Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) defined “woke” as a “form of Cultural Marxism” when asked to define the word in response to former President Trump’s remark that he does not like to define the word because “half the people can’t even define it.”
When asked by NBC correspondent Dasha Burns to define the term during his campaign stop in Iowa on Saturday, DeSantis responded that it is “basically a war on the truth.”
“Look, we know what woke is, it’s a form of cultural Marxism,” DeSantis said. “It’s about putting merit and achievement behind identity politics, and it’s basically a war on the truth. And as that has infected institutions, and it has corrupted institutions. So, you’ve got to be willing to fight the woke, we’ve done that in Florida, and we proudly consider ourselves the state where woke goes to die.”
Earlier this week at the Westside Conservative Breakfast in Urbandale, Iowa, Trump said he didn’t like the term because “half the people can’t even define it.”
“I don’t like the term ‘woke’ because I hear, ‘Woke, woke, woke.’ It’s just a term they use, half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is,” Trump said.
DeSantis has adopted the idea of “wokeness” in his career and campaign in recent years, establishing the law known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” where woke is used as an acronym for “Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees.” Lawmakers say it was designed to combat “woke indoctrination” in Florida businesses and schools by prohibiting instruction that could make some parties feel they bear “personal responsibility” for historic wrongdoings because of their race, sex or national origin.
The law was challenged in court after being passed and portions of it were blocked by a federal judge, saying that it violates First Amendment protections of free speech and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause for being impermissibly vague.