Very glad to see Michael Baharaeen back with a Substack. I've long appreciated Michael's analyses of polls and surveys, his balanced tone, and his willingness to engage respectfully with those who sometimes disagree (as I sometimes do). In this case, I appreciated particularly the specific examples he notes related to the various excesses he lays out.
Here's one that hit close to home, as I grew up in the Chicago area and the Art Institute was (and is) a treasure that I visited as often as I could.
I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday and, as is always the case, I was grateful for all the people who give their time, without pay, to us all, and with deep knowledge and dedication. When I walk in our local parks, I'm grateful for all those out in their sun hats, garden gloves, and knee protectors, weeding and otherwise beautifying our surroundings.
In almost all cases (not every one, to be sure, but most), the people doing this work are older white women.
One older white woman who gave freely of her time out of love for nature was, in fact, my Mom, who docented at a nature site near where she lived until she couldn't do the walking anymore. (She's 98 now.)
What a disgrace to dishonor these women in any way. Shame on the Art Institute.
AOC doesn't think Woke 1 was crazy, she thinks saying that will help her odds at winning the presidency. After Joe "Do I look woke to you?" Biden ran as a moderate in 2020 only to immediately hand the keys over to the most far Left administration in US history, anyone paying attention knows the Dem playbook is to hope people just forget everything they said before running for office.
The first year after this year's elections will be extremely telling. In WI, Crowley won because most Dems (barely) are sane enough to know Hong was crazy. I like Crowley well enough on paper, but if he wins I'll be very nervous that it will be Biden all over again at the state level: present as moderate, the pedal to the metal crazy once in office.
I wouldn't necessarily think she doesn't believe what she is saying now - she was elected at 28 after not really working in progressive politics. Wasn't DSA until soon before that. Was obviously getting tons of positive encouragement for participating in Peak Woke in her amazingly quick rise to fame. That must have been a wild ride for her. And she's now 36.
Sure, people can evolve and mature. She could demonstrate that by saying what exactly she found crazy about it. What was she wrong about? Which stances has she demonstratably changed on? I well remember 2020, and laughing and handwaving it off with a single sentence isn't enough for me to credit someone as having matured.
It’s not just that she said “Woke 1.0 was crazy.” It’s that she said it and then laughed. It comes across as if she’s laughing at the Americans who were (and still are) castigated and shunned for not going along with ideas in the workplace we knew then were “crazy” as AOC now confirms. She’s laughing at us. Many of us are still suffering from the fallout of “Woke 1.0” excess—and she laughs. And then she says “the discussions we had in that time were quite fruitful.” Fruitful for who? Exactly who benefited? Democrats deeply hurt people in their own party, they take no accountability for what they did, and now they laugh.
Good questions being asked here, enjoyed the piece and will be following more.
The best question you asked was, "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?"
Yes, yes it did. AOC has zero chance of even getting somewhat, kinda, maybe close to a nomination, and <0% chance of winning even if she did-- for these exact reasons. For most Americans, I'd bet she's still known and remembered as the loud standard-bearer of the damaging Woke movement. Breezing over it now looks even more suspicious.
What AOC does not grasp is that her prior DEI positions are those of a child, a neophyte politician. AOC is soon to realize that being a Latinyx former bartender doesn’t provide cover for venality. As the author points out, Harris had no explanations for her former positions and found herself eviscerated by Gabbard in the 2020 Presidential debate. She dropped out of the race a week later.
As a criticism of wokeness, I sort of expected criticism, but this seems to be a liberal Democratic writer, so it toes the line in distracting from the work of the people and enforcing the "centralist" orthodoxy. Frankly, anyone who didn't wonder five years ago if we couldn't somehow defund the police wasn't paying attention. Since then the police have kept on killing people willy nilly and so everyone slowly realized we're gonna have to come back to this later so for now quit dredging up bullshit and let's talk for the next few months about how you're gonna pay for that $8,000 bill for the one-hour appointment or how long we'll have vegetables when the diesel runs out or why are we spending $1.5 trillion a year on defense when we're only defending Israel with weapons that don't work and which we've run out of anyway, which means we could have spent the whole $1.5 trillion on something useful and got the exact same result.
AOC is another example of why we, 50-year voting Democrats, switched to the Republican Party.....and are still waiting for Democrats to kick people like AOC, Sanders, Mamdani, etc., out of the party so we can go back to voting for Democrats.
She has all of the experience that anyone who isn't a parent and whose only job has been making lattes has........which is nothing.
China, Iran, Russia.....will be contributing mightily to her campaign.
She laughs about Woke 1, including defunding the police. Well, who was harmed by good officers getting out of the profession? Her? Ha! No...she lived in low-crime districts. It was low income and minority groups who benefit the most from policing.
My wife was one of the first five female police officers in Seattle, in 1975. 2200 applicants. 29 were accepted. She graduated 3rd, having to meet all of the physical requirements that the men were expected to meet. They assigned her to the high crime (i.e., low income, minority) areas, to see if a woman could cut it (she did!).
She had black mother after black mother coming up to her begging her and her officers to do more policing in their areas. They were terrified about something bad happening to their sons or their sons being drawn into the criminal lifestyle. They depended upon my wife and her fellow officers.
She was risking her life while AOC was making lattes and having the arrogance to assume she knew all about policing.....and pretending she cared about minorities.
But, Woke 1 was a joke, right AOC? Defund the police!!!! Let those boys get killed. Raise your arms and show your armpits along with Sanders showing his!!!!!
Just as wokesters (who are profoundly ILliberal) will eventually do with the “trans” delusion, they’re trying to crawl quietly back into the woodwork, hoping the rest of us will forget what they did. But we won’t.
And right now, for the Democratic Party, signs aren't good. The apparatchiks are still doubling down on their idiocy.
Very glad to see Michael Baharaeen back with a Substack. I've long appreciated Michael's analyses of polls and surveys, his balanced tone, and his willingness to engage respectfully with those who sometimes disagree (as I sometimes do). In this case, I appreciated particularly the specific examples he notes related to the various excesses he lays out.
Here's one that hit close to home, as I grew up in the Chicago area and the Art Institute was (and is) a treasure that I visited as often as I could.
I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday and, as is always the case, I was grateful for all the people who give their time, without pay, to us all, and with deep knowledge and dedication. When I walk in our local parks, I'm grateful for all those out in their sun hats, garden gloves, and knee protectors, weeding and otherwise beautifying our surroundings.
In almost all cases (not every one, to be sure, but most), the people doing this work are older white women.
One older white woman who gave freely of her time out of love for nature was, in fact, my Mom, who docented at a nature site near where she lived until she couldn't do the walking anymore. (She's 98 now.)
What a disgrace to dishonor these women in any way. Shame on the Art Institute.
AOC doesn't think Woke 1 was crazy, she thinks saying that will help her odds at winning the presidency. After Joe "Do I look woke to you?" Biden ran as a moderate in 2020 only to immediately hand the keys over to the most far Left administration in US history, anyone paying attention knows the Dem playbook is to hope people just forget everything they said before running for office.
The first year after this year's elections will be extremely telling. In WI, Crowley won because most Dems (barely) are sane enough to know Hong was crazy. I like Crowley well enough on paper, but if he wins I'll be very nervous that it will be Biden all over again at the state level: present as moderate, the pedal to the metal crazy once in office.
I wouldn't necessarily think she doesn't believe what she is saying now - she was elected at 28 after not really working in progressive politics. Wasn't DSA until soon before that. Was obviously getting tons of positive encouragement for participating in Peak Woke in her amazingly quick rise to fame. That must have been a wild ride for her. And she's now 36.
Sure, people can evolve and mature. She could demonstrate that by saying what exactly she found crazy about it. What was she wrong about? Which stances has she demonstratably changed on? I well remember 2020, and laughing and handwaving it off with a single sentence isn't enough for me to credit someone as having matured.
The verb you are looking for is to Spanberger.
It’s not just that she said “Woke 1.0 was crazy.” It’s that she said it and then laughed. It comes across as if she’s laughing at the Americans who were (and still are) castigated and shunned for not going along with ideas in the workplace we knew then were “crazy” as AOC now confirms. She’s laughing at us. Many of us are still suffering from the fallout of “Woke 1.0” excess—and she laughs. And then she says “the discussions we had in that time were quite fruitful.” Fruitful for who? Exactly who benefited? Democrats deeply hurt people in their own party, they take no accountability for what they did, and now they laugh.
Good questions being asked here, enjoyed the piece and will be following more.
The best question you asked was, "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?"
Yes, yes it did. AOC has zero chance of even getting somewhat, kinda, maybe close to a nomination, and <0% chance of winning even if she did-- for these exact reasons. For most Americans, I'd bet she's still known and remembered as the loud standard-bearer of the damaging Woke movement. Breezing over it now looks even more suspicious.
What AOC does not grasp is that her prior DEI positions are those of a child, a neophyte politician. AOC is soon to realize that being a Latinyx former bartender doesn’t provide cover for venality. As the author points out, Harris had no explanations for her former positions and found herself eviscerated by Gabbard in the 2020 Presidential debate. She dropped out of the race a week later.
As a criticism of wokeness, I sort of expected criticism, but this seems to be a liberal Democratic writer, so it toes the line in distracting from the work of the people and enforcing the "centralist" orthodoxy. Frankly, anyone who didn't wonder five years ago if we couldn't somehow defund the police wasn't paying attention. Since then the police have kept on killing people willy nilly and so everyone slowly realized we're gonna have to come back to this later so for now quit dredging up bullshit and let's talk for the next few months about how you're gonna pay for that $8,000 bill for the one-hour appointment or how long we'll have vegetables when the diesel runs out or why are we spending $1.5 trillion a year on defense when we're only defending Israel with weapons that don't work and which we've run out of anyway, which means we could have spent the whole $1.5 trillion on something useful and got the exact same result.
AOC is another example of why we, 50-year voting Democrats, switched to the Republican Party.....and are still waiting for Democrats to kick people like AOC, Sanders, Mamdani, etc., out of the party so we can go back to voting for Democrats.
She has all of the experience that anyone who isn't a parent and whose only job has been making lattes has........which is nothing.
China, Iran, Russia.....will be contributing mightily to her campaign.
She laughs about Woke 1, including defunding the police. Well, who was harmed by good officers getting out of the profession? Her? Ha! No...she lived in low-crime districts. It was low income and minority groups who benefit the most from policing.
My wife was one of the first five female police officers in Seattle, in 1975. 2200 applicants. 29 were accepted. She graduated 3rd, having to meet all of the physical requirements that the men were expected to meet. They assigned her to the high crime (i.e., low income, minority) areas, to see if a woman could cut it (she did!).
She had black mother after black mother coming up to her begging her and her officers to do more policing in their areas. They were terrified about something bad happening to their sons or their sons being drawn into the criminal lifestyle. They depended upon my wife and her fellow officers.
She was risking her life while AOC was making lattes and having the arrogance to assume she knew all about policing.....and pretending she cared about minorities.
But, Woke 1 was a joke, right AOC? Defund the police!!!! Let those boys get killed. Raise your arms and show your armpits along with Sanders showing his!!!!!
Sorry, AOC, but it is you who is the joke.
Just as wokesters (who are profoundly ILliberal) will eventually do with the “trans” delusion, they’re trying to crawl quietly back into the woodwork, hoping the rest of us will forget what they did. But we won’t.
And right now, for the Democratic Party, signs aren't good. The apparatchiks are still doubling down on their idiocy.