Sununu decries "woke cancel culture" but says government "can't solve" problem

Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.) decried the prevalence of "woke cancel culture," which he claimed sowed "divisiveness" in American schools and communities, during an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. However, he noted that the government was unlikely to be the one to fix a "cultural problem."

Why it matters: Issues of "cancel culture" and "woke" ideas have become increasingly prominent among many in the GOP in recent years.

• During her response to President Biden's State of the Union on Tuesday, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Ark.) accused the Biden administration of pursuing "woke fantasies," adding that "we are under attack in a left-wing culture war."
• The College Board revealed changes to its curriculum for its AP African American Studies course earlier this month following backlash from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and conservative politicians, who claimed it teaches critical race theory, a college-level framework that is rarely taught in grade school but often conflated with teachings on systemic racism.

State of play: Sununu said that cancel culture created an "us versus them" binary in which "everything's a war."

• "That's a cultural problem we have to fix in America and it starts with good leadership, good messaging, more hopeful and optimistic, but government never solves a cultural problem," he said.
• Sununu said he agreed with Sanders' claim during her response to the State of the Union that there was a culture war being waged by "a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is."
• Asked by host Margaret Brennan whether he would engage with issues of gender and race like Sanders and DeSantis, Sununu said that he believed the government could provide "leadership" on cultural issues but that "it isn't the government's role to solve it."