I’ve been watching the debate over how to define “woke” for the past week. On one side, you have the Right calling out wokeness and using it as an adjective for a lot of what they stand against. On the other side, you have the Left saying that when the Right opposes “wokeness” they are really against equality and justice for all.
But to us blue collar folks, this whole conversation is just completely irrelevant. Anti-woke policies, like a lot of what passes for social justice, are just boutique issues that bypass those of us in the working class trying to make it in this country.
Sadly, neither side has a monopoly on being irrelevant to working-class Americans. The Left has its support for climate change extremism, student debt forgiveness, the war in Ukraine, political correctness, and transgender activism. These just aren’t our issues. I talk to working Americans every day, those who work with me on the railroad, those who service us in small town and gas stations and supermarkets and local gyms and hotels. This stuff isn’t on our radar.
But neither is the Right’s culture war battles that you see on Fox News every day. Of the hundreds of Americans I’ve talked to recently about their top issues, not one of them mentioned drag queen story hour, critical race theory, or Hunter Biden‘s laptop as a major concern.
What are the top things I hear mentioned? The price of gas, food, and housing, and the struggle for good jobs.
It’s true that when social issues come up, the folks I meet tend to be on the side of the Republicans. But these issues aren’t the ones that would get them excited about going to the polls. They’re just too far down on the priorities list.
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And none of us are likely to ignore the fact that housing prices are soaring all across the country and the GOP has done nothing to help their voters weather the storm. It’s a tough challenge to solve. I get that. But this isn’t something you ever hear them talking about.
If Republicans spent one tenth of the time talking about housing that they do talking about drag queens, they’d figure out how to help the working class. Instead, they do nothing to spur on development and nothing to stop private equity firms from buying up entire subdivisions and turning them into nothing but rentals.
And instead of explaining to us how they plan to bring down the price of chicken and eggs, they go on Twitter and complain about woke this and woke that. I have a news flash for the GOP: It’s not wokeness that’s making groceries unaffordable.
Then there’s the price of gas, which is still high enough that it’s hurting working class folks. But there’s been no real push to expand manufacturing and drilling to help ease gas prices, and certainly no push to end the war in Ukraine, which is when gas prices started to skyrocket.
Gas prices being lower would also lower shipping costs and the costs of all goods would come down, giving people a little extra money in their pockets while they live their day to day lives. Imagine paying 25 to 30 bucks a week for gas instead of 50 to 60. It might not sound like a lot to the elites who take Ubers to and from work, but to us this is big money.
No matter what people think about “woke” issues, when it all comes down to it, people want to take care of themselves and their families. When that isn’t happening, it’s hard to get that worked up about drag queen story hour or some classes on white privilege being preached at the local school—even if you don’t like those things, and many of us don’t.
The Left has its luxury beliefs, like open borders and Defund the Police. But so does the Right, and it’s the war on wokeness.
If the GOP really wants to have more voters engaged in those issues, address our day to day concerns such as food, gas, housing prices, and jobs. Until then, at least as far as I’m concerned, addressing “wokeness” is a smokescreen for not handling these day-to-day issues.
Charles Stallworth is a union railroad worker.
The views in this article are the writer’s own.
