Tom Cotton Mocked for Anti-PC Rant That Washington Monument Could Be Renamed ‘Obelisk of Wokeness’

KJ EdelmanJun 11th, 2020, 10:49 pm
 

Tom Cotton Mocked for Anti-PC Rant Warning of "Obelisk of Wokeness"

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) was mocked for a rant in Congress on Thursday that hysterically warned the Washington Monument might be renamed the “Obelisk of Wokeness” as part of a campaign of political correctness run amok by the left. Almost instantly, the phrase went viral — but not in the laughing-with-you kind of way.

Cotton has been in the news since his New York Times op-ed entitled “Send In The Troops” led to outrage from the Times staff, changes to the publication’s opinion workflow, and, ultimately, led to editorial page editor James Bennet’s resignation.

On Thursday, Cotton went on a tirade in the Senate that began with denouncing “cancel culture” and quickly turned into the senator reciting those cultural programs “who aren’t safe” from the “woke mob.” A&E’s recently cancelled Live PD, the Nickelodeon kids’ show Paw Patrol, and Gone With The Wind, which HBOMax recently pulled out of its online catalog, were among the many victims called out by Cotton.

“The idea that we all need safe spaces from mean words,” Cotton said. “Trigger warnings on op-eds or TV shows that might constitute a microaggression. This is the language of the campus social justice seminar but increasingly it’s the language of our workplace.”

“Are we going to tear the Washington Monument down?” Cotton continued. “Are we going to rename it the Obelisk of Wokeness?”

Cotton’s threatened “woke” name for the capital’s most recognizable structure quickly enjoyed a mock embrace online.

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