Unwoke:
How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America
By Ted Cruz
368 pgs., $22 paper; $13.49 eBook
Published by Regnery, Nov. 7, 2023
Reviewed by Gila Hayes
April’s news was full of stories about antisemitic agitators protesting on and around campuses, raising safety concerns. Current events coincided with a book I was reading by US Senator Ted Cruz. Unwoke begins with the story of his father, who immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s and endorsed Castro. After Castro showed his true colors, the elder Cruz saw that he had been wrong and publicly apologized. Too bad we can’t say the same for American leaders in politics, business, education and entertainment, who grew up reading Karl Marx’s writings and continue to view life as “a battleground between oppressed people and their oppressors.” Today, the idea of oppressed classes extends beyond workers to encompass race, gender and sexual orientation.
In Cuba, Castro took children from parents and raised them at boarding schools. Our schools also teach Marxism, indoctrinating even young children in Critical Race Theory, Cruz continues. Most of Unwoke’s chapters end with “how to fix it” sections. “Most people would be surprised at how many friends and allies they can make by simply showing up at a rally or a school board meeting to protest what their children are being taught in schools. They would also be surprised at the extent to which they can come up with better things to teach when they put their heads together and discuss their values,” he writes.
Giant news corporations and social media platforms owned by a few huge tech companies control what is released as news. No where is that so vividly illustrated than by proliferation of the phrase “peaceful protests” introduced in 2020 by CNN and parroted by others to describe rioting, looting, burning and violent mobs. Silencing independent news sources was an early step when communists came to power in the Soviet Union and Cuba, Cruz writes. Today’s neo-Marxists achieve the same effect through tremendous pressure to report only approved views exerted in newsrooms by peers and management alike. To do otherwise results in job loss – a fear mirrored in business, entertainment and even scientific research, he highlights later.
On social media, censorship hides behind “fact-checking” and anonymous algorithms that control what’s “shared.” Cruz explains that antitrust laws exist along with consumer protection laws and laws mandating a “neutral public forum” free of censorship and indecent content, but he does not believe Democrats will enforce the laws; a Republican administration might, he writes.
Big business is infamous for playing at Woke politics, Cruz continues, citing Bank of America and Citigroup’s antigun policies that create restrictions politicans aren’t able to pass into law. “For the past few years, whenever Democrats lose at the ballot box or fail to get their way in Congress, many of the major corporations of this country have stepped up and tried to implement radical, Marxist change anyway, often against the will of the American people,” Cruz explains, adding that bankers found harming American gun owners less of a problem than “being attacked by the woke mob.” On other issues, major league baseball and Coca Cola took business out of states like Texas and Georgia when they passed election integrity legislation that the corporations labeled “racist.”
Fortunately, consumers still wield the power of the boycott. When Bud Light chose an ambassador that targeted children with transgender messages, the resultant boycott cost Anheuser-Busch billions of dollars. Historically, conservatives haven’t been able to rally effective boycotts, Cruz observes, but reactions to Bud Light and Target’s forays into “extreme transgender” influence peddling suggest that is changing.
Political control over science has perhaps the longest history of riding rough-shod over truth, Cruz continues, citing the persecution of Copernicus in the early 1600s. Hitler purged “non-Aryan” scientists, and Stalin also eradicated scientists. “Today, many on the woke Left speak about ‘The Science’ as if they’re talking about their religion, reciting the slogans of their faith and shaming anyone who expresses even mild skepticism or disagreement—two things that were once hallmarks of the scientific method,” he writes, but genuine science thrives on challenging accepted conclusions. Climate change and medicine provide examples of suppression of scientific inquiry. In the wake of Covid-19, citizens are less willing to blindly behave as dictated by popular beliefs peddled as “science,” he suggests. A thick skin is needed to stand up for the truth. “Resistance to insults and attacks from the Left is what has allowed me to question scientists, most notably Dr. Fauci and numerous left-wing environmentalists, with such rigor in the Senate...While other people may have doubts about the validity of what these people are saying, too many of them are afraid to speak out.”
Cruz closes Unwoke with a chapter detailing the extensive influence the Chinese Community Party has over American government, financial matters, education and entertainment. For example, Hollywood carefully avoids scripts that may offend the Chinese and Democrats vote down legislation intended to wean Americans off of Chinese goods, reliance on Chinese pharmaceuticals, and other supply line dependencies.
Marxism withers under scrutiny, Cruz concludes. Clear, truthful investigations lead Cruz’s “How to Fight Back” segments found at the end of nearly every chapter. As a role model, he highlights what may have been President Ronald Reagan’s greatest strength, courageously speaking the unvarnished truth to the Soviet Union. We must do the same today, he admonishes readers.