Moms Launch Another Anti-Woke Group: Awake Americans

Moms for Liberty, which has done a fine job of networking anti-public school culture panic folks across the nation, has had some trouble with the brand in the last few months, what with misbehaving local leaders and reduced election prowess and founding guardians or morality failing to practice what they preach. 

So it's not surprising to find a few Moms looking to move their reactionary eggs to new baskets. One such operation is taking place in the Midwest. An Illinois-based group that has been around for a couple of years is trying to take its anti-woke massage national.

Which group is that?

Awake Illinois launched in May of 2021 and started forming chapters by counties in Illinois. They even had a cool launch video and a sort of slogan ("They can't cancel us"). The video hist the standard points-- schools didn't reopen fast enough, government is overreaching and oppressing businesses, schools are indoctrinating instead of educating. Amid the montage of stock footage is a shot of people celebrating as they cast away their masks. Who are they? "We are regular pro-human citizens." They make it a point to indicate they value humor ("Last year was gnarly" says the video at one point). Perhaps they noticed the general off-putting grimness of the M4L "joyful warriors." They want to defend education against critical race theory. All of this over the Glee cover version of David Bowie's "Heroes."

By February of 2022, they claimed 30,000 members over 32 counties. Their timeline also highlights fighting with the state union and the Tom DeVore-led lawsuits against the state over masking (DeVore was an attorney from American Freedom Society who, after a failed attempt to run for state Attorney General ran into legal troubles of his own). The timeline also notes the election of Glen Youngkin as governor of Virginia, one more reminder that some folks believed that Youngkin's election signaled a special political moment for the rights of (certain) parents. The site also touts Awake Illinois as bi-partisan, which only appears to be true if one considers right-wing and very right-wing as two flavors of partisans.

Who launched this venture?

Awake Illinois's founding president was Shannon Adcock. Adcock graduated from the University of Illinois in 2002 with a degree in BA in Communications, because a comms background seems to be the standard requirement for these groups. Adcock moved to Phoenix for a bit, did some sales and marketing work before starting her own photography studio, returning Naperville, Illinois in 2015. She's married with three kids, who attend a private Christian school. 

Adcock ran for a school board seat in March of 2021, and failed (the official Awake Illinois timeline starts with that election, noting a 12% voter turnout). From Chicago Tribune coverage of a petition calling for Candidate Adcock to step down:

Obed-Horton said she emailed Indian Prairie District 204 school board candidate Shannon Adcock in mid-March regarding the candidate’s objections to culturally responsive teaching and its intent to address implicit bias, racism, privilege and more in public schools. Adcock’s reply included a suggestion that Obed-Horton and other parents open a charter school with culturally responsive teaching in place, she said. In her Change.org petition, she said the email reply was “filled with racist rhetoric.”

Within a month the paperwork for Awake Illinois was under way. 

Awake Illinois quickly garnered a reputation for pivoting from anti-masking to anti-LGBTQ. They were "first and loudest voices" to oppose a family-friendly drag brunch and Drag Queen Bingo for teens. The latter event generated enough threats to result in a cancellation that AwakeIl celebrated on line. Then there was the time Adcock and crew managed to shut down a library.

Adcock became the chair of the DuPage chapter of Moms for Liberty. She went to a school board training session held by the Leadership Institute, the program that would have been run by Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler. A few days later, she announced another attempt at running for school board. Adcock has made a variety of appearances on right-wing media appearances on right-wing media. And she put up her own posts, like "The Perversion of K-12 Education," in which she proudly quotes Corey DeAngelis and argues about the evils of CRT and DEI. 

Adcock was also the center of controversy in 2022 when folks caught wind that she might be appointed to Naperville's Special Events and Cultural Amenities Commission. Once again a petition was launched. 

That appointment might have been a possibility because of Josh McBroom, the original vice-president of Awake Illinois. McBroom left the group to make a successful bid for a Naperville City Council seat. McBroom wasn't with the group long, but he had his moments, like the time he cosigned a demand that U.S. Congressman Sean Casten stop asking his opponent Keith Pekau to disavow Awake Illinois and the award they gave him for being an anti-mask, anti-vax guy. 

McBroom had previously gotten in trouble while serving on the Naperville Park Board Commission for making fun of pro-mask commissioners on social media. And he apparently wants to be a DeSantis delegate to the convention. McBroom's wife is an actual teacher. Once elected, McBroom seems to have vanished his AwakeIl leadership from his bio. 

Awake made many attempts to dabble in politics, like suckering Paul Vallas to appear on a panel while running for Chicago mayor. Only later did Vallas (never a big homework guy) discover that, among other things, AwakeIl had called Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker a groomer. But other GOP candidates signed on to the group's agenda.

Other members of the team.

McBroom was replaced by Helen Levinson, Levinson was the chair of the Cook County chapter of Moms For Liberty and at the center of battling lawsuits over racism in Skokie County schools, in which Levinson's legal team included Stephen Miller's America First Legal firm. Levinson is a sales, marketing and comms professional. 

Steve Lucie joined the leadership board in September 2021. Lucie had been a board candidate recommended by the Illinois Policy Institute until they were directed to some of his tweets on the subject of pandemic responses. In response to a post saying that the Biden administration might impose requirements to get vaccinated, Lucie tweeted "Fuck around and find out assholes!" followed by nine axes. Also, "People that choose not to be 'vaxed' will be the ones getting receipts. The vaxed will pay. Many I see with their own case numbers rising. They may even feel more pain if they continue to threaten the un vaxed." There's more in that vein. 

Lucie helped start "We Stand for Our Students" at the end of his 17-year school board career. The group drew some press, and Awale Illinois were fans. 

In May of 2021, parent John Blakey spoke before a school board about the dangers of CRT:

Watch how our teenagers interact around the neighborhoods and homes; they don't need to be split into identity groups based on skin color nor do they need to be taught how to be an anti-racist, about implicit bias, white supremacy, white privilege, etc. This will only create division.

By August, Blakey was the Director of Equality and Civil Rights for Awale Illinois, regularly speaking out against the Naperville district's equity plan.

In August, the group also signed on Dan Vosnos, who also turns up as a concerned parents, but who is also a well-connected activist and leader of One Chance Illinois-Action (joined up in 2022)-- a group connected to 50CAN (Derrell Bradford serves on its board of directors).

Expanding the brand

Awake Illinois has been busy in 2023, despite the occasional setback like the cancellation of an event about reforming sex ed, due to threats of violence.

Folks in the region have been tracking developments. Including the registration of domains for Awakes in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. Those domains are "parked" except for Awake Wisconsin, which has the organizations web template in place and is "launching soon" as "a nonpartisan, issue-based grassroots advocacy movement that is partnered with national organizations such as Moms for Liberty and Courage Is A Habit."

But the real development has been the step of going national at Awake Americans. 

Awake Americans is Awake Illinois. They have the same address--2020 Calamos Ct., Suite 200, Naperville, IL 60563, which is actually a "virtual address." The building holds an investment company and also Alliance Virtual Offices, that offered (apparently they're not taking new customers) virtual office space for Naperville professionals, because a "prestigious company solidifies your reputation."

Awake Americans also has exactly the same "parents and patriots" board of directors as Awake Illinois, plus one more. Adcock, Lucie and Levinson are joined by Scarlett Johnson. Johnson is the Moms for Liberty chair for Ozaukee County in Wisconsin, and presumably the head to Awake Wi. Johnson seems particularly agitated about LGBTQ stuff (you can see her protesting with a Proud Boy here).

Awake Americans officially announced their launch in April.  They joined the Naperville Chamber of Commerce in May, raising a few eyebrows. They grabbed their domain in August of 2023 (Thanks to John Norcross and others who tracked this info down), but they had a "launch event" back in June at the Hotel Arista in Naperville. They hosted three speakers:

Noelle Mering, from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a thinky tank and advocacy group devoted to making Judeo-Christian moral tradition influential in policy discussions. Rick Santorum was once a fellow there. 

Xi Van Fleet, a Virginia mom who left Mao's China and regularly compares critical race theory to the cultural revolution. She's done Hannity, and the far right Independent Women's Forum (the group that started as Women for Clarence Thomas) is a fan. She's popular on the "this is Marxism" circuit.

And James Lindsay, another anti-woke crusader who made "Okay, groomer" a thing. This infamous shitposter is allegedly on the Moms for Liberty advisory board these days.

One outcome if that gathering is a Woke 101 "webinar" to answer the question "Is Marxism in America?" They also offer a "Declaration of Independence from Woke." 

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for everyday people to distance themselves from anti-Americanism or Woke sentiment which purveys current culture and policy, and to assume we have awakened to said reality, we reaffirm and "hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among there are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 

I, therefore, as a citizen of the United States of America, earnestly publish and declare, that I am absolved from any Allegiance to Woke, Marxism, Communism, and/or Anti-Americanism, and that any attempt by the latter to coerce me shall be respectfully rejected.

Awake America proudly says it helped sponsor last July's Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, a big-time political gathering of evangelicals.

And Adcock is no longer listed as the chapter leader for DuPage County Moms for Liberty. Levinson is no longer listed as Cook County chair for M4L. Neither chapter has a Facebook page. Johnson is still listed as the Ozaukee County chapter chair (and legislation chair). 

It's not clear yet what the future holds for this Not-Woke-But-Awake crew. They don't appear to have a lot of political juice just yet. They're over-invested in last year's conservative scary word "woke." And beyond people who watch this kind of stuff carefully, they haven't attracted a lot of attention. They have Facebook and Twitter accounts, both of which are rather sleepy. 

But they have leaders who already have all the Moms for Liberty training and connections, making them perfectly positioned to be a welcoming dinghy for M4L members who want to jump ship. This is a group poised to do some rebranding for the anti-woke, anti-LGBTQ, anti-all-sorts-of-stuff crowd for whom M4L no longer works. We'll see how they do.