on libs − he had every reason to be confused.

So, I gave him my own favored definition, which I'd also like to share with departing U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie of Boone County. His recent unsuccessful Republican primary campaign showed he was clueless about the term.

Why language still matters

In his final, desperate ad blitz, Massie approved the tagging of his opponent, Ed Gallrein, as "Woke Eddie." Gallrein woke? How ludicrous.

If Gallrein is woke, then so are JD Vance and Stephen Miller. Gallrein’s professed fealty to President Donald Trump easily matches those two, and if there’s one thing the flip-flopping Orange One has made consistently clear, it’s that he absolutely is not woke.

We'll get back to Massie's thought process shortly. But for now, here's my definition of woke.

I saw the definition a couple of years ago in The New York Times, where a letter writer was pushing back against a conservative columnist's derisive use of "woke." I liked it so much that I saved it on my laptop and am pleased to share here:

"Woke means being open to the fullness of truth about our shared past, present and future − the good, the bad, the ugly. Wokeness is understanding that our pluralistic, complex democracy must be open to all our voices, perspectives and stories, even and especially those of the most marginalized. In this way, wokeness is a commitment to truth and justice as the American way."

Thanks to Ethan Ready of Chapel Hill, N.C., for putting those words together. To me, they are perfect. But I can see why those on the right would hate them, because Trumpers have no interest in the "fullness of truth," or a "pluralistic complex democracy," or in hearing the voices of "the most marginalized." They’re all about scrubbing as much of that as they can from our national consciousness, lest Junior and his little White friends have to confront something "ugly" on their educational road to being good MAGAs.

Campaign rhetoric versus reality

Now back to Massie. Why would he embarrass himself by doing such an idiotic-on-its-face thing as calling Ed Gallrein woke? I guess his campaign justified it from one very thin connection: Gallrein did accept a campaign donation from the wealthy conservative Paul Singer, who has a gay son and thus exempts LGBTQ hate from his overall hard-right to-do list. (Think Rob Portman, but with taller piles of cash.) So the campaign tried, with zero real evidence, to tie Gallrein to "LGBTQ weirdos."

How foolish and despicable.

Massie knew that Gallrein, Trump's handpicked challenger, never had a "woke" thought in his life. But Massie was desperate as he entered the campaign's final weeks, so he let his braintrust wheel out any weapon they could find. His campaign gambled that some MAGA disciples would instantly leap to trash anything labeled as "woke," common sense be darned.

But it didn't work, and Massie looks pathetic for having tried it. (By the way, Massie also used Singer's Jewishness as an excuse to smear Jews in the ads.)

I bid the congressman farewell as he heads off to his farm with more words from Ready's letter to The Times:

"Staying asleep among the ranks of the unwoke is a choice. It may be more comfortable. It is also fundamentally undemocratic and un-American."

Jack Brennan is a former sportswriter for the Enquirer and the Cincinnati Post who later spent 24 years as public relations director of the Cincinnati Bengals. The Clifton resident is a member of the Enquirer’s Board of Contributors.