Republican's 'woke' comments come back to haunt him during his anti-woke Senate campaign

The new Republican buzzword to attack Democrats isn't "liberal" or "socialist" -- now the worst thing the GOP thinks is that a person is "woke." The GOP's shift appears to be a problem for the Pennsylvania Senate campaign of David McCormick.

The former undersecretary for the Treasury under President George W. Bush proclaimed in his campaign ad: “I’m running for the U.S. Senate to fight the woke mob hijacking America’s future." But as Vice News found, it wasn't that long ago that McCormick had his own "woke" agenda.

After George Floyd was murdered in May 2020, McCormick wrote an open letter attacking “structural bigotry," which he said he fought while serving as the CEO of Bridgewater Associates. Under his leadership, he said he pushed the company’s diversity and inclusion initiative.

“Racism and discrimination more broadly thrive not just in overt actions but also in omissions and willful ignorance. Benefiting from a system that quietly discriminates—without acknowledging it and helping to repair it—only propagates that system,” McCormick wrote in a memo to Bridgewater staffers. He then shared the letter publicly on his LinkedIn page.

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He went on to explain that the problem with structural racism "is very big, and this is a moment for us to ask ourselves some very hard and uncomfortable questions about the kind of country we want to be."

Two years before, he was encouraging "empathy and genuine conviction," as part of his ongoing effort in "eradicating structural bigotry around us."

Just two years later, McCormick is promising Republicans (in a different ad): “I’m anti-woke, anti-illegal immigration, anti-political correctness, anti-socialism, anti-Joe Biden, and the radical left."

Read the full report at Vice News.