"Pluralism... is about recognizing that, in a democracy, power comes from forging alliances and building coalitions, and making room in those coalitions not only for the woke, but the waking."

Said Barack Obama, quoted in "In First Post-Election Speech, Obama Calls for ‘Forging Alliances and Building Coalitions’/'Purity tests are not a recipe for long-term success,' the former president said in the speech in Chicago" (NYT).

For Mr. Obama’s friends, he said, talk of bridging differences in a bitterly divided country seemed like an academic exercise.

“It felt far-fetched, even naïve, especially since, as far as they were concerned, the election proved that democracy’s down pretty far on people’s priority lists,” he said. But, he said, “it’s easy to give democracy lip service when it delivers the outcomes we want,” adding, “it’s when we don’t get what we want that our commitment to democracy is tested.”...

There's a special meaning to "democracy" in Obama's world, it seems — something like: It's democracy when we win. It seems to me that the election proved that we have a democracy and the people delivered their opinion. Obama seems to be saying that democracy is a background value, not the process of going through an election, and when that value is properly in place, people vote against Donald Trump.

Speaking of words, I wonder if "the waking" will catch on. It sounds like the title of a zombie movie.

ADDED: The meaning of "the waking" is like that special meaning of democracy. It's not a process that might go anywhere. It's a process toward a particular outcome. Those who are not progressing toward the prescribed outcome all outside of the process of democracy or waking. The "pluralism" is illusory.

ALSO: "Woke" and "waking" use the metaphor of sleep. When you are asleep, you have no consciousness or the illusion of dreams, which could be highly individualistic and include all sorts of unreal, unlikely, and impossible things. If you wake up, you have only one place to go: reality.