I’ve written before about the fierce negativity of the MAGA community toward Wokeness, i.e., their contention that teaching or professing the true history of racism in the United States is a terrible thing to do because it heaps shame and guilt on white children for racial sins of the past, sins they are not responsible for and would be better off not knowing about. The anti-Woke campaigners want to erase uncomfortable and criminal history, thus freeing themselves from any past or present responsibility or admitting the repercussions of the past into the present.

And I’ve made it clear before how important it is to teach the reality of our past—for three reasons: one, we don’t know who we are or what we’re capable of doing—good and bad—if we suppress the truth of our past; two, if we make policy based on fabrications, it will undoubtedly fail; and three, we are inspired by the determination and courage of those who refused to accept inequality and injustice. Rather than teach guilt or shame, we teach pride by modeling courageous citizenship. We teach how meaningful it is to be part of the struggle—to make real the professed values of this country. If we don’t teach the uncomfortable part, we miss the saving grace of the redemptive courage.

My determination to remain Woke deepened recently after Trump’s disgusting racist tirade against Somali immigrants in the U.S., and particularly his attack on Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Somali-American. He called them “garbage.” This sort of virulent trash talk from Trump is not new. He has been attacking and demeaning immigrants of color for his entire public life. What’s new is the intensity of it. What a horrible spectacle to witness an American president proudly spitting out, like acid, inflammatory racism. It’s as though Trump envisions himself as the incarnation of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy—and in his mind the Confederacy, with its ideology of white supremacy, has prevailed. This is where anti-Woke history leads—refusing real history so you can embrace your own version. The bad guys, who were traitors to American ideals, take over and call themselves the good guys. They flaunt their racism like it’s an entitlement.

Everything Trump doesn’t want taught because of its burden of guilt and shame, he mimics, he teaches.  Curiously, he has proven that the past is not and cannot be erased because it’s alive and well, like a nasty parasite, in the man himself. The worm turns, but does not die. From the oval office of the White House Trump rants like a Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon. Why would anyone give this man the dignity of calling him President?

I am—and I hope millions of other Americans are—deeply disturbed and ashamed by this racism and misogyny. The struggle of this country to evolve from the pit of prejudice and white male superiority to a society based on pluralistic justice has been purposely flipped by Trump back into that stinking, unevolved pit.

I titled this little essay “When Woke Meets Affordable”  because, just like “woke,” “affordable” is another buzz word now.  We hear constantly that the most important issue for millions of Americans is affordability. What’s to be done about the rising prices of healthcare, food, clothing, energy, etc.? Trump promised lower but has delivered higher prices. Democrats hope that this is the issue that will sink Trump in the 2026 congressional elections. The assumption is that the prime concern for American citizens is the price tag.

I frame the question of affordability differently. As real and disturbing as wealth disparity and higher prices are, they aren’t the value questions that disturb me the most. More disturbing to me is a moral question, the condition of our minds and hearts. Can we morally afford to have a president who is a racist, a serial abuser, and a corrupt, compulsive liar?  Can we afford complicity in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians? Can we afford to be a country that murders people in small boats in the Caribbean with no legal process?  

The price of eggs is important; the price of arrogant, violent bigotry is soul crushing.  

Our Civil War was the tragic, reckoning invoice of the struggle to end slavery and white supremacy. Lincoln at Gettysburg said that the world would never forget what was fought for there. Was he wrong? How do we climb out of that pit again? We can’t afford not to.