DAVID MARCUS: Woke 1.0 is why entertainers needed our secret conservative club
As Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., laughs off the excesses of what she now calls "Woke 1.0," it is worth remembering just how bad censorship was under that politically correct cultural regime, and how it got so bad that Hollywood conservatives needed to form their own secret club.In a recent podcast interview, actress Patricia Heaton, of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ fame, spilled the beans on Friends of Abe, a secret organization for conservatives and independents in the entertainment industry, which she helped form during the Obama administration.Abe, in this case, references the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.FILE - Patricia Heaton urged her "friends on the left" to reject violent political rhetoric following the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting.
Heaton allegedly participated in the Friends of Abe group.(Brian Stukes/Getty Images)AOC SAYS ‘WOKE 1 WAS CRAZY,’ BUT DEMOCRATS STILL OWE VOTERS AN EXPLANATIONA small core group that included stars such as Gary Sinise and Kelsey Grammar, soon turned into a loose organization of thousands, with a New York City chapter that I joined somewhere around 2012, and which was an oasis in a Gotham arts scene that made Mao look like William F.
Buckley, Jr.As Heaton put it, "You could ask someone if they are a friend of Abe, or FOA, and if they said yeah, then you know there was another conservative or independent, or someone who is not a Democrat, that you could talk to without feeling like you were going to get in trouble at your job."FILE - Actress Patricia Heaton described Friends of Abe as a safe place for conservatives.(Roy Rochlin / Getty)KELSEY GRAMMER SUSPECTS HE 'MAY HAVE' LOST HOLLYWOOD ROLES DUE TO CONSERVATIVE VIEWSIt is hard to overstate just how dangerous expressing conservative ideas was 5 to 15 years ago in the entertainment industry.
Take actor Gina Carano, who lost her role in a Disney TV show because she posted on social media that conservatives should not be treated as enemie...