 "Our country will be woke no longer, says Trump: How 'wokeness' divides US politics")
In his joint address to Congress on Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump declared that America would no longer embrace ‘wokeness,’ highlighting his administration’s efforts to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies from the federal government, military, and private sector.
“We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military. And our country will be woke no longer,” Trump said.
He also highlighted his stance on gender identity policies , urging Congress to criminalise gender transitions for minors:
“And now, I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalising sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.”
Trump claimed that his administration’s anti-woke policies had already improved the morale and recruitment efforts in the military.
“Because we’re getting wokeness out of our schools and out of our military, and it’s already out, and it’s out of our society. We don’t want it. Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad. It’s gone. It’s gone. And we feel so much better for it. Don’t we? Don’t we feel better? Our service members won’t be activists and ideologues. They will be fighters and warriors. They will fight for our country…”
Trump also claimed that there was an an improvement in military recruitment, stating, “I am pleased to report that in January, the US Army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years and that all armed services are having among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services.”
How did the term ‘woke’ come around?
While the term ‘woke’ has been frequently used in contemporary political discourse, its origins date back to the early 20th century in Black American communities. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ‘woke’ originally meant being informed and conscious of social injustices and racial inequality.
The term is believed to have gained prominence through the 1930s protest song “Scottsboro Boys” by blues musician Lead Belly. In the song, Lead Belly urged Black Americans to “stay woke” as a warning against racial violence, referencing the Scottsboro Boys case, in which nine Black teenagers were falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931.
The term re-emerged during the 2014 Ferguson protests following the police shooting of Michael Brown, gaining further traction through the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Activists used ‘stay woke’ to highlight police brutality and racial injustice, spreading the term widely across social media and activist circles.
Over time, ‘woke’ extended beyond racial issues to include a broad range of social justice causes, including gender rights, LGBTQ+ rights, economic disparities, and systemic inequalities.
How has the term ‘woke’ been politicised since?
By the late 2010s, the term ‘woke’ had been appropriated by Republican politicians and conservative commentators, often using it pejoratively to criticise progressive policies. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, US President Donald Trump, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have been among the most vocal critics of ‘woke’ ideologies.
In his 2022 election night speech, DeSantis declared, “We reject woke ideology. We will never ever surrender to the woke agenda. People have come here because of our policies.”
His administration later banned spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes at public universities and placed restrictions on race-related content in schools. The Parental Rights in Education Law and the “Stop WOKE Act” were introduced to limit classroom discussions on race, gender, and oppression.
Similarly, Trump and other Republicans have increasingly used ‘woke’ as a broad criticism of leftist social movements, tying it to concepts such as critical race theory, affirmative action, and gender identity policies.
DeSantis’ administration defined ‘woke’ as “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them,” a definition widely used by conservatives to frame progressive activism as divisive and extreme.
So is being ‘woke’ — just performative activism or actual social awareness?
As the term ‘woke’ gained mainstream traction, it also faced criticism from multiple sides of the political spectrum. While conservatives used it derisively, some progressives and leftists argued that ‘wokeness’ had become performative and corporate-driven.
The rise of “woke capitalism” and “woke-washing” — where corporations adopt social justice rhetoric for marketing purposes — sparked debates over the sincerity of corporate activism. Critics argued that many brands exploited progressive values without enacting meaningful change, leading to a backlash against what some viewed as hollow virtue signaling.
Linguist and social critic John McWhorter compared the trajectory of ‘woke’ to that of ‘politically correct,’ another term that originated in progressive circles but was later repurposed by conservatives as an insult.
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Even former US President Barack Obama weighed in on the topic, cautioning against rigid ideological purity and “cancel culture.”
By 2018, the perception of “woke” had shifted negatively — an NPR commentator urged leftists to abandon the term, while conservatives increasingly associated it with performative progressive activism.
During the 2019 Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, Obama stated, “This idea of purity, and you’re never compromised, and you’re always politically woke, and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
Some argue that the push against wokeness represents a backlash against progressive social changes, while others view it as a necessary correction to what they see as ideological overreach in schools, corporations and government institutions.
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