Actually, AOC, Woke 1.0 Did a Lot of Good Things for This Country

None of that was crazy. Much of it was great. Ocasio-Cortez diminishes those movements and positive changes by broadly casting 2020 as some fever dream. The congresswoman obviously didn’t oppose the George Floyd protests. But language like “Woke One was crazy” implies there is some Woke One defined by unhinged protests and demands. But being in Louisville in 2020, I can attest that the protests here were entirely about arresting the officers who shot Breonna Taylor and never about abolishing prisons. It’s disappointing that one of the most prominent left-wing politicians in the country is engaged in such an inaccurate version of history.

But I get why she’s doing it. Ocasio-Cortez, Hong, Abdul El-Sayed, Zohran Mamdani, and many leftist politicians have backed away from their comments and stances in 2020, particularly around policing and racism. That makes sense. Many of these politicians either weren’t in office or were representing very left-wing areas back then. Now, they are seeking to be mayor, governor, senator, and perhaps president. Much of what they said in 2020 won’t appeal to white swing voters (“police exist to uphold white supremacy,” said Hong) or much of anyone beyond super-progressives (abolishing police).

Broadly, the progressive left, inspired by Mamdani’s success, is running campaigns that emphasize economic issues such as lowering housing costs and stopping the expansion of data centers, while downplaying other issues. Even abortion and other causes where popular opinion is on their side have been sidelined for populist economics. That’s in part because the left has decided it will do better in both Democratic primaries and general elections if it wins more voters without college degrees, and the theory is that economic populism is the best way to do that. (Neither El-Sayed nor Mamdani won voters without degrees in their races against centrist Democrats, so this remains just a theory for now.) Woke 2.0 is generally this economic populism combined with strong opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, which has in some ways supplanted police brutality as the social justice cause of the left.