Did we discuss AOC saying we are moving on from "Woke 1"?

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The so-called "Woke 1" period is not something to laugh off. It was a repressive and destructive mob rule which unjustly destroyed careers and requires a reckoning.

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Many Democratic Party candidates emerging on what one might call the populist left are finding success in primaries across the country. But most of them have a shared liability: they were fully on board with the worst excesses and abuses of the “peak wokeness” that emerged in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 killing, enduring and contaminating most of our institutions for several years after.

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AOC, on Sunday, went on ABC’s morning news program with Jonathan Karl, where she was asked about some of Hong’s statements, including her call for “abolishing prisons” and “[defunding] the police,” policies and phrases that have proven to be deeply unpopular. AOC, who herself aggressively advocated those policies, sought to laughingly dismiss this all as just some momentary, harmless frenzy of “craziness” that never really meant much and that everyone has all just agreed to move beyond:


It is, I suppose, a net positive that those who imposed extremist woke dogma are now too embarrassed to defend it. When they hear what they were saying and demanding at the time, it now sounds to them as unhinged and insane as it did to many of us back when they were earnestly and angrily spouting it.

But when AOC tries to giggle her way out of her behavior and the behavior of her allies, it actually is more offensive and cowardly than anything else. By invoking the lighthearted and playful terminology of the New York City Councilman whom she quotes — “Woke 1 was crazy!” — she seeks to depict this dark period as just a few oddball, zany moments that never really hurt anyone and thus need not be dwelled on or taken seriously.

But the woke extremism that AOC and her friends imposed on everyone else was anything but playful or frivolous. It was deeply authoritarian, mob-driven, sinister, coercive, and bloodthirsty. It sought to destroy anyone and everyone who did not immediately submit to and recite all of its new jargon and dictates. As was true for the similar hive-mind excesses of the #MeToo movement, the woke warriors — without batting an eye — destroyed careers, reputations, and institutions upon even the slightest transgression of their new dictates.

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"Woke 2" Wants a Mulligan for "Woke 1"

Gearing for a White House run, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez laughs off "Woke 1" as "a little crazy." On the strategy of losing every political battle in order to win the political war

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Ocasio-Cortez: Right. She’s moved away from it. And I have a local city councilman that - Yeah. Has this, uh, uh, saying — “Woke one was crazy.” (laughs)

Karl: Woke one was crazy. That’s so true!

Ocasio-Cortez: I think that what’s important is that we have to assess what—

Karl: Was it? I mean, did the movement go too far with some of those positions? I mean, you, you briefly supported the idea of defunding the police.

Ocasio-Cortez: You know, I think that, I think that during this time, and during, especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window. We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns. Yeah. And I think that the, the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful.

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Discussions! Fruitful! Quite a way to describe “Woke 1,” the first pass at saturation-bombing America with race paranoia, scarlet-lettering, and threats in an effort to produce grotesque public displays of ideological obedience.

Ocasio-Cortez went on to say, “Of course, during lockdown, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.” What she means is, “We tried to shove it down your throats through the sheer power of our freakout before. This time, we’re going to get elected first.” AOC has to refer to “Woke 1” because “Woke 2” is now ascendant, and its primary characteristic is its effort to remarket itself as a viable electoral movement, less insane than that initial run from a screeching mob of torch-bearing half-literate buffoons who tried to burn the American project to the ground. Since Woke 2 is, like AOC, dusting itself off to run for office, it wants you to forget this earlier incarnation, even though none of its adherents have apologized or changed their minds:

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