In everyone’s haste to trash the New York Times, few have commented favorably on some of their better hires. Jamelle Bouie for one, Michelle Goldberg for another. Both wrote for Slate before moving up the media food chain to the Gray Lady.

Jamelle and Michelle both recently wrote columns about the right’s obsession with wokeness. It’s an absurd term that I dislike intensely. I’m apt to take umbrage if you call me woke. If I were in a bad mood, I might even take said umbrage with an umbrella:

If Christopher Walken can be hypnotized by an umbrella so can you, my pretty. Oops, I just conflated The Wizard of Oz with Batman Returns. Never mind.

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, my dislike of the term woke. It quite simply sounds stupid. I checked in with a Black friend who is a political activist. He confirmed my belief that the term is dated and that only the white hipster left and even whiter wingnut right still use it. That woke me right up almost as much as this would:

Goldberg’s column has a swell and downright punny headline: The Right’s Obsession With Wokeness is a sign of Weakness. It is indeed, especially since John Neely Kennedy loves using the word as an epithet. Hey, Senator: Is a member of the “woke mob” a wokester?

Here’s the QOTD in all its glory:

But I’m skeptical that anti-wokeness can be the basis for a durable mass movement. That’s not just because a recent USA Today poll found that a majority of Americans see the term “woke” positively but because wokeness is too niche a concern. The Federalist Society trained many young meritocrats who were willing to devote their lives to fighting legalized abortion. It’s hard to imagine the battle against neopronouns and the 1619 Project inspiring the same sort of single-minded intensity. Ronald Reagan used to describe conservatism as a three-legged stool, comprising social conservatives, fiscal conservatives and defense hawks. These days it looks a lot more like a pogo stick.

How’s that for a closing line? I cannot possibly top that, so I’ll give Bobby Blue Bland the last word: