Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) made headlines this week for telling CNN's Jake Tapper, “Not everyone really knows what wokeness is. I’ve defined it, but a lot of people who rail against wokeness can’t even define it.”

In reaction, the New Republic  asserted , “The Florida governor slips up in his ‘anti-woke’ quest.” (Can’t you just sense the writer villainously rubbing his hands together over his keyboard?) Far from being a “slip-up,” however, DeSantis’s observation identifies a key tenet of wokeness and a reason the movement has been so effective.

The term “woke” and the terminology woke masterminds use are intentionally vague. Woke ideologues are cunning, using hard-to-define, feel-good, ever-changing expressions to manipulate the public and capitalize on heightened emotions. In its gleeful reporting of DeSantis’s admission that many people can’t define woke, the New Republic celebrates that woke tactics are, to an extent, working.

In writing my forthcoming book, Woke-Proof Your Life , I interviewed dozens of people, starting with the question, “Do you know what ‘woke’ means?” Everyone had at least some vague idea of what wokeness is, but most had trouble putting their finger on it. Wokeness, fittingly, has taken on the obscure nature of pornography, about which Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in 1964, “I know it when I see it.”

In fact, Dave, a small-town diner owner I interview in the book, expressed in words what many furrowed brows and thoughtful ummms implied in response to my question: “I’m not sure what it is,” Diner Dave said, “but I know it’s bad.”

You’ll notice how the woke like to veil their initiatives with easy-breezy abbreviations, such as DEI and ESG and LGBT, that flow off the tongue effortlessly and easily work their way into everyday language. And herein lies the essence of “what wokeness is”: It’s a sociopolitical ideology characterized by the manipulation of noble goals by tyrannical left-wing zealots for the purpose of controlling and destroying American society.

In other words, wokeness is political correctness on steroids.

As evil has and will always exist in our fallen world, wokeness is nothing new. The fearmongering, virtue-signaling, canceling, censoring, and bullying employed by the woke have always been tenets of left-wing radicalism, and wokeness by any other name is and has been bad. Progressives pushing the woke agenda rely on people being confused and distracted, and they are quite skilled at inventing smokescreens behind which they carry out their destructive plots. After all, “love is love” seems innocent enough, right? Of course black lives matter! “Clean energy” is a noble pursuit, isn’t it? Other races and classes of people have been mistreated historically, so giving them a little extra boost now in the name of “inclusion” won’t hurt, will it?

The truth is, though, these woke concepts amount to mere slogans that disguise a much more sinister agenda, and many people, having not paused to consider the consequences of wokeness, are understandably taken in by the movement's powerful rhetoric and embrace it for fear of being labeled “racist,” “homophobic,” “privileged,” or fill-in-the-blank-ists or -phobes.

Wokeness reminds me of a billboard advertising a “FREE KING-SIZED MATTRESS!!!” Millions of people drive by the sign every day and take it at face value. When they show up at the furniture store, however, they are gutted to learn that “terms and conditions apply.” There’s fine print, and oh — the offer is subject to change. If wokeness were an ad on the radio, an incomprehensible voice talking faster than an auctioneer would have to disclaim that side effects of wokeness include alienation, loneliness, anxiety, depression, obesity, shortened life span, and terminal misery.

The woke mob is counting on few people taking the time to read the fine print and decipher what exactly woke — or DEI or ESG, etc. — means. Spoiler alert: It’s more than cheery rainbow flags and feel-good affirmative action diversity. Wokeness, plain and simple, is radical liberalism intent on evil.

Teresa Mull is an assistant editor of the Spectator World, a policy adviser for education at the Heartland Institute, a writer and editor for Heartland’s editorial department, and author of  Woke-Proof Your Life .