With an eye on 2028, Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is trying to position herself as a moderate, and she's getting a boost from the media, with ABC News' Jon Karl sharing a good laugh with her about how "Woke 1 was crazy." AOC was responding to former gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong posting about abolishing the police and prisons. Crazy, right? Except that's still the official platform of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Substack author and contributing writer at The Atlantic, Derek Thompson, did a thought experiment in which he wondered what the Republican equivalent would be of Democrats deciding that Woke 1.0 was crazy.
what would be the republican equivalent of democrats deciding that woke 1.0 was crazy?
— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) August 11, 2026
i think it ~might~ be something like: a party-wide acknowledgement that their party leader, now polling at record lows, really did lose the 2020 election and doesn't deserve kingly featly…
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… while he rakes in billions in crypto schemes as inflation rises and iran squeezes the strait of hormuz.
so while i think conservatives are right to be miffed about lefties saying "ha ha whoopsies" about the worst SJW nonsense of the early 2020s, the bigger story, i think, isn't democrats letting go of woke 1, but rather the republicans' amazing inability to let go of the million-pound anchor dragging down the party
So, Trump.
— JWF (@JammieWF) August 13, 2026
Ah who can forget when those crazy republicans took over city centers, enacted their own "election freedom zones", caused billions in damages, and got thousands of black folks killed as a direct result?
— 𝔻𝕠𝕔𝕥𝕠𝕣 𝔽𝕒𝕥𝕖 (@georg3) August 11, 2026
Your attempt at whataboutism is hilariously bad. Like, really bad lol. pic.twitter.com/o3ICtX23ts
Also it's really easy for you to say "the worst of the sjw nonsense" without explaining what exactly the worst was. What was nonsense and what did you think was ok?
— SlackerCapital (@amidnightstroll) August 11, 2026
Every major West Coast city (and beyond) is still a no go zone thanks to Woke 1.0 policies. Those same policies did billions of dollars in damage to city centers and their effect on policing can probably be blamed for killing thousands of Americans. Trump's corruption et al. is a…
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) August 11, 2026
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… legit complaint, but it's had nowhere near the effect on the average American Woke 1.0 did and to suggest equivalency is absurd.
I replied to Derek but I thought this is worth bringing to the front:
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) August 12, 2026
There isn't a good right-wing equivalent to Woke 1.0 because Woke 1.0 was a massive and insanely powerful cultural force that was the most disruptive, censorious, and vindictive movement since McCarthyism… https://t.co/8yk20J4tkU
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… Here are some things that happened during Woke 1.0:
- The MLB ripped an All-Star game away from Atlanta over politics
- Mass censorship across every social media network, including censorship of academics and gov't officials
- The unpublishing of massively popular children's books and the industry-wide crackdown on even allowing third parties to sell used copies of those books
- Racially motivated lockout from publishing and academia that remains to this day
- If we're counting post-Floyd events, a 40% increase in the murder rate (it was so craaaazy)
- mass firings over vaccines (even among pregnant women and remote workers)
There is nothing even remotely equivalent like that on the right. People are saying "2020 election truthers" but that isn't something that made any difference to the lives of normal people.
Also stuff like we were supposed to accept (and welcome!) biological boys in girls' spaces like bunks or locker rooms and we were crazy and mean if we said no. That continues to this day!
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) August 12, 2026
A lot of people in media should probably go see what's happening on Substack right now. https://t.co/GFTyd2euCN
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) August 13, 2026
Hey man remember when you covered for Joe Biden? Do you think anyone thinks you’re unbiased?
— Mass Bets (@Mass_Bets) August 11, 2026
And you still defend Biden
— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) August 13, 2026
Except that Dems aren't disavowing Woke 1, they're just faking it until they can wrest away enough power to enact Woke Cubed.
— Keith Levenberg (@KeithLevenberg) August 11, 2026
There is no rightwing equivalent because the left has a totalitarian stranglehold on almost every single institution through which Americans see the world.
— Everybody is Insane (@colorblindk1d) August 12, 2026
They havent “let go” of woke 1 you mendacious twig. They all have the same policy positions. There has been a tempering of rhetoric. Thats it
— punishedabundance (@punishedlibtard) August 11, 2026
This is an embarrassingly awful reach to compare anything on the right to "woke 1.0"
— Daniel (@FinEssentials) August 12, 2026
Sorry, you can't will a retcon of all this. People are smart, and they remember.
— Roaring 20s (@JohnWonderlin) August 13, 2026
Woke 1.0 gave us Trump 2.0. AOC deserves to provide a much more serious attempt of reconciliation, not just a "Damn man that was nuts"
— DoDiDoneDo (@dodidonedo) August 11, 2026
She was a prime arbiter of wokeness throughout the late 10s, early 2020s. She doesn't get to just laugh it off.
Obviously, claiming that there was a Woke 1.0 suggests that we're now in Woke 2.0, in which the Democrat Party is being taken over by Democratic Socialists whose platform is to abolish the police, abolish prisons, abolish borders, abolish the Senate, abolish the presidency, and attempt to jump-start the Black Lives Matter movement over the police shooting of a career criminal with a knife in Madison, Wisconsin. Remember the Corey Ruiz Autonomous Zone from last month? That was crazy.
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