It’s funny, the way that Republicans can sometimes become a parody of themselves when they try to make something good seem bad. Don’t get me wrong — it works on their voters. But the rest of us just think it’s hilarious.

Take the concept of “woke,” for example. It started as an AAVE term for a person who is aware of and paying attention to important issues of race and social justice. It’s used far more widely now and encompasses more than it initially did, even among people who mean it in a positive way. Like, it’s not just woke to protest police brutality, but it’s also woke to reduce your carbon footprint and woke to check your privilege in public.

But conservatives don’t like the very CONCEPT of “woke,” and not just because the term was coined by Black folks. They hate it because it feels to them like an attack on their conservative values, which turn out to be basically the opposite of what “woke” means.

When right-wingers first started using woke as an epithet, they meant something along the lines of “politically correct,” another phrase that used to mean “being polite” but Republicans turned into “overly sensitive.”

Now they stick “woke” on anything they don’t like. That beer brand uses electric vehicles in their commercial? They’re woke. Two dads advertising Cheerios? Woke. Sending humanitarian aid to Somalia? You might as well be letting transgender Satanic priests perform sex changes on the kindergarten bus, that’s so woke. It is OUT. OF. HAND.

They have no idea what woke means, which is the whole joke.

Enter Redditor WokeBeans, an account made specifically to address the subreddit r/AITAH with a question. Every question that goes in that subreddit is the same: “Am I The Assh*le” for doing the thing described in the post.

WokeBeans has a cousin who makes some damn fine chili, and I am already on board with this story. I love chili, and I love a story that involves chili and asking if you did something that was too much for polite company.

This cousin is as “anti-woke” as they come. And unfortunately, like most white bread conservatives, Cousin Chilimaker has no idea what woke even means, it just means something they don’t like or that makes them uncomfortable.

The story:

My cousin is known for making chili. And he’s good at it. He makes his own chili flakes from his “secret combination” of various dried chilies, it has a very nice kick. It’s like the perfect amount of spice, it’s hot but not too hot. He also always adds kidney beans. Not canned beans either.

The beans, obviously, become important in short order. Now, I don’t know about you, but the only chili I like without beans is the stuff that goes on a chili dog. I don’t need beans on a hot dog any more than I need corn flakes on there. Otherwise, beans in chili is pretty much universal unless otherwise specified by the chef.

Anyways for the past 2 or 3 years my Cousin has become obsessed with all this bullsh*t about what is or isn’t “woke” and how “woke” things are the end of the world. He’s always been a good dude so I don’t know what his bag is but he is completely obsessed. It’s annoying.

And that’s exactly how it goes, too. In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was asked to define obscenity in legal terms, but he couldn’t, instead saying “I know it when I see it.” That’s how conservatives can tell when something’s woke. When they think it is.

Here’s the part that WokeBeans wonders if he was being an assh*le for:

So the other weekend I was at his place and he was making his famous chili. So I got the idea for a little prank. I was like “I’m surprised you still put beans in your chili.” He was like “What? Why?” I was like “Beans in chili are so woke. Everyone is saying so.” He was like “What do you mean?” And he was like genuinely concerned. As if this was something serious. I said something like “Yeah beans in chili are woke, the original conservative Texans who made chili only used meat and chili. San Francisco liberals started adding beans to chili in the 60’s because so many hippies were vegetarian. Now all the woke scientists are saying beans are a better protein source than meat.” He didn’t say anything to that.

If you’re not already laughing, you’re probably one of the anti-woke folks that takes their chili politics way too seriously. But WokeBeans fully expected his cousin to be in on the joke, and Cousin Chilimaker absolutely was not in on the joke.

Just yesterday I was back again at his place and he was making his chili again. There were no beans. It was a totally different chili. This guy has been making his chili with beans for like 15 years. I was like, whats up? “Where’s the beans?”

He was like “I don’t f*ck with that woke sh*t.” I was like “What?” He was like “Beans in chili are woke. Even you know that.”

Everyone else was like what? Because….what? I was like dude I was just f*cking with you. He got REALLY angry. He dumped his chili in the sink and told everyone to go home. I thought he was pranking me back or something but he was serious. The dude totally lost it.

I’m gonna stop WokeBeans right here and just answer his question: No, you are NTA, as the redditors say. In fact, you’re kind of my hero and I wish I knew you in real life because this is the kind of thing I dream of pranking someone with, like waiting for your friend to wake up from surgery anesthesia and pretending like they’ve been in a coma for 6 years and making up someone ridiculous as president and talking about, I don’t know, three seashells or something.

He texted me later and said this exact thing: “I researched this online and it turns out u really were lying to me, beans r not woke. How could u do this?”

We went back and forth for a bit. His position is even though we have historically pranked each other I went “too far”, that I “betrayed him”, that I “made him question his chili”. I tried to ask him if this at all made him think he cared too much about “woke”, like what if beans in chili WAS woke, so what? He ignored that and demanded I apologize.

Did I take this too far?

We all know the answer to that question, but Reddit had even better answers:

“Next say reacting badly to a joke is ‘woke.’ Demanding an apology is ‘woke.’ If he reacts, say reacting is ‘woke.'”

“Use the words ‘triggered’ and ‘snowflake’, and ask him if he needs a ‘safe space’ for his chili.”

“It’s just a joke, don’t be such a snowflake about it!”

“He also needs to accept that he’s an easily impressionable manchild who doesn’t even understand what he’s even upset about. If you will alter something as dear to you as the chili is to him over a dog whistle, you ain’t f*cking smart bro.”

It’s that last one right there. If you switch up your Cousin Chilimaker’s Famous Chili With Beans™ recipe because someone told you liberals like one of the ingredients, you just might be in a cult.

And not a cool chili cult, either.