The Economist.

Carmen Kiroga spent months at the end of 2022 preparing to open a breakfast cafe in Coventry,

a small town in East Central Connecticut.

She painstakingly renovated a building and carefully considered the name,

something that would make people think of breakfast,

preferably with an O in it, so she could use a fried egg in the logo.

She reckoned she'd struck gold with a word she thought just meant to wake up in the morning

and proudly opened her new business, woke breakfast and coffee.

That's when the uproar began.

Local conservatives were outraged, thinking that Kiroga was making a political statement

and threatened to boycott the cafe.

Kiroga had migrated from Mexico a number of years earlier

and had no idea she had named her cafe

after one of the most triggering words in American politics.

Luckily for Kiroga, most people were supportive,

and locals can still head to Main Street for their woke coffee and eggs.

With 39 days to go until the 2024 election,

I'm John Priddo, and this is Checks and Balance from The Economist.

Each week, we take one big theme shaping American politics

and explore it in depth.

Today, why is America becoming less woke? Over the past decade, a form of wokenness arose, particularly on the liberal left,

which was characterized by extreme pessimism about America and its capacity to make progress,

...