{"id":9381,"date":"2026-08-12T12:38:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9381"},"modified":"2026-08-12T12:38:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:38:59","slug":"democrats-like-aoc-are-trying-to-shrug-off-their-woke-era-thats-bad-for-our-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9381","title":{"rendered":"Democrats like AOC are trying to shrug off their \u2018woke\u2019 era. That\u2019s bad for our politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Democrats would very much like to figure out how to explain away some of the far-left things they said circa 2019 and 2020 \u2014 a period often referred to as \u201cpeak woke,\u201d \u201cwoke 1.0\u201d or \u201cwoke 1.\u201d\n <\/p>

Read more Millions of Americans with untreated high blood pressure should be taking medication<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Kamala Harris struggled with this during her 2024 presidential campaign (think: some transgender policies), and now it looms over some key 2026 races.\n <\/p>\n

\n Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday offered a prescription: Laugh it off.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI have a local city councilman that has this saying: \u2018Woke 1 was crazy,\u2019\u201d the New York congresswoman said on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d before laughing.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ocasio-Cortez, who once supported defunding the police, went on to suggest Covid had expanded the range of acceptable political discourse. But she said that it\u2019s \u201cnot rhetoric that we would use today.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n This might be a politically deft explanation for Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk. But it\u2019s a bad one for the body politic. It continues a troubling trend of major politicians asking Americans not to take the things they say \u2014 or more specifically, that they once said<\/em> \u2014 at face value.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s a perfect recipe for a continued decline in honesty and accountability.\n <\/p>\n

\n An increasingly common argument from Democrats\n<\/h2>\n

\n Ocasio-Cortez was quoting New York City Council Member Chi Oss\u00e9. Back in May, he responded to a critic who unearthed a 2021 comment of his by saying simply, \u201cWoke 1 was crazyyyy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The same week, former Biden White House aide Yemisi Egbewole credited Texas Senate candidate James Talarico for distancing himself from his past woke comments. \u201cPeak woke got weird. It\u2019s okay to say that!\u201d Egbewole said.\n <\/p>\n

\n And this weekend, perhaps the one 2026 Democratic candidate with the biggest \u201cpeak woke\u201d problem echoed Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s comment.\n <\/p>\n

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\"Wisconsin<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n
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\nWisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong waves during a campaign rally on August 2, 2026 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Joshua Lott\/Getty Images<\/figcaption>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n Francesca Hong is the favorite in Tuesday\u2019s Wisconsin gubernatorial primary, but her past statements about abolishing police and canceling Thanksgiving, among others, have a lot of Democrats freaked out about her potential nomination.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI had some hot takes, some bad takes on Twitter, but when you\u2019re a business owner running a restaurant during Covid, trying to pay bills as a student, you\u2019re putting feelings out there into the world,\u201d\u202fHong told Politico. \u201cBut I\u2019ve evolved, I\u2019ve learned.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A growing epidemic\n<\/h2>\n

\n Appearing after Ocasio-Cortez on \u201cThis Week,\u201d Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took exception to her explanation.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAfter listening to the congresswoman, why should anyone trust her?\u201d Christie said. He added that Republicans would \u201chold people like\u201d Ocasio-Cortez and Hong \u201cto what they\u2019ve said over their careers, not what they\u2019re trying to conveniently evolve into now.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But Christie is, to put it lightly, an imperfect messenger on this.\n <\/p>\n

\n Not only has he repeatedly changed his stance on President Donald Trump, but he has basically acknowledged having said things about Trump for political expediency.\n <\/p>\n

\n After running hard against Trump and then embracing him in 2016, Christie explained: \u201cYes, I disagreed with Donald Trump at the time. Big shock. I was running against him. \u2026\u202fOf course I disagreed with him, because I was running against him.\u201d\n <\/p>

Read more Hegseth pushes for Pentagon funding during renaming of military base after Lindsey Graham<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Then, after Christie broke with Trump in 2021, the New Jersey Republican tried to disown the compliments he paid to Trump by saying he reasoned Trump would be the GOP nominee, and that he wanted to make the best of the situation.\n <\/p>\n

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\"Former<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n
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\nFormer New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie listens during a presidential campaign town hall in Epping, New Hampshire, on December 28, 2023.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Brian Snyder\/Reuters\/File<\/figcaption>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n But it\u2019s hardly just Christie. This has become an epidemic in US politics, on both sides of the aisle.\n <\/p>\n

\n The late GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham had repeatedly suggested his pro-Trump conversion was about getting things accomplished rather than what he truly believed. \u201cIf you know anything about me, it\u2019d be odd not to do this,\u201d he said at one point.\n <\/p>\n

\n Vice President JD Vance in both private messages and public comments has cited political calculations for his Trump stances. He told Time magazine when launching his Ohio Senate campaign in 2021: \u201cIf I actually care about these people and the things I say I care about, I need to just suck it up and support him.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Secretary of State Marco Rubio has explained comments like calling Trump a \u201ccon man\u201d in 2016 by saying, \u201cI didn\u2019t know him when I ran in 2016, didn\u2019t know him as a person.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n And in 2020, Harris explained her personal attacks on Joe Biden\u2019s past position on busing by saying, \u201cIt was a debate.\u201d When asked if that meant she didn\u2019t mean what she said, Harris repeated, \u201cIt was a debate,\u201d and suggested that those kinds of comments are what you say in that forum.\n <\/p>\n

\n The most prominent example of this in recent years is Trump\u2019s years-long assault on the truth \u2014 and his supporters defense of it. When confronted with his tens of thousands of false and misleading claims, some allies have repeatedly urged people to take Trump \u201cseriously\u201d rather than \u201cliterally.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Why it\u2019s so bad for politics\n<\/h2>\n

\n Implicit in these arguments is that maybe these politicians didn\u2019t believe what they said in real time \u2014 that they were just saying stuff. But the question then becomes: Does that also apply to what they\u2019re saying today<\/em>?\n <\/p>\n

\n Seriously-not-literally is a great set up for Trump because he can decide retroactively which comments he meant and what he was just saying for political effect.\n <\/p>\n

\n But that arrangement removes the onus on politicians to be studied stewards of the public interest \u2014 to do the hard work of coming to their positions through a sober review of the issues. And it makes it virtually impossible to hold them accountable.\n <\/p>\n

\n And once that accountability is out the window and Americans no longer demand it, politicians are liable to say whatever they think is most advantageous at the time.\n <\/p>\n

\n That\u2019s what they do now, to some extent. But formalizing a system where comments from five days or five years ago can be explained away as unimportant ramblings from another political moment feels like a bad idea.\n <\/p>\n

\n 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 \u2014 and can stand the political test of time.\n <\/p>

Read more Trump\u2019s former lawyers: Judge Emil Bove swears in Attorney General Todd Blanche at the White House<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats would very much like to figure out how to explain away some of the far-left things they said circa 2019 and 2020 \u2014 a period often referred to as \u201cpeak woke,\u201d \u201cwoke 1.0\u201d or \u201cwoke 1.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nDemocrats like AOC are trying to shrug off their \u2018woke\u2019 era. 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