Are these questions that can’t be answered, or answers that can’t be questioned?

I am fine either way, but whatever you conclude, I have a couple of answers to a couple of questions posed on this week's edition of the NR "Editors" podcast:

At about 40 minutes in and following, CWC Cooke asks, "Have we reached a point at which people just think that 'the economy,' 'the state of things,' 'politics,' "America in general" is bad because that's what they hear all the time, but that their own lives are fine, because if it is, I feel as if we're going to become ungovernable, so ... exit question: 'Is that answer, in your view, the product of reality, or is it people projecting what they think is happening to other people and then concluding everything's going badly?'"

Yes, Charles, the latter, I think. People (often those least affected by the 'oppression' of others that they think they are speaking up for) are "projecting what they think is happening to other people, and then conclud[ing] everything's going badly."

This largely explains why, for instance, almost all the people who turned up at BLM rallies were affluent white feminist liberals, and why there are so few who might be deemed to hold oppressed status who protest against ICE. Most of those who do turn up for such rallies, like the Mamdanis and El-Sayeds of the world, are quite privileged and merely virtue signal and project what they think is the experience of others less fortunate than themselves. All this in an attempt to gain political influence over the less well-off, the vulnerable, and the gullible, even when many in those so-called disadvantaged groups say that's not the case at all—that they don't like rampant anti-American immigration, job-stealing, welfare cheats, that they merely wish to be left alone, and that they wish they'd not be used any longer as political pawns.

So far, though, this deflective and diversionary tool of the far left is, unfortunately, working quite well, and the right seems not to have worked out an effective strategy to combat it.

At about 17:30 minutes in, Jim Geraghty makes what I think is a pretty good point—one I hadn't considered before—when it comes to things like the weaponization of the Justice Department. If I understand Jim correctly, his eventual point was something like this (paraphrasing, just setting off with quote for emphasis):

And therefore, what's becoming known as "Woke 2.0" will be punitive, and largely aimed at the idea that our "current system of government" has allowed someone like Donald Trump to be elected twice, ergo it's not a good system, and should be torn down so that we can be sure another Donald Trump will never be elected in the future. (Via Supreme Court packing, adding Puerto Rico and DC as states, abolishing the police, the Electoral College, ICE, etcetera, etcetera and so forth).

All largely stemming from the assumption that the American people need to be—direct quote from Jim—"punished for their wrong choices at the ballot box." (In order to save Our Democracy™ of course.)

Trump's alleged weaponization of the Justice Department relates to his going after people actually in the Justice Department, and the civil service minions who did its bidding.

Joe Biden's "weaponization of the Justice Department" had to do with its going after tech companies which published (in the opinion of the Biden Justice Department), disagreeable information. Further, that DOJ attempted to ruin, both influential private organizations and actual, sometimes widely perceived as reputable, but often simple and vulnerable, private American citizens: scientists who disagreed with the assessment of Covid protocols, parents at PTA meetings who objected to the content of library books which the administration was perfectly happy to put in the hands of seven-year olds, but which it couldn't tolerate being read aloud at school board meetings (see Merrick Garland's suggestion that such people needed to be tracked and followed, lest they provide incentives such as actual "violent threats"), pro-lifers protesting abortion, those vocally against "transing" children, civilians and member of the military and other government entities who'd refused the Covid vaccine, Turning Point USA, The Little Sisters of the Poor, and on and on.

While AOC seems to want to view the earlier iteration of "Woke" (much of which I've described above) as "crazy" and a joke (complete with winner-of-the-derby-like laughter), I'm more interested in what's coming next, and in its effects on ordinary people.

Apparently, she thinks the effects of "Woke 1," which it can be plausibly argued destroyed millions of lives—and from which she seems to be distancing herself, as if she wasn't one of its chief architects—are quite funny. Horseface funny, I guess.

Perhaps we're just supposed to move on to Woke 2.0, whatever that is.

Please weigh in.