Microsoft Shows the Left’s Doubling Down on Woke Nonsense

BUCK: If you want to get a sense of what the woke left believes in this moment after their loss in Virginia, Democrats’ loss in Virginia, Terry McAuliffe — a creature of the DNC, a part of the DNC machine — losing to a political newcomer? How’d this happen? What should they do about it? Well, AOC, for example, is out there saying the real problem is they weren’t progressive enough.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: On the election front, I actually think we have good news as well. I know that Virginia was a huge bummer. And, honestly, if anything, I think that the results show the limits of trying to run a fully, 100%, super-moderated (sic) campaign. That does not excite, speak to, or energize a progressive base — and, frankly, we weren’t even really invited to contribute on that race.

BUCK: Okay. So the left wasn’t fired up enough, is what she’s saying. It was too “moderated.” I think she meant “moderate.” Too much of a moderate campaign, she says. That was the problem. Meanwhile, people that have been in Democrat politics a long time are saying the party has lost its mind. I want them to listen to AOC. I want them, Clay, to take the AOC approach.

And what does that mean? How crazy can things really get? Microsoft is one of the biggest software companies in the world. It obviously, made Bill Gates… Boooo. It made Bill Gates an ultrawealthy billionaire many, many, many times over. Here’s the kind of stuff that you hear at a Microsoft event in Seattle to start off their big online forum. Play 6.

ALLISON WEINS: Welcome to Microsoft Ignite. First, we want to acknowledge that the land where the Microsoft campus is situated was traditionally occupied by the Sammamish, Duwamish, Snoqualmie, Suquamish, Muckleshoot, Snohomish, the Tulalip, and other coast Salish people since time immemorial — a people who are still continuing to honor and bring to light their ancient heritage.

BUCK: Clay, we paused it there —

CLAY: — since time immemorial, first of all, because, Buck, there were no humans living in North America until, what, like 50,000 years ago? I mean, if you actually studied the expected… I know they’re constantly evolving when people actually arrived in America. But “time immemorial” is a hundred percent not true. But it’s so weird and awkward. That feels like a satirical opening to a super woke comedy special.

BUCK: Where do you go? Who among the Muckleshoot or the Snohomish…? I was writing them down.

CLAY: Snoqualmie is a name, an area. So I at least know how to pronounce that one.

BUCK: Okay. There we go. I mean, I know Chinook from that region, there’s like Chinook tribe ’cause Chinook helicopters which I’ve ridden back in the day. I know those. I never heard of the Muckleshoot. Well, that’s neither here nor there. Who do we go to beg forgiveness? What do we do? What are we supposed to make of all this? But, Clay, it actually… Now, I want to play a part first, because that’s just clear woke insanity.

CLAY: And, by the way, this is funny, too, Buck, because you know even in Microsoft, there are a lot of people who think like us and were like, “Hey, I don’t know that we should begin or presentation by acknowledging that indigenous people used to live on these lands.” But if somebody raised their hand and said that, they would be afraid of being targeted and potentially losing their jobs because of cultural insensitivity.

There’s a huge percentage, I guarantee you, of Microsoft employees secretly listening to shows like ours that know — in that boardroom, in that meeting — does anybody have any qualms or disagreement with us beginning that big event like this? Tons of people would have said “yes,” but they were terrified to raise their hands and say yes.

BUCK: I think that’s absolutely true. (laughing) I also think that if I started this show… I can’t speak to the native tribes of Tennessee. You might know better, indigenous tribes of Tennessee. If I started this show saying, “I just want to apologize everyone listening to the Clay and Buck show for sitting here in this radio show on Iroquois and Huron and Mohican land. I feel very badly about it,” and do I do that every day? How long…? What is enough? When have I…? When can I be cleansed of my sins?

CLAY: What is the white guilt expunged?

BUCK: When have you done enough? How do I know that this goes away? Clay, there’s a little bit dispute from the audio. People say there’s a reason for this — for some of it, at least. It keeps going there in the wokeness.

ALLISON WEINS: My name is Allison Weins. I’m a senior program manager in our Developer Tools Division. I’m an Asian-white female with dark brown hair wearing a red sleeveless top.

SETH JUAREZ: And I’m Seth Juarez, program manager of the AI Platform Group. I’m a tall, Hispanic, male, wearing a blue shirt, khaki pants. Today, we kick off two days of learning.

BUCK: Okay, now, I’ve been told that this is because they want people who are visually impaired — can’t see — to feel more included. Okay. Maybe. But there’s also others that were… I’d never heard that before. But they also were announcing their pronouns, of course. For some reason, it wasn’t that audio.

But, they said, “My pronouns are he/him” and “she/her” and all that stuff. I just want to know, how much of this…? Does this have to be the preamble that we all go through all the time? If not, why not? What purpose does this serve if not to drown oneself in white guilt and then try to expunge it through virtue signaling for one’s own benefit, actually?

CLAY: Buck, this is one of the all-time arguments to me that these companies are basically monopolies, because if you have all of the time — inside of Google, inside of Apple — to be sitting around having debates about things like this which don’t impact your business at all, then you are so powerful economically as a company that you can overwhelm everyone else and still have time to have these debates and discussions and absurd virtue signaling, woke directives.

And it doesn’t impact your opinion bottom line at all, right? I mean, intense competition would… In theory, a company like this — which is obsessed with all this external signaling, which doesn’t go to the essence of what the company does — would lose in a competitive marketplace to another company that would say, “Hey, we’re just gonna kick ass.”