Conservatives use the word “woke” like a political sword. But try asking them, “What is woke?” Because chances are that, like Bethany Mandel, they’ll spew out a word salad.

What is woke?

The MAGA world promotes Mandel as its expert on “woke” education. So you’d think she would be able to define it.

Instead, when asked outside her bubble, “What is woke?” she choked. What a joke!

She finally coughed up a word salad. But it made that infamous answer Miss South Carolina Teen USA gave sound articulate.

DeSantis’ war on woke

Stolen Youth is Mandel’s book on woke education. I suspect it’s Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s favorite book. He might have it replace all the books he banned in schools. Hell, he might even have it replace the Bible in church. It doesn’t matter that reading Mandel’s book on woke would be no more informative than listening to a Trump speech on race.

Conservatives have co-opted “woke” to mean nothing more than a word version of bogeyman. It’s a bogeyword, if you will.

Liberals coined the word to describe being aware. Aware, that is, especially of the presumptions and prerogatives of race and gender, which perpetuate unfairness. It also means being sympathetic enough to want to redress that unfairness. And, unlike Mandel, anyone who knows anything about woke culture knows this.

So I don’t mind being woke. It’s better than choking, like Bethany, on MAGA lies about it.