OXON HILL, Md.–Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) warned of what he called “The Great Awokening” in light of far-left ideology permeating institutions in the United States, and blasted his fellow Republicans for not responding to the challenge.
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation’s Leadership Summit to commemorate the conservative think tank’s 50th anniversary, Hawley said that “the most pressing [and] the most dangerous” challenge America faces is the one from “the new radical left and the new brand of Marxism that they have embraced.”
He warned that they want to “fundamentally transform American life that seeks to change and overthrow practically every institution that we value: marriage, the family, the very idea of gender. They want to purge Christianity and any kind of Bible influence from our culture.”
Hawley went on to call this leftist challenge “the Great Awokening,” combining the words “woke” and “awakening.” Woke is usually described as something far-left.
Hawley criticized the GOP for not taking on this threat.
“My contention to you today is that the Republican Party, as we have known it for the last 30 years, is not prepared to take on this challenge. The Republican Party, as we know it, must be reformed,” he said. “And the question is: Will we as conservatives do what we must to see the party reformed, to see it stand up to meet the challenges of this hour?”
Hawley’s “Great Awokening” also appears to be a play on The Great Awakening, periods of religious revival in history where Christian leaders warned of moral decay in America and called for a return to Judeo-Christian values.
Hawley cited what he called “a new Marxist ideology ... that trashed American society as fundamentally oppressive, [and] systemically racist.” He explained that this “began in American academia” but has since spread “everywhere” including businesses, the “self-proclaimed elite class,” and the media. He called this a “cultural revolution,” or “fundamentally transforming American culture.”
“The cultural Marxists are now in power,” he stated. “They run the Democrat Party; they run the Biden administration.”
Hawley again took shots at the GOP for letting the threat persist.
“The Republican Party is not prepared in this moment to meet it. We are not in position to meet it. And I just contend to you in some ways the Republican Party of the last 30 years has been part of the problem,” he said.
“The Republican Party for decades now has, in its policies, helped to undermine the very people who I contend to you are the most important bulwark against cultural Marxism today. And I’m talking about working Americans, working-class Americans, middle-class Americans.”
Hawley said the way to win against the far-left was through the GOP and conservatism appealing to the working class.
