Banks Emerges As Leader in Fight Against the Woke

Benjamin Weingarten writes for Real Clear Politics about a member of Congress who’s standing against the woke.

At a time when Republicans are increasingly asserting themselves in battles over a coterie of acronyms that have captured the commanding heights of American society – ESG, DEI, and CRT – Rep. Jim Banks has emerged as a leader in the GOP-controlled House of the fight against the “wokeism” these theories collectively represent.

A fourth-term congressman from Indiana, Banks has earned his anti-woke bona fides by engaging in high-profile clashes with military officials over their embrace of “anti-racist” literature and related initiatives, the Chamber of Commerce over issues ranging from woke capitalism to China, and Twitter over his “misgendering” of Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine.

During his tenure chairing the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House, Banks advocated in a memo to then-minority leader Kevin McCarthy that the party make fighting wokeism an essential part of the GOP’s effort to court working class voters.

This January, he announced his most ambitious effort yet: Banks would be building a new anti-woke caucus. The timing of the announcement came within days of a bigger one – that Banks would be running for an open U.S. Senate seat in 2024. …

… Weingarten: President Biden recently put out an affirmatively advancing equity executive order 2.0. I’m curious as to your thoughts generally on the two such orders, and what Republicans in Congress are obligated to do to combat them.

Banks: Wokeism is a cancer that’s going to eat our country inside out and kill us if we don’t do something about it, and the Biden administration doubling down on it is just a testament to how important it is for Republicans to do something about it now. …

… [W]e started it because we believe it’s important, and one of the duties that we have with the Anti-Woke Caucus is to help members understand what wokeism is and develop a strategy across the board of what to do about it.