Is Woke Dead?

Joseph Backholm and Ashley Vaughan tackle one of the most controversial cultural and political issues in America today: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). As North Carolina lawmakers debate legislation targeting DEI programs in schools, universities, and state agencies, Joseph and Ashley unpack what DEI actually means, why it exploded into the national spotlight after 2020, and whether it promotes justice—or creates deeper division.

The conversation explores meritocracy, race-conscious policies, education, worldview differences, and how Christians should think about race, history, justice, and identity. They also discuss public education, school choice, “wokeness,” and whether America should focus more on correcting the past or building a healthier future.

This episode dives into one of the defining cultural debates of our time with honesty, nuance, and conviction.

Transcript

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Welcome to Politics for Happy People. So glad that you are with us. This is the place where we have fun conversations about serious issues. I'm Joseph Backholm, joined once again by Ashley Baum. Ashley. Hey Joseph. Good to see you. Our serious conversation today is uh DEI. Diversity, equity, and inclusion. Um, the reason we're going to talk about this today uh is because last year in the North Carolina legislature, they passed three bills dealing with DEI in various ways, which were passed by the legislature, vetoed by the governor, and they now are on the veto calendar. The Senate has, in fact, overridden the veto. And uh, to catch people up who may not know how that works, it requires two-thirds of both bodies in the legislature to override a veto. That's happened in the Senate. It has not yet happened in the House. It keeps coming up on the House calendar. Um, and there's some question about whether this will happen. But uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about those bills, but we're gonna talk even more broadly today about this whole DEI conversation, which probably won't be brand new to people. But figuring out whether these are bills that should be overridden, this broader cultural conversation that that uh you know we're having about DEI and discrimination and race and equity and goodness. So Ashley, when when somebody says like DEI, what do you think of? Like what comes to mind for you, just like instinctively? I think of wokeness and education. That's what I mean specifically in education. I do. Yeah, I do. I think of it, I think of it in education, but I suppose you're right, it's it's played out, you know, in the corporate world and in basically every sector of society. Yeah, totally. I mean, the the one of the things that that is at issue in these in these specific bills is DEI offices. And one of the things the legislatures try to do is say, you know, universities, you may not have a DEI office. Schools, you may not have a DEI office. And we know lots of companies have for a long time had a DEI office, which kind of is the place where they focus on quotas related to, you know, race and a variety of kind of LGBT things. But you think about it in education, is that I mean, is that because you've come at it as a mom? Probably. It's probably because that's been my experience with it in higher education. Yeah. As a student. Did did you experience did you run into it as a student, do you think? I mean, I think in any university for the past couple of decades, it's sort of been kind of the air that you breathe, you know? That's the way it was. Everyone sort of accepted the fact that there was a diversity in the office. And I think, you know, that they their their efforts and their prominence kind of increased as we moved, I think, towards, you know, 2020. I think certainly there was a DEI kind of emphasis that increased after Trump was elected in 2016. I I think at least in the educational world where I was, I was getting my PhD at that time. Um and and also, you know, as I've thought through what do I want for my children's education? Like, what do I want them to be taught about race? Like, what do I want them to be taught about who they are and and how to think about people who look different than them, whether it be skin color or or hair or you know, any difference, you know? Um, what what what do I want my kids to be taught? And it's it is um it is important to me that that what they're taught is is in accordance with with our family values and our beliefs. As you experience I I feel like, and I I don't like saying I feel like because I'm I'm just trying to think about how we've experienced this issue culturally. Um, because race is not a new issue. And I went to college, you know, 25 years ago now, so it's been a minute. Um and and race was a big issue then. But I feel like the term DEI and diversity, equity, and inclusion, and kind of the intensity of that is much more recent than that. And you mentioned like the Trump administration, and I I did not do this research in anticipation of this conversation, but that feels about right because the big thing, you know, the the the narrative around Trump was he's racist, he's evidence of this and sexist. Of course, and sexist. Yeah. Um, but he's you know, he's racist and he's evidence of this Christian white nationalist resurgent that hates all brown people. And and so that kind of maybe led to an intensification that you know became the the modern, the more modern DEI movement. Do you think that's fair? As you just kind of explained. I do. I would I would tie it to that. I think it was sort of a it ramped up, I think, in response to to Trump and and his rise, although he sort of, I think, appealed to people because he also wasn't into being politically correct and following the sort of the established norms that we had had around how do you speak about Yeah, he blew that up for sure. Yeah, how do you speak about different races? How do you speak about women? How do you speak about any number of topics? And so it was sort of a uh, I don't know, that I think that was a conglomeration of of factors that sort of came together. And um, and and certainly, I mean, we also have to mention 2020 and and COVID and and and George Floyd and and all the angst of that time really brought a lot of this to a head in so many sectors of society, in in in the church, in in education, in in politics, in the corporate world. It was it was um it definitely came came to a head around 2020, 2021, that time. I yeah, I mean it feels like the the kind of the George Floyd Summer of Love was really kind of the peak of the of the conflict and they're all all of these race riots. And and and I think this is an important conversation to have when we when we're talking about DEI. We have to understand what we're talking about. And and we kind of have this in in in so many of our public conversations, we think we know what we mean when we say I like DEI or I don't like DEI, but what I mean may not be what you mean, and we each have our own definition, so we're responding to something, and we assume the other person is thinking about it in the same way. And I think not doing that is really important, which is why you have to define the terms that you're talking about. I think that's a good point. So, how do you define how would you define DEI and and and where do you do you agree with any tenets of it, or do you yeah, uh check the entire thing? I mean that and and and that you know, this is the kind of the narrative war, the semantic part of the culture war, because when we talk about do I like diversity? Well, on some level, sure. I mean, in in what sense? I don't want diversity of character, I want only good people. Um do I care about, you know, is is ethnic and racial diversity valuable? Sure it is, because it represents different experiences and different contexts and we can learn from people who are different than us. Uh is it ultimately valuable? No. But I mean, equity, do I want equity? In the sense that most people mean it? No, I don't, because I think what they mean by equity is we want to have an equal outcome for everyone. That's kind of that's that's why equity is different than equality. Do you think they want equal outcomes for every individual, or do you think they want equal outcomes in groups? Groups, yeah. It wokeness kind of focuses on um group outcomes so that all of the Hispanic people and all of the white people and all of the Asian people and all of the black people as a demographic have the same outcome. That's that's how they perceive equity. It's a little bit difficult though when we don't all fit neatly into one of those categories. We don't. Yes. And and that's why I would say, you know, as we define diversity, equity, and inclusion, do I share the goal of, do I want people treated equally? Yes. Right. And I think justice requires that everybody gets what they deserve. But they don't get what they deserve based on their identity category of their gender or their ethnicity. I think we get what we deserve based more on our character and how we behave and the decisions that we make, and I want the law to treat everybody the same. But I do not desire a world in which everybody has the same outcome because I do not believe everybody is getting the same inputs. And so I think it is actually unjust for people to have the same outcomes if they are differently situated in material ways. The lazy and the dishonest should not have the same outcomes as the industrious and the honest. And in a world in which the government tries to create the same outcome for those people, I think is actually unjust, even if it's equitable, as they would understand that. So I'm kind of rolling through these terms: diversity, equity, and inclusion. Inclusion, do I want people to be included? Well, yeah. I mean, again, I'm gonna some of the same sentiments that I just shared would apply to this. Um one by ver, I mean, because we all are made in the image of God and we all have indignity, everybody has worth, that that value and that worth should be recognized and appreciated and honored, and they should have opportunities to fulfill their God-given potential. And if that's what you mean by inclusion, I'm here for it. But let's talk about the problems, right? Because now I'm gonna refer to these bills that are actually being um considered and may in fact be overridden in the next handful of weeks, but we don't know this. But these bills have um they've eliminated there's one bill to eliminate DEI in public education, there's one bill to eliminate DEI in public higher education, and so that's just you know, high schools and grammar schools, and then the universities basically doing the same thing, and then the other applying to state agencies. So all of the all of the government agencies around the state saying you can't have DEI. And now what do they mean by this? Because they actually have to define terms because that's what happens in in the law. And they are eliminating the discriminatory practices, and I'll put that in quotes because that's that's the term. They they don't want discriminatory practices to exist in what they refer to as um treating an individual differently, based on a protected class, solely to advantage or disadvantage that individual compared to others. And and that is what they refer to as a discriminatory policy. So admittance quotas, you know, great inflation based on race, if that were that that were kind of a thing. And so it's the idea that if you privilege one ethnicity, you are necessarily disadvantaging another ethnicity who would not get the points that those who are um being privileged would receive. Now, there's also this concept in these bills, they they refer to them as a divisive concept that is banned. And this is, you know, this gets tricky and hard, but the bills enumerate specific prohibited concepts that they're gonna say you can't talk about this in high school, you can't talk about this in college, including that one race or sex is inherently superior to another, that a meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist, and that the rule of law does not exist. Do you agree, Ashley, that those are divisive concepts that should not be discussed in school? Well, I do agree that those are divisive concepts. That one race is or sex is inherently superior to another? Yeah, that's a that is Or inferior. Yeah. If you teach that, that's that's divisive. That is that's gonna upset people, you know? Well, I have a yes, I mean it I agree. It it's hard to say that we're gonna ban divisive concepts. Uh well, that's why I said you said, do you agree that these are divisive concepts? I said yes. And then you said that should be banned in the city. No, you're right, you're right. And I was going to say, I think, um, I think there's a difference between curriculum and how something is being taught and the materials that are being used. And um and and that is easier to address than simply addressing kind of like discussions surrounding our particular topic. Um, I I think it's hard to say you can't talk about this topic in this particular way. Yes, and and and that is, you know, I think you're getting at one of the hard parts of this whole conversation for me, because I have this version of DEI in my mind, and I kind of described some of it that I think is terribly unhelpful and destructive. And I don't want children being taught that to view the world that way. But I also have a real problem with, and in and in fairness, these bills specifically say we're not banning any First Amendment protected speech, right? So that the Constitution always applies, the First Amendment applies, the bills recognize that. So I'm not I'm not trying to um suggest that the authors of these bills are somehow trying to censor speech because they are affirmatively not. But how do you say this worldview cannot be taught? This ideology cannot be taught, and that's kind of what they're trying to do, and that's really tricky. Well, it is tricky, and uh, we don't want that happening to us as as believers either. We want to be able to share our beliefs, you know. I mean, people say Christian worldview, but basically that just means this is how I look at this because of my basic understanding of life, which comes from the Bible. And we know for sure that the apostles of DEI who who who try to promote this in their university or in their school system or their government agencies believe they are doing the right thing. They believe that they are fighting for a kinder, gentler, more just world. They do. Well, it you know, I've thought a lot about this, and it's like, you know, you went through the terms diversity, equity, inclusion, you know, those all they do sound like good things. And in a way, I want all of those things too. But at the end of the day, what it comes down to is how are we trying to achieve that? And if the method by which we are trying to achieve that is unjust, and that's why you see DEI coming into conflict with the idea of a meritocracy, because people kind of instinctively understand that if you're going to disadvantage people who have worked hard or who have certain skills and talents, you know, in order to make space for people who have not achieved those standards, that that rubs us, that rubs us really wrong in a deep way. And and and proponents of DEI, they they have an answer to that, right? You know, um, they they believe that that they actually believe that it is just to do this this correcting equity, essentially, um, because of the the the years and years of of injustice and because of our history, um, and and it shows up, you know, in in the Christian world as, you know, and and even in in the secular world of, you know, this is where the whole idea of, you know, if you're you're white, you basically have to be sorry for it because of the generations of of sin that white people have, you know, committed against darker skinned people. Um, and so that's where the rationale for for these corrections, you know, comes in. But, you know, for me, a a Christian understanding would be, you know, I'm I'm responsible for my own sin and how I treat others and and um and love them and and include them and want them to be a part of things, but there doesn't need to be this um this uh we're gonna correct this situation in a way in which I know it feels unfair to you or people that that look like you, but this is just what we have to do because of what's been done in the past. Um it's it it it's to my mind it isn't just and and it's not the recipe for, and this is why they call it divisive, right? Because it's not the recipe for a society where you know an American ideal is that we all work hard and we can we can achieve things, right? Every the the discussion about what the goal is and what is justice, right, is are we looking backwards or are we looking forwards? Because everybody wants a just world. But like we mentioned earlier, when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, I don't know what you mean when you say I want a just world, and you don't know what I mean when I say I want a just world. And I think one of the differences between the left and the right is justice for some means going backwards and accounting for all of the bad things that have been done in the past and making sure those those are irrelevant to the future. I don't believe that is achievable. I don't I don't think it's possible, and I think any efforts to do that are actually harmful. And and and and so what I think we don't deny it. If we went all in on all of the DEI requirements um that that the left would would have us do, we would not end up where they say they want to end up. And and we've talked about this before, about how you know these things a lot of times are actually stoking racism in the country, right? Yes, and and the only in and if the if the if if your definition of justice is equity, where everybody is in the same place, the only way to the only way to have equality, and this is the the old, you know, the old quip about communism, is the equal sharing of misery. And every attempt in human history for the government to make put people in the same place makes them all equally unhappy and equally poor. That's the only way to have equal equity in that sense where everybody's in the same place. And some people would be fine with that because they're so bothered by an unequal distribution of resources that a meritocracy inevitably creates, that as long as you're not rich, I'm fine being poor. That I'm I'm not bothered by me not having anything, I'm bothered by you having something. So as soon as you don't have something, then we're fine. Um but I just don't think in a sinful, broken world, I don't think it is possible to go back in time and look at all the bad things that were done to everybody's great-grandparents and how and and try to understand how that impacts my opportunities today. You know, was I born in a rich county or was I born in a poor county? Did my parents have an education or did my parents not have an education? To the degree that's r relevant to my ethnicity, or you know, the county I was born in, or the country I was born in, or the state I was born in. All of those things matter. But are it I I but it's so unhealthy in my mind, so bad for our mental health to just look backwards, obsess about all the things that happened in the in in the past and try to solve for those things. That's why they the Middle East has been at war for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, because they couldn't get over the bad things that have happened in the past and they never have. So it really is a choice, and I think this is the the Christian worldview certainly um compels us to do this because you know, in in the Christian worldview, we are the greatest offenders, but we get to look forward to, okay, justice is now, you know, looking forward. Are we treating people the the way that we all deserve? Um do we have equal protection under the law? Do we are people being fair to us? That to me has to be the goal because it's not possible to solve for everything. And I think trying to do so, trying to solve for everything that happened in the past just makes you miserable. And and so that's kind of you know part of the sentiment wrapped up in this this DEI stuff is I think the efforts, the the diversity, equity, and inclusion emphases generally is let's talk obsessively about everything that used to happen rather than okay. Let's make sure we aren't re-offending. Let's make sure that everybody really is being treated as an individual based on their character, based and with respect for who they are as people created in the image of God. So it's a it but those are worldview differences. Do I want to look backwards or do I want to look forwards? And and what their argument I think would be is do my does my call not to look backwards but to look forward, is that my attempt to whitewash it and ignore it and pretend it's not relevant? I would say no. But I think that's that's kind of where they're at, is we have to reckon with the past before we can move forward. I think a healthy understanding of the past and the way that we talk about it really is important. I think, and I don't think you're advocating for not looking back, you know, we want to study. I want to understand history, which is super important. We want to understand history and and where we've come from, and we want to be realistic about the fact that our nation got this really, really wrong for a long time. But we also got some things really, really, really right. We did. That's exactly right. And um, and and we want to be honest about our shortcomings, and we want to be honest about the the progress that we've made in this area. And and I and I do think you know, we're we are we're still dealing with the fallout of things that happened in the past, and I think it's okay to accept that, but I think you're exactly right when you say we do need to focus on how do we move forward together. Can we let it go? We do need to emotionally that but that to me is where's your emotional investment? Is it's it's what we're doing next or what used to happen to other people. That that to me kind of defines the difference. And I just think it's really unhealthy to live in the past, and I think that's what we're being asked to do. Again, to the point you just made. I want to understand the past because it matters, and we don't want to repeat those mistakes that have been made in the past. And the doctrine of sin suggests that we will, and that's the story of the, you know, we have Bibles and lots of history books which teach us about the cyclical nature of sin and and our and our tendency to just fall back into old patterns. So we want to understand the past, but what I don't want to do is be a slave to it. Yeah. Well, and unfortunately, we are we have been, I think, in a place where the conversations that we've had about it haven't been healthy and productive. You know, they haven't. And that's for sure. I mean we've been burning down cities. Yeah. Which I don't think is a great response. No, but but some on the left would say it has that's the revolution to overthrow the systems that created the systemic injustice that created all the pain, right? Right. And so they do think it's an appropriate response. And so very, very, very different um means for going about, you know, the healing process. Well, and let's it, that's just it, isn't it? It's it should be, it should be a healing process, you know, and burning down cities and telling all white people, like little children in school, that you know, you need to repent of your whiteness, that is not that that's that's unhealthy to teach children that. And it it's not it's not gonna bring us close to healing. That in fact, and to uh to agree with that point, if if you tell people that they are either guilty, they have imputed guilt or imputed innocence because of their ethnicity, I think you're moving further away from the goal, which is to treat everybody as an individual and allow them to suffer the privileges or the consequences of the choices that they make and the character that they demonstrate. That's what that's the world that we should all want, right? Where if you're if you're honest and industrious, you're gonna benefit from that, and somebody else isn't gonna benefit from that. It's just what Martin Luther King Jr. was talking about. Not the color of our skin, the content of our character. That's right. That to me is what is what justice needs. And that standard needs to apply to everyone, you know? Everyone. It's it it we're not gonna look at the color of your skin. And let and yeah, I mean, yeah. DEI though is like this, it's like um anti-racism on steroids. It's like the to say we're not gonna look at the color of your skin, I mean, these DEI people would run MLK out. All they do, that and and that's the point, the application of this, right? As we try to understand what DEI actually is. In practice, what it is is admissions quotas, is hiring quotas within agencies. We have some other where you have um let me see this example, Yale recruiting an African-American studies professor, required applicants to share ways they had, quote, championed diversity, equity, and inclusion and belonging. That was one of the jobs in your application, right? So you have you had to prove in the application process that you were committed to this particular ideology. And the State Department used to do very specific thing. A taxpayer-funded DE DEIA champion sponsorship program was open to employees of all backgrounds, but selection was based on an applicant's demonstrated track record of advancing DEIA, meaning in practice it was open only to true believers. That so that's how this works. I would never get hired. I mean, I couldn't. I wouldn't have anything to put down. I don't think, and the reason is because I don't think in those, I don't think in those terms. I think in terms of how do I love my neighbor? Um, I don't, I just don't I don't think that way. And and that's the point, is a is a lot of people don't think that way, but some people do. And what the programs do in effect is allow eligibility only for people who share the ideology, not for people who are, you know, qualified, capable, competent. It is, not only is it not race blind, it's very race conscious, and and and intentionally so. And you know, we've we we've talked about on previous episodes, recent Supreme Court cases that have come down against the DEI priorities by saying there's no such thing as good racism because your racist, your your attempts to privilege certain races necessarily disadvantage certain races. That's racist, and you can't do that when it comes to admissions criteria, when it comes to the um drawing of congressional maps and congressional districts. You can't have a race, you can't have a race-conscious process that says, oh, this is the black district, oh, this is the white district, because you're supposed to just not favor people and certainly not punish people because of their race. But it is impossible to accomplish DEI goals without doing that, and the Supreme Court is recently pretty consistently saying that's unconstitutional. So we're hoping that North Carolina will override these vetoes? You know, it's a good question. I Yes, on some level, because I think there's a statement here. I I still struggle with the idea that because you're dealing with an ideology, you know, when you say this school cannot practice DEI, what you can't do, even if you got rid of the terms, okay, let's say they fire every DEI officer formally, you're still gonna have people who are committed, who are true believers and committed to the cause and are gonna operate in that way. Well, and you see that in just the change in some places that just simply change the the nomenclature, they're not gonna call it DEI. They they and that's how they operate anyway. And honestly, because they're committed. They're they are committed to the expected. And and if we try to like flip flip the the scenario for a moment, if you had a bunch of people saying, you know, we're gonna ban Christian white nationalism and expressions of patriotism and the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance and anybody who you know venerates the founding fathers, right? That would be kind of the opposite. What you're talking about. Was doing that, saying we're gonna ban Christian white nationalism, which means kind of conservative ideas, love of the Bible, and love of the Constitution. That's what we think Christian white nationalism is. So we're gonna ban that. We'd say, fine, let's not be Christian white nationalists, but we're still gonna love the Constitution, we're still gonna love the Bible, and we're still gonna talk about it like we do, right? So that's the problem with this entire effort, is you're you're signaling something as a state legislature, but what happens in practice, I don't know. Yeah, I definitely think that there's addressing the curriculum piece is critical. It should not be in current you know um teaching white children that they need to be sorry about being white. That should just not be an element of curriculum. But I hear your point, and I completely agree that it's not going, it's not going to solve the problem. And then the question becomes what's the best way to deal with a bad idea? In it in the school context, that should not be taught. But once you say, okay, we're gonna ban that, the fourth grade Marxist pink-haired teacher who is told to take DEI out, they won't call it that. But they are not gonna stop talking, you know, stop teaching wokeness, race consciousness, anti-racism, whatever term, because that's the reason they became teachers. They believe it is the right, virtuous thing to do, they will not stop. And to me, what that represents, and we don't have time for a whole education concept, the the government school system, the one size fits-all government school system that we have tried to make fit, doesn't work. Because the reality is our worldviews are so different that if we want you know, if if the progressive family and the Christian family both want their values taught to their kids, they can't be in the same room. That's just the reality of it. And there's no such thing as neutrality because every teacher is going to teach some version of you know right and wrong, how do you make those decisions, how do you evaluate that? And you can teach respect in a fairly neutral, but the reality is those visions of the world are so different, you can't get what those teachers, what those parents want for their kid to be poured into them in the same place. That's my conviction. Yeah. Which is why yay, school choice. School choice is important. People should be able to choose the education that best fits for their family and their values. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I definitely think that you're probably, at least in North Carolina, you're probably getting a mix right now. You probably have your woke teachers, you probably have teachers that aren't. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Um the problem for me though is I don't want my kids to hear about that at all. I really don't. I I want them to love other people, and I I want them to understand that they are are made in God's image and they are precious, and there's nothing wrong with the way that they look. Um, and and that, you know, I tell my kids all the time, like man looks at the outside, but God looks at the heart. And that's always what I emphasize with them. That's what I want them to do as well. And so this is the way that I want this topic talked about with my children. And I don't, I I am not okay with tolerating, frankly, anything else, which is why, you know, my kids aren't in public schools. But um, yeah, probably children in public schools right now are getting a mix. They're getting a mix. You don't want your kids taught that yet, and maybe I'm gonna assume something. My kids are older than your kids, but at some point you have to be exposed to it and you have to be equipped for it. And and I think we were talking before we before the show about I got a call from my 17-year-old daughter last night who was on like this service field trip here at the end of school, and she was just outraged by the uh the land acknowledgement that she received of this orientation for this process for this project, and I and I won't go into it fully, but the reality is your kids, my kids, we are they are going to be exposed to these environments, right? And and I think what you're saying, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is I don't want them taught these things as true, but eventually, because our kids are going to be exposed to them, they need to they need to be exposed to bad ideas in a safe self, uh safe and in proportionate and age-appropriate way so that eventually, once they're adults, they can't be afraid of them. We can't. We know that we can't protect our kids from everything. I think that's right. I mean, we we certainly don't want to hide our kids away, but my kids are very young. I want them to understand truth. I mean, these are fundamental truths about you know who God made them to be and and how they see themselves in the world. I I don't know. I when they are young and developing, and everyone understands this. You want things, you want uh lessons and concepts and and introductions to things to be age appropriate, you know. Um was was your child that had this exp your 17-year-old that what was she shocked or was is does she kind of understand this is I mean, what was her? Well, she yeah, she was emo, I mean, she was emotionally outraged by it, like, oh, you should have been here, kind of a thing. And and we talked, and but we had the conversation very quickly, and I was like, Well, you know, why did you object to it? Is it it is it emotional? And I've I've probably made some jokes about you know land acknowledgments at some point in the past. But the whole conversation that we had on the phone was making sure that she wasn't just like emotionally outraged because she kind of recognized that as a worldview that she, you know, she didn't agree with. I was like, but why? You know, what what's your problem with them telling you that you shouldn't have white people on the wall because there's too many white people? So it should be indigenous people who are underrepresented, and that's just part of the speech that she she was she was given. And so we talked about you know the image of God in everyone, and why is it never appropriate to imply that somebody is less valuable and less deserving of respect because of their ethnicity, despite what may have happened, you know, but was this the first time she's 17? Was this the first time you had this particular discussion with her? Not even close to it. No, it's it's a specific concept. Yeah, so she's known about this, but she's just this is just a new way that she's in a world, exactly. She was experiencing it and kind of running into it. It is a part of our world, and we don't I we want to teach our kids how to think about these things, but I do think when they're very small, you don't want them That is not the time. You there's not the time to expose them, and you certainly don't want them steeped in that. For sure not. Small minds, you know, before like the age of 10, 11, 12, all they want to do is please the authority figures in front of them. That's that's how they're hardwired early on. So as parents, we want to make sure that the authority figures in front of them are teaching them true things because they are emotionally so inclined to agree with the authority figure that they will accept as true whatever they are told. And that's why the environment, especially for young people, is so important. When they get older, you know, you develop critical thinking skills, you, you know, make them aware of the fact that there are different ideas, some are true, some are false, some are opinion perhaps, and they begin to navigate that, and you have to have those skills to navigate that situation in order to be, you know, built for life. But you don't do that when they're six years old. In six years old, you just fill them with truth, fill them with truth, fill them with truth, and then gradually they they develop the skills to be able to engage with things that aren't true. But you tr you you surround them by lies early on, they won't know the difference. So as we're wrapping up here, I want to ask you a question that came up for me this week when I was reading this Wall Street Journal article. Uh, it's titled Reports of Woke's Death Are Exaggerated. And if you look, if you you know, if you just Google, like, is wokeness dead? You know, there have been tons of articles written about this. Some people think it's dead, some people think it's not dead. Uh what do you think, Jason? It is it is losing cultural influence. It is far from dead because the true believers are the true believers. You have, you know, on a scale, you know, you have you have a third probably that is very conservative, a third that is probably very far left, and then a bunch of people in the middle who just float to whatever seems popular. And the middle is floating away from the far left because it's so destructive and and uh transparently not helpful. But the people who believe that stuff, who are really committed to kind of the worldview of critical theory and Marxism and you know equity based on group identity, they're not going anywhere. They have they are not no less passionate. They are, from a moral perspective, convinced that they are right, they will hear no other, and they are they have given their lives to that cause. Um, so you kind of see that with the Zoran Mom Danius and the people like that that are you know still getting elected. And and they are taking over, frankly, the Democratic Party. And so, is it dead? Far from it. But there's a lot of people in Middle America who are like, uh, boys and girls sports, uh child gender mutilation, um, you know, that's a bridge too far for me. Uh and so they're losing many people in the middle, but it's not going anywhere. So we've got to be prepared for it. So we'll leave it at that for now. Friends, thank you for joining us here on Politics for Happy People. Quick reminder that new episodes are released every Tuesday and every Friday. So look for them. And wherever you have found us, give us a like or a subscribe and share it with a friend. If you learned something, they probably will as well. So glad that you're with us. We'll see you next time on Politics for Happy People.