The only problem with this line of attack is that it makes no sense.
A financial panic like the one that struck several U.S. banks over the past few days presents a dilemma for the committed partisan. You don’t want to side with the failed Silicon Valley Bank and other collapsing institutions and come across as coddling the rich, but you also don’t want to root for the bank to fail and end up being a cheerleader for broader economic collapse. This is especially tricky for Republicans, who spent the weekend looking for a way to criticize President Joe Biden’s handling of the crisis, even as they waited to see what his handling of the crisis would be.
But a few prominent Republicans found a third way: Blame it all on wokeness.
“I mean, this bank, they’re so concerned with DEI and politics and all kinds of stuff. I think that really diverted from them focusing on their core mission,” said Florida Governor and presumptive presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.
“SVB is what happens when you push a leftist/woke ideology and have that take precedent over common sense business practices,” tweeted Donald Trump Jr., presumably in contrast to the commonsense business practices that have led Trump family businesses to declare bankruptcy multiple times. “This won’t be the last failure of this nature so long as people are rewarded for pushing this bs.”
“We see now coming out they were one of the most woke banks in their quest for the [Environmental, Social, and Governance]-type policy and investing,” Representative James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the House Oversight Committee, said.
And Representative Marjorie Taylor Green offered a nonsensical statement, even by her standards, saying that “the fools running the bank were woke and almost became broke.
