How Trump can cleanse America of "woke" ultra-leftism

Mike Gonzalez & Armen Tooloe / Wall Street Journal

 

That the [American] electorate has rejected woke-ism should be clear by now. Donald Trump's most effective campaign ad featured the slogan "Kamala is for them. President Trump is for you." Even the liberal columnist of the New York Times, Maureen Dowd, wrote after the election that "woke is broke".

But celebrating the end of the peak of woke-ism and burying it completely are two different things. What will it take to kill the woke once and for all?

First we need to define it. Woke means believing that America is riddled with inequality, where not only its people, but the system itself is racist and in need of systemic renewal; where society is divided between the "oppressors" and the "oppressed"; where history must be erased and rewritten. This is a world of deception. But for the woke elite, it colors everything from climate policy to the Israel-Hamas war.

This elite has spent years filling every institution with policies, procedures and mandates aimed at transforming society. Diversity, equity, and inclusion measures, especially in government and academia, have created an identity-based system in which people's immutable characteristics, not their choices, determine whether they are worthy of reward or punishment.

To strike a chord at the heart of the woke, Mr. Trump and the new Congress must reverse these policies. Some of the following suggestions will be easy to implement, others more difficult. But all will help to restore normality. 

• Review and rescind all of Mr. Biden's executive orders implementing DEI* and gender theory, including Executive Order 13985, which advanced a "whole-of-government equality agenda."

Mr. Biden also signed executive orders supporting "gender-affirming" medical interventions on minors, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries. These too must be cancelled.

Mr. Trump must then sign two executive orders. The former should reinstate its 2020 repeal of DEI training for federal workers and contractors. The second should define "male" and "female" in precise biological terms, which would clarify what Biden's Title IX** rule has destructively confused and preserve the purpose of Title IX.

Congress must then pass, and Mr. Trump sign, the DEI Dismantling Act, currently in the House of Representatives, which would eliminate DEI practices throughout the federal bureaucracy.

• Cancellation of woke university internships. Mr. Trump's plan, which he announced last summer, would overhaul the accreditation system, protect free speech, eliminate redundant administrative positions and use the Justice Department to file lawsuits against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination.

• Taking back control of museums, starting with the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian museums have abandoned their mission of disseminating knowledge and are instead trying to "decolonize" society. The National Museum of African American History and Culture, for example, has an entire website mocking "white fragility" and a "white dominant culture."

Mr. Trump should ask Congress to restore the ideological balance by appointing true conservatives willing to oppose progressive views to the Board of Regents, which governs the Smithsonian. This board is responsible for appointing the Smithsonian's secretary or chief executive. The current secretary, Lonnie Bunch, says the DEI "is integral to excellence in museum practice."

• Elimination of racial and ethnic registration categories. These categories form the lifeblood of identity politics and are often synthetic - some were added to the Register only recently. The ethnoracial pentagon—American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, black, Hispanic, and white—appeared in Directive no. 15 of the US Office of Management and Budget's statistical policy in 1977 and was first used in the decennial Census in 1980.

Activists relied on what sociologist Cristina Mora called "collective amnesia," expecting Americans to believe that these identity groups were forever defined. The idea was to balkanize the nation, fuel discontent between groups and allow the left to gain power. But many members of these groups have voted for Mr. Trump in large numbers, especially this year. They are assimilated. It's time to stop dividing Americans into ethnic and racial groups.

Mr. Trump should issue an executive order directing the OMB to rescind the 1977 directive (and subsequent revisions) and order the Census Bureau to abandon these bogus categories. If the government is really interested in inequality, it should ask questions that have a real impact on people's backgrounds and perspectives, such as: "Is there a father at home?"

• Dissolution of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, which funds the public media organizations responsible for spreading the woke virus. Mr. Trump cannot control private companies, but NPR, PBS and other public broadcasters collectively receive millions of taxpayer dollars. CPB distributes more than 70% of Congress's $500 million annual appropriation to public media. This must stop. Broadcasters will make it by relying on member subscriptions.

Congress must then pass legislation repealing the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which established the CPB. It's time to close it.

This is not an exhaustive list – there could be many more – but everything here is vital to getting America out of the wake swamp.

*Mr. Gonzalez is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and co-author of NextGen Marxism. Mr. Tooloee is chief of staff to conservative activist and author Christopher Rufo.