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AOC Declares ‘Woke 1 Was Crazy’ As If She Wasn’t One of Its Biggest Stars

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[C-SPAN, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]
Walt RasingerBy
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has apparently discovered that “woke” politics went too far.

The New York Democrat raised eyebrows over the weekend while defending Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, whose old social media posts advocating the abolition of police and prisons have resurfaced as she seeks statewide office, writes The Daily Caller.

Rather than defend those positions directly, Ocasio-Cortez tried something new: Pretend the whole era was just a weird phase everyone went through.

“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy!’ And I think what’s important is that we have to assess what are candidates saying now,” Ocasio-Cortez stated.

That would certainly be convenient for AOC. She spent years helping lead it.

Hong has faced scrutiny for previously declaring “police exist to uphold white supremacy” and arguing that “reform can’t be an option.” She also advocated defunding police as a step toward ultimately abolishing police.

But Ocasio-Cortez should not get to play the reasonable observer of that political moment. She was one of its biggest stars.

Her own campaign operated a page titled “Sign On to Support Defunding the Police,” which declared: “The message is simple: Defund police. Invest in community services instead.”

When New York City leaders announced roughly $1 billion in changes to NYPD spending in 2020, AOC complained they had not gone far enough.

“Defunding police means defunding police,” said Ms Ocasio-Cortez. “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. It does not mean moving school police officers from the NYPD budget to the Department of Education’s budget so the exact same police remain in schools.”

And police were hardly the only institution she wanted dismantled.

In 2019, Ocasio-Cortez openly promoted the idea of prison abolition, writing, “I know the term ‘prison abolition’ is breaking some people’s brains. The right is already freaking out.”

Two years later, she went even further during a campaign event for Nina Turner.

“I want to abolish our carceral system that’s designed to trap Black and Brown men,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I want justice. I want peace, and I want prosperity. That’s what I want.”

She was also among the earliest prominent Democrats to campaign explicitly on abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, describing ICE as “unAmerican” during her original congressional campaign.

So when Ocasio-Cortez now says “Woke 1 was crazy!” she is not describing some distant group of college activists whose politics briefly got out of control.

She was helping set the agenda. That makes the timing particularly interesting. AOC has repeatedly emerged as one of the most obvious candidates to inherit the movement built by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

That possibility suddenly looks much less theoretical.

Axios reported earlier in the year that Ocasio-Cortez is keeping her options open for 2028, including a possible presidential campaign, and described her as increasingly viewed as a successor to Sanders’ progressive movement. She declined to rule out a White House run when confronted with polling showing her competitive in the Democratic field.

That makes “Woke 1 was crazy!” perhaps the clearest evidence yet that AOC understands she may eventually have to sell herself to voters far outside her deep-blue congressional district.

She is trying to separate today’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from the politics Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez championed when those politics were fashionable.

The problem is that voters have receipts. For example, during the BLM riots of 2020, AOC pretended that looters were like Aladdin, stealing bread, not burning down buildings:

Ocasio-Cortez later attempted to explain the movement by pointing to the strange political environment created by COVID lockdowns.

“During this time, and especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns. And I think that the doors were really opened in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place.”

“I actually think that the discussions that were had during that time were quite fruitful,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “I think that when we talk about crime today, it’s fundamentally different than the way we talked about crime and bringing down crime.”

Even that explanation only goes so far. AOC was discussing prison abolition before COVID began, campaigned on abolishing ICE before she entered Congress and continued calling for abolition of the “carceral system” after the lockdown era.

And in 2021, she objected when critics even used the word “woke.”

“Making up a ‘woke’ problem results in putting civil & voting rights on the backburner,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “In a year state legislatures are planning out GOP majorities & voter suppression, that’s dangerous.”

Five years later, now she wants to run for president, she’s got a different message: “Woke 1 was crazy!”

And it was, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not standing on the sidelines watching the craziness unfold.

She was one of the people leading it.

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