Name calling and turning the perception of positives into negatives is in the GOP playbook now. Name calling. Assigning nicknames. Making sure that anything that calls attention to social imbalance by denigrating it is classic Trump and his allies. Usually for Trump there is a direct line from what he fears to how he labels his opponents. "Crooked Hillary" from a man who is morally corrupt, accused of and eventually on trial for sex and financial crimes. Smear her before she can smear him. He definitely wants "woke" to be an insult.

Long ago the idea of "politically correct" met the same fate. The simple idea that you be polite and aware of your surroundings and not say things to offend others became strained. From one of the online dictionaries: Someone who is politically correct believes that language and actions that could be offensive to others, especially those relating to sex and race, should be avoided.

Woke is more comprehensive, with the many nuances one encounters with LGBT+ that involve actually sorting one's pronouns, so essentially political correctness has morphed into "woke" - aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

There is everything right about that, but people who are threatened by criticism of their behavior and language will turn the term into a pejorative, hoping to cut off the activism behind it. Hoping to influence those who weren't paying attention to assume that what is happening socially is bad for them (because they still don't know what it is.)