AOC and the Democratic reckoning over the “Great Awokening”

What has the congresswoman really learned in recent years?

Dear readers,

Last night, Democratic primary voters in Wisconsin very narrowly nominated Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley in the race for governor. In the process, they rejected DSA-endorsed candidate Francesca Hong, whose trail of controversial social media posts revived debates about the “Woke 1.0” era.

A more “official” launch of our publication is coming Monday. However, as a thank-you to those who have already signed up for our newsletter, we wanted to share this timely analysis of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent reaction to Hong’s past comments from our editor-in-chief, Michael Baharaeen. Stay tuned for more next week!

-The Long View team

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Over the past weekend, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared on ABC’s This Week with Jonathan Karl. During their discussion, Karl asked the congresswoman about Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong’s past controversial social media posts, including a tweet in which she supported “canceling” Thanksgiving. After initially sidestepping the question, saying that Hong had “moved away” from those past views, AOC added, with a chuckle, “I have a local city councilman who has this saying: ‘Woke 1 was crazy!’”

Her comments reflect a recent development from some Democrats: now embarrassed by what are widely viewed as excesses of that era, they seem to believe it’s best to laugh at how silly some things were back then and move on. The problem with this type of response is that it demonstrates a lack of awareness of just how off-the-rails—and illiberal—much of that era really became.

What began as a largely sincere effort to address long-simmering issues around police tactics and racial inequality gradually morphed into a moral panic in some corners. Many activists became more focused on identifying and punishing dissenters and perceived moral transgressors than on building a coalition big enough to achieve real policy change.

This created a real chilling effect on public discourse, making it harder to openly debate the complex issues facing the country. Even more troubling, some people lost their jobs and had their social reputations irreparably marred for what were often innocuous comments, some of which likely wouldn’t be given a second thought today. There was no grace extended to them, nor were most of them given the opportunity to defend themselves.¹

Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane. Circa 2020, when the “Great Awokening” arguably took off in earnest, a lot of people on social media began searching for “problematic” figures—both high-profile and normie—and pressuring employers to fire them. Here are just a few whose economic livelihoods took a hit around that time:

• David Shor, a Democratic data guru who warned that violent riots could backfire and help re-elect Donald Trump

• Roland Fryer, a (black) Harvard economist whose research challenged claims that policing is infected with systemic racial bias

• Donald McNeil Jr., a New York Times Covid reporter who mentioned a racial slur in the context of repeating a question a student had asked him for clarity

• Alexi McCammond, a reporter who had a job offer revoked after staffers at the new organization unearthed offensive tweets she made in high school

• Alison Roman, a New York Times food columnist who criticized two other prominent women who happened to be Asian

• Gina Carano, an actress who compared the treatment of conservatives in America with the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust

Regardless of what one thinks of the merits of their arguments or the wisdom of their statements, there was no time for anyone to weigh them or consider how to respond to them—the consequences in each case were swift, with verdicts largely rendered in the court of public opinion.

Then there were the everyday Americans who unwittingly found themselves at the wrong end of this era’s new rules. The Art Institute of Chicago fired 82 retirees who volunteered as docents because the group was thought to be too white. A yoga studio in Denver was forced to close its doors after internal ruptures over its slow pace of culture change. Several others were the victims of social media mobs, including:

• A Middle Eastern grocery owner in Minneapolis (over posts his daughter had made on Twitter and Instagram years prior)

• A Hispanic electrical worker from San Diego whom someone thought they saw making the “OK” sign, which some interpreted as support for white supremacy (he had been cracking his knuckles)

• A high school cheerleader from Virginia, who recorded herself singing a rap song, which included a slur (a classmate kept the recording until she applied for college, and then made it public)

• A college professor from California who used a Mandarin word that sounded like a racial slur in the English language (one of many in his profession to face cancellation attempts)

These seismic shifts also hit the Democratic Party. Many figures (including Ocasio-Cortez herself) began to embrace policies and ideas, often at the behest of activists, that even at the time were far out of step with most Americans—and sometimes even with Democratic voters.² This included support for de facto open borders, defunding the police, reparations for slavery, and voting rights for incarcerated felons (to name a few).³

The above is just a sampling from that era, but there is much, much, much more.⁴ Some may think these trade-offs were worth it in the context of addressing racial injustice. But they also engendered immense backlash that may have helped power Trump’s victory in 2024—and that likely provided him a template for his own version of “cancel culture.”

This raises the question: does the congresswoman actually remember just how “crazy” things got during this period? It’s well and good for AOC and others to concede that there was real overreach. But it might be wise to also provide clearer answers to some reasonable questions: What, specifically, do they think was “crazy”? Was it simply, as she suggests in the interview, dumb rhetoric? Or were there problems with some of the actual ideas being proposed? Moreover, why, when so many people opposed these ideas at the time, were she and other progressives so susceptible to them? Did that demonstrate poor judgment?

Without offering answers to these questions, it remains unclear whether Ocasio-Cortez, who may be eyeing a 2028 presidential run, and others in her orbit actually understand what people were so upset about. And without an honest reckoning, she risks following in the footsteps of Democrats’ previous nominee, Kamala Harris, who tried but failed to leave her own controversial statements in the past while never fully accounting for why she adopted them in the first place. Future presidential aspirants would do well to find a better way forward than, “Haha, wow, that was a crazy time, right guys?”

Editor’s note: a version of this piece first appeared in UnHerd

1. And those who came to their defense were often at risk of being “canceled” as well.

2. There was a reason Democratic voters ultimately selected Joe Biden, who had run a fairly moderate primary campaign, as their 2020 nominee.

3. There have also been internal ruptures during this era at numerous progressive political organizations.

4. Even today, the formal party apparatus still clings to some rituals from that era like land acknowledgments.