Michael Shellenberger – For the last half-decade, elites in government and the media have created a culture of self-censorship on race, climate change, and trans issues. In the workplace, in schools and universities, and online, politicians, activists, and journalists instilled in ordinary people a paralyzing fear of saying the wrong thing and finding oneself accused of being a “climate denier,” a “racist,” or a “transphobe.”

It’s now clear that, at this very moment, media elites are seeking to turn this culture of informal self-censorship into formal government censorship. They call their legislation, which would destroy free speech, based centrally on their hatred of the masses, “pro-democracy” and “anti-hate.”

To be sure, Wokeism is a genuine grassroots religion. It demonizes and scapegoats heretics, journalists, and truth-tellers. And it demands sacrifices from ordinary people in the form of more expensive energy, the sterilization of psychiatrically disordered children, and self-censorship.

But it is also a state religion. News media and social media elites took Wokeism from being a marginal cult into being the dominant ideology of every major institution, from NBC and the CDC to the AMA and the CIA.

“Think tanks” and “journalists” behaved as propagandists, leading much of the public to believe that police were wantonly murdering thousands of unarmed black Americans, that climate change threatened human existence, and that surgeons can (and should) “change the sex” of children.

SF Source Blacklisted News May 2023