Who knows what “woke” even means anymore to the increasingly paranoid MAGA movement. The word has become empty slang for anything (and anyone) that offends conservatives. The new star of their growing list of bugaboos is none other than Tom Hanks.
For his patriotic wartime tearjerkers and folksy family classics, the prolific Hollywood icon earned the nickname “America’s Dad.” The serial box-office star and two-time back-to-back Oscar winner is well known for being a nice guy, on and off the screen.
And now? He’s famous for being woke.
Hanks was set to receive the U.S. Military Academy’s Sylvanus Thayer Award — a prize named for the “Father of West Point” — on the 25th of this month for being an “outstanding citizen of the United States whose service and accomplishments in the national interest exemplify personal devotion to the ideals expressed in West Point’s motto: ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’”
But this past weekend, for unclear reasons, the West Point alumni group in charge of presenting the award abruptly canceled the ceremony for Hanks, a longtime veterans’ rights advocate whose “HANKS for Our Troops” coffee brand supports vets and their families.
The declaration read like a gun-to-the-head citation. Was the group pressured into disinviting Hanks?
The inexplicable decision was meant to refocus West Point “on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the world’s most lethal force, the United States Army,” according to a statement issued by the president of the West Point Association of Graduates.
The declaration read like a gun-to-the-head citation. Was the group pressured into disinviting Hanks? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Trump or his far-right allies have issued demands involving West Point.
No one, so far, feels duty- or honor-bound to tell the country.
But consider the commander in chief’s reaction.
“Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks,” President Donald Trump ranted on Truth Social on Sunday morning. “Important move! We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!! Hopefully the Academy Awards, and other Fake Award Shows, will review their Standards and Practices in the name of Fairness and Justice. Watch their DEAD RATINGS SURGE!”
So there you have it — trial by Trump. Hanks is woke. No award for him.
Trump has been begging for a Nobel Prize, for various imagined accomplishments. He wasn’t about to let Tom Hanks steal his thunder at West Point.
His great crime? Likely, his politics: Hanks is a longtime Democratic donor. And in Trump’s America, the only thing that counts is loyalty to the president. If not, then you are to be excised from the public square.
Hanks joins the likes of Taylor Swift, Jimmy Kimmel and Meryl Streep in the pantheon of megastars slandered by the diseased, conspiracy-drunk corners of the Trump-worshipping MAGA media ecosystem. They delight in disrupting the images of celebrities who directly contradict the president’s self-image. Trump wants the world to view him as strong, decisive and patriotic, even as his vile social media posts reveal he’s insecure, dithering and faithless.









