Woke is on the run. The cultural scourge has stifled free thought, promoted hard Left extremism and corrupted the arts. Now, the pendulum is finally starting to swing in the opposite direction. As Justine Bateman eloquently put it, it’s like we can all breathe again. Woke may have been destined to crash and burn on its own. It’s antithetical to the American spirit and goes against basic biology. Plus, it’s often meted out in a cruel, hypocritical two-tier fashion. Hunter Biden repeatedly texts  the “n-word” — zero punishment. Morgan Wallen calls a white friend the “n-word” in a private moment caught on tape – his career implodes overnight. Yet, over the past decade we’ve witnessed a number of brave souls stand up to the woke onslaught. While there are many on team sanity who deserve a shout out — including the voices at The Daily Wire — here are seven culture warriors who hastened woke’s demise and deserve a curtain call. Robby Starbuck Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images The filmmaker/activist became the one person woke companies fear more than anyone else. Starbuck’s crusade to expose corporate shenanigans, like excessive DEI policies, proved shockingly effective in recent years. Just ask Walmart, Target, John Deere, Harley Davidson and more. A single social media post from Starbuck could send company executives into damage control mode. Sunlight remains the best disinfectant. Starbuck brings the receipts, too. His recent exposé on Cracker Barrel, coming on the heels of the brand’s calamitous logo “update,” proved he isn’t done spotlighting woke on steroids. Jennifer Sey Courtesy of Jennifer Sey The former gymnast defied her woke overlords at Levi’s and lost, if only on the surface. Sey left her job as Global Brand President after speaking out against pandemic school closures. The woke company demanded she toe the line and not share her opinion publicly. She refused. She could have licked her wounds or stayed silent. Not Sey. The Colorado resident rolled up her sleeves and kept fighting. She assembled a team to create a documentary detailing just how punishing lockdowns proved for millions of kids, even as we weren’t always allowed to admit it aloud. That upcoming documentary, “Generation-Covid,” is just part of her anti-woke agenda. She also created XX-XY Athletics, a clothing brand designed for women, not biological men living as women. Her company speaks out against trans women in women’s sports, helping strike a blow against a movement that often shames citizens into silence. Now, the tide is turning on the subject, with more Americans allowed to speak their minds. Sey helped make that happen. Elon Musk Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images He may be “frenemies” with a certain world leader these days, but Musk struck a mighty blow against woke by buying Twitter. Partly inspired by the platform’s attack on The Babylon Bee and other free speech punishments, Musk took over and restored many censored accounts. His new, streamlined X let free speech reign anew. Suddenly, users didn’t have to self-censor for fear their unwoke opinions could cost them their digital voice. The platform is far from perfect, but under Musk’s control, it’s a vastly superior product and a woke-free zone. Christopher Rufo Photo by Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post via Getty Images Starbuck may be corporate America’s worst nightmare, but Rufo offers a similar service for academics gone wild. Rufo’s relentless pressure campaigns, and fact-based measures, proved highly effective in recent years. Rufo helped expose former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s plagiarism scandal, but that’s just a fraction of his recent activism. Here, he describes why he focuses his attention on Ivy League institutions. “They’re promoting from their central administrations racial discrimination, scapegoating and even segregation.” In some cases, they “were” promoting all of the above. Rufo gets results. J.K. Rowling Samir Hussein/WireImage via Getty Images Many celebrities, even the biggest stars in the galaxy, stand down under intense woke pressure. Remember how Scarlett Johansson buckled rather than accept a role playing a trans character? Not Rowling. The “Harry Potter” author, an old-school progressive, began questioning elements of the trans agenda in 2020. That put her squarely in the Left’s cross-hairs, and she’s remained there ever since. Death threats. Endless cultural cancelations. Serial attacks from the same Legacy Media outlets that once praised her ability to inspire young readers. And Rowling refused to back down. That posture, combined with the work Sey has done on trans matters, allowed others to speak out against biological men in women’s sports. Joe Rogan Screenshot: Joe Rogan Experience/YouTube.com Rogan’s relentless curiosity, eagerness to let so many voices share his platform, and his dedication to an open, long-form conversation has given free speech a major boost.  Even more important, Rogan had a change of heart regarding one potential guest. Two years ago, Rogan seemed disinterested in chatting up former President Donald Trump. Then, as he watched the Democratic Party stifle speech across the culture, he realized his platform could give Trump a boost in the 2024 presidential campaign. It’s likely why other rebel comics did the same with the Trump-Vance ticket, from Andrew Schulz to Tim Dillon. President Donald Trump Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images “Everything woke turns to s***,” The 45th and 47th president once said, slicing through the noise to make perfect sense. He’s right, of course, and he helped make woke retreat to its current, cornered state. The president’s frank talk, blustery persona and eagerness to speak sans filter did more than burnish his brand. He gave us permission to do the same, to shoot straight and take the consequences. Plus, he used his executive orders to protect female athletes against biological male competitors and doubled down on Rufo’s efforts to rein in woke colleges. His anti-DEI initiatives will be part of his legacy, no doubt. End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships Woke is far from gone, despite the work of these culture warriors. Some companies and schools are using sleight-of-hand techniques to keep on discriminating on the basis of race and gender. The disgraced Gay is still teaching students at Harvard. Hollywood will keep making movies about five-foot-nothing women beating up men double their size. Gender and race-swapped stories won’t fade to black like 3D movies and found footage shockers. Still, woke has taken body blow after body blow. And these powerful figures threw some of the heaviest punches. * * * Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

"It's pretty gory. That's crazy. I don't even know what to say."

'He is the master at winning votes from small groups who are passionate about one issue'

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Trump administration is partnering with conservative state legislators to codify the “Make America Great Again” agenda throughout the country. The White House has met with lawmakers from states including Louisiana, Missouri, and Wyoming about how states can enact back home what President Donald Trump is doing on the federal level. But because Republican state lawmakers often vote like Democrats once they’re elected, the White House’s most trusted friends in legislatures are members of the 13 State Freedom Caucus chapters, according to Andy Roth, president of the State Freedom Caucus Network. “We are their biggest allies,” he told The Daily Signal about the relationship between the state chapters and the administration. “We are the ones that most closely believe in and most vocally support their efforts.” The White House’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs has proactively reached out to state lawmakers to share the administration’s priorities and how state lawmakers can help advance them. “I’ve never known another administration to reach out directly to state legislatures the way that the Trump administration is currently reaching out,” Louisiana Speaker of the House Beryl Amedée told The Daily Signal. Louisiana Republicans met with members of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council and Cabinet members Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Aug. 12 at the White House. Nick Schroer, a Missouri state representative who was part of his state’s delegation to the White House, said he thinks the president’s interest in state legislatures could pressure state-level Republicans who often vote with Democrats to get in line with the party platform, particularly when it comes to redistricting. “I think if Trump engages on certain things like school choice, like returning the power back to the states, like election integrity, like the 7-1 map in the state of Missouri, you’re going to have a lot of these people that normally won’t vote the right way—pursuant to our party platform—all of a sudden they’re going to jump in line,” Schroer told The Daily Signal. A 7-1 map for the state of Missouri refers to a proposed redistricting plan opposed by Democrats and some Republicans that would result in seven Republican districts and one Democrat district. Missouri currently has a 6-2 map favoring Republicans. According to Amedée, the White House officials who spoke to the Louisiana lawmakers encouraged them to take full responsibility for their state’s education system as the Trump administration works to shut down the federal Department of Education. “The effort at the federal level is to return education back to the states, and to accomplish that, the states are going to have to take the lead, because every state has individual needs and priorities,” she said. “Instead of waiting for the federal government to tell us what to do in education, they’re going to free us up so that we can just move forward with whatever Louisiana needs.” State Freedom Caucus members believe they will be particularly valuable in advancing the president’s agenda on election integrity, redistricting, education, and energy. “It’s just been a perfect marriage where the Freedom Caucus and the Trump administration are working to combat all that the Left has done in all of these states where they’ve gerrymandered like crazy,” Schroer said. The Missouri congressional map is a result of “weak Republican leadership,” said Justin Sparks, another Republican state representative. In 2022, 14 Republicans in Missouri, including Senate leadership, joined 10 Democrats in rejecting the proposal for a 7-1 congressional map in favor of a map where Democrats get two seats. But Sparks said he has hope that Trump’s leadership will inspire Missouri state leadership to call a special session and redraw a 7-1 map. “We have a strong executive in the White House that is really doing what it takes to lead by example,” he said. “You have to hit some of these Republicans over the head to get them to wake up.” “That’s really what the Freedom Caucus does,” he continued. “We try to bring the the reality of what is actually happening in the world and to get outside of the institutionalization of the Capitol building and understand that Democrats are playing for keeps.” He said the president is “leading by example,” inspiring wayward Republicans to enact the MAGA agenda. “They [the Trump administration] recognize how important this is, and are leading by example and telling Republican legislatures, ‘Start being Republicans and start doing what the people have elected you to do. Start actually using the mechanisms of power that are available to you, constitutionally and statutorily, to do and represent your people well,'” he said. “And it’s about time.” Roth, the State Freedom Caucus president, said the White House understands that the idea that politics is Republicans versus Democrats is an old way of thinking. The real battle, Roth said, is conservatives versus the swamp, due to the “unholy alliance” that exists in state legislatures between liberal Republicans and Democrats. But State Freedom Caucus members are “on the White House’s side, and a lot of these so-called Republicans are not,” Roth said. Wyoming is an example of how conservative state lawmakers can codify the MAGA agenda, according to Wyoming state Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams. The Legislature in the Cowboy State has delivered on Trump’s priorities of requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to vote, enhancing voter list maintenance laws, and banning ranked-choice voting. After Trump called for a ban on mail-in voting and voting machines, Wyoming Freedom Caucus members announced plans to pass such laws in their state. “I believe that the battle is within the states, and the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ priorities with state legislation definitely align with President Trump’s agenda,” Rodriguez-Williams told The Daily Signal. “We are working very hard to carry out the priorities of this administration through state legislation.” Missouri’s Sparks has never seen an administration work with state lawmakers in this way, he said. “This is the first time that I personally have seen an administration recognize that, in order to accomplish their policy goals and their agenda, they have to do it on the state level as well as the federal level,” he said. “That is actually really a novel approach and understanding. We have all these Republican states with Republican governors and Republican legislatures, but they’re not necessarily governing that way, and so we need to identify that, recognize why that is, and then take steps to remedy it.” The post SCOOP: Trump Moves to Spread MAGA Agenda to the States appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Disputation and Deliverance: Sunday Reflection

Walls Are CLOSING In! WATCH Adam Schiff Squirm When Asked About FBI Raid of John Bolton's Home (Video)