"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
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave an interview to ABC’s Jon Karl over the weekend:
Karl: So you have Wisconsin coming up next, Francesca Hong, who is the Democratic Socialist of America-supported candidate for governor… You haven’t endorsed her. Are you going to?
Ocasio-Cortez: No, I haven’t endorsed in that race. My focus has been in winning back the Congress, winning back the House, and positioning ourselves to have the best chance possible to win the Senate. So I’ve been focused on those legislative races.
Karl: What do you make of those controversial statements? I’m sure you’ve seen. I mean, the Thanksgiving dust up. She says she doesn’t still believe that, but… the abolished prisons, abolished police… also positions that have been taken by a lot of the progressive candidates who have won… How do you get around that..?
Ocasio-Cortez: These races ultimately are local, and all politics are local. My understanding is that is that Francesca Hong has made clear her present stances to her electorate.
Karl: Yeah, she’s moved away from a lot of that.
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.
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:
