So here’s what happened. A couple of decades ago, some Republicans decided that being polite was interfering with their agenda. They needed to make Democrats sound like radicals, even though the Democrats were offering popular and reasonable policy proposals. So they needed a way to make politeness itself sound silly and delusional. Enter the phrase, “political correctness.

Obviously, since nearly all of us were raised to be polite, and respect politeness, it isn’t possible to attack politeness itself. But if you can relabel it first, then it is much easier to attack. So being polite to others became political correctness, and political correctness became a bad thing.

Now the same thing is happening to empathy. Basic human empathy is a good thing. Like politeness, empathy helps us survive as a society. But it also leads to governmental policies to help disadvantaged people. Obviously this is something Republicans cannot abide. But how can they attack basic, human empathy?

Well, the same way they attacked politeness; relabel it. So empathy is now called “wokeness,” and that can be attacked. When a Democrat calls for measures to help protect minority citizens from police violence, it isn’t because of empathy (a good thing), it’s because that Democrat is all “woke” (a bad thing).

It isn’t simply liberals loving “wokeness,” it’s that liberals are generally liberal because they have basic, human empathy. Republicans hate basic, human empathy because it will eventually lead to the uber wealthy having to pay their fair share of taxes to help the less fortunate. Republicans cannot stand even the thought of that happening.