AOC’s Own Side Turns on Her

AOC’s Own Side Turns on Her for Laughing Off ‘Woke 1 was Crazy’ Remarks

A political reckoning is unfolding inside the Democratic Party, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., finds herself at the center of it — not from conservative critics, but from voices within her own ideological camp.

The New York Democrat has spent recent days attempting to laugh away years of far-left advocacy, rebranding it under a dismissive label: “Woke 1.”

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Ocasio-Cortez leaned on a phrase borrowed from a local city councilman to characterize her past positions as a relic of an outdated moment.

“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy,’” Ocasio-Cortez said while laughing. “And I think that what’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.”

That attempt at levity has not landed well with several progressive publications, which argue the congresswoman is dodging accountability rather than confronting it.

The Atlantic fired one of the sharpest shots Tuesday, publishing a piece bluntly titled “The Democrat Can’t Just Laugh Off ‘Woke 1.’” 

Staff writer Idrees Kahloon used the article to argue that Ocasio-Cortez’s strategy of deflection mirrors a broader pattern among Democrats eager to distance themselves from unpopular stances like defunding police departments.

But Kahloon cautioned that the approach may not hold, pointing to continued momentum for hardline candidates within the party.

“All of these avoidance strategies could fail. Woke 1 may be over, but progressives have not given up their attempt to take over the Democratic Party apparatus,” Kahloon wrote, noting that Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidates “have proved ascendant in primary elections this year” and “still take radical positions.”

His warning extended further, suggesting the party’s ideological battles are far from resolved beneath the surface.

“Ideas never die, but they can go dormant,” Kahloon wrote. “The unwillingness to extirpate wokeness now may result in its resurgence later. The silence of conventional Democrats and the ascent of the DSA could make the party’s 2028 presidential-primary contest resemble the 2020 one.”

Kahloon went as far as invoking the chaotic 2020 primary season as a cautionary tale for any future Ocasio-Cortez presidential campaign.

“Then, candidates of all stripes competed to out-left one another, committing themselves to positions that caused their party electoral trouble for years,” he wrote. “Should Ocasio-Cortez become the Democratic candidate for president, she may experience that painful lesson firsthand.”

Mother Jones joined the pile-on Tuesday, framing Ocasio-Cortez’s comments as a thinly veiled move toward the political center ahead of a potential White House run — and accusing her of retreating from the very causes that built her political identity.

“While this may be valuable in future elections, it raises the question of what it says to those who elected Ocasio-Cortez and are still confronting the struggle of the late 2010s and previous decades,” the outlet wrote, adding that “one can win votes without laughing off progressive discussions.”

CNN’s Aaron Blake took a different but equally critical angle, suggesting the entire episode raises uncomfortable questions about political sincerity.

“Implicit in these arguments is that maybe these politicians didn’t believe what they said in real time — that they were just saying stuff. But the question then becomes: Does that also apply to what they’re saying today?” Blake wrote.

Blake suggested voters should instead favor politicians whose convictions don’t shift with the political winds.

“It would be better to reward politicians who have the foresight and wisdom to take positions that they actually believe in and can stick to — and can stand the political test of time,” he wrote.

Not every progressive outlet piled on. 

Vox offered a more sympathetic take, framing the shift as tonal rather than ideological, even while conceding that Ocasio-Cortez and others “were stepping back from things they used to say.”

“The broad ideals — diversity, equity, a basic sense of fairness — still matter to Democratic voters,” Vox wrote Monday, adding that “what’s changed isn’t who these candidates are — it’s what they choose to lead with.”

Conservative media watchdog Tim Graham, executive editor of NewsBusters, told Fox News Digital that the backlash from liberal writers reveals a deeper frustration — one rooted in electoral math rather than ideology.

“The liberal journalists who aren’t accepting ‘Woke 1’ excuses are the ones who want the AOC wing of the Democrats to come to grips with how they will lose in red or purple states by taking cartoonishly extreme positions like defunding the police. That may work in deep-blue Queens, but not in Nebraska,” Graham said.

Graham argued that no amount of rebranding erases the political damage already done.

“They’re saying ‘we agree on our shared goals, but we don’t like your lingo or your rhetorical poses,’” he said. “You can’t get away from it just by claiming it’s now passe. It may have aged badly, but it never went away.”

He credited President Donald Trump’s administration with dismantling the institutional framework that once empowered the movement Ocasio-Cortez now distances herself from.

“Woke 1, if it was repealed, was repealed by President Donald Trump when he won in 2024 and set out to dismantle DEI ideology as it was installed in government-funded institutions,” Graham said.

This is not the first time Ocasio-Cortez’s attempts to reframe her record have drawn scrutiny from critics across the political spectrum.

As of this report, Ocasio-Cortez’s office has not issued further comment beyond her original remarks.

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