I appreciate that you have a pretty nuanced view here. Much of it I agree with, some of it I do not, but I don’t want to get into these weeds. I’m not sure how any of it undermines the point that wokism and opposition to foreign aid are basically orthogonal.
It’s relevant because if people’s opposition to woke is driven by racism or dislike of leftist-coded things or groups, that will currently also drive opposition to foreign aid, which is meant to help Black people and is broadly (centre) left coded*. (There are of course old-style Bush II type conservatives who both hate the left and like foreign aid, so this sort of polarization is not inevitable at the individual level, but it does happen.)
*Obviously there are lots of aid critics as you go further left who think it is just a instrument of US imperialism etc. And some centrists and centre-left people are aid critics too of course.
Again you are not making the connection, or maybe not seeing my basic point. Even if someone dislikes leftist-coded things, and this causes them both to oppose wokism and to oppose foreign aid, this still does not make opposition to foreign aid about anti-wokism. The original post suggested there was a causal arrow running between foreign aid and wokism, not that both have a causal arrow coming from the same source.
Having read it again, all I can see them saying about aid and wokeness is that aid is at risk of being perceived as woke. That’s not a claim about exactly how the causation works as far as I can tell.
I appreciate that you have a pretty nuanced view here. Much of it I agree with, some of it I do not, but I don’t want to get into these weeds. I’m not sure how any of it undermines the point that wokism and opposition to foreign aid are basically orthogonal.
It’s relevant because if people’s opposition to woke is driven by racism or dislike of leftist-coded things or groups, that will currently also drive opposition to foreign aid, which is meant to help Black people and is broadly (centre) left coded*. (There are of course old-style Bush II type conservatives who both hate the left and like foreign aid, so this sort of polarization is not inevitable at the individual level, but it does happen.)
*Obviously there are lots of aid critics as you go further left who think it is just a instrument of US imperialism etc. And some centrists and centre-left people are aid critics too of course.
Again you are not making the connection, or maybe not seeing my basic point. Even if someone dislikes leftist-coded things, and this causes them both to oppose wokism and to oppose foreign aid, this still does not make opposition to foreign aid about anti-wokism. The original post suggested there was a causal arrow running between foreign aid and wokism, not that both have a causal arrow coming from the same source.
Having read it again, all I can see them saying about aid and wokeness is that aid is at risk of being perceived as woke. That’s not a claim about exactly how the causation works as far as I can tell.