WOKE RAN OUT OF STEAM. THE REST OF US ARE STILL DRINKING REGULAR.

There was a stretch of years when every institution in American life seemed to have been captured by a person with a laminated pronoun and a five-year plan for your vocabulary. Corporations recited it. Agencies enforced it. Newsrooms graded you on it. Then the voters, in their vulgar wisdom, changed the channel.

Woke did not lose because a podcast was mean. It lost because it was exhausting, expensive, and allergic to results. It could rename a building. It could not staff a police department. It could write a land acknowledgment. It could not keep a downtown from smelling like a warning.

The professional mourners are now touring the ruins of their own conference, insisting the country became cruel. No. The country became bored. There is a difference. Bored people go back to work. Cruel people write your HR policy.

Walk into a diner in 2026 and you will hear about gas, grandkids, and whether the President is going to Dallas. You will not hear a struggle session about the ketchup. That is not a backlash. That is a return to factory settings.

Hot Covfefe will not be hosting a wake. We will be pouring regular. If you need the old menu, there is a faculty club somewhere still serving it, lukewarm, with a straw.