Will the Woke Own Up to Their Lunacy?

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Monday, August 10, 2026

 

Seeking to dismiss the record of one of the many kooky political candidates with whom she is now reflexively associated, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez laughed aloud as if she had been told that she had a speck of mustard on her lip. “I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy,’” she submitted. “And I think that what’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.”

 

Is it? Do we? Why? “Woke 1” was, indeed, “crazy.” But Ocasio-Cortez’s implication is that that “crazy” moment was something that happened to her and her ideological compatriots — like an earthquake or an invasion from the sea — rather than something that was contrived, dispersed, and enforced by her and her ideological compatriots. In this, Ocasio-Cortez seems confused once again by the appropriate pronouns. It wasn’t “crazy.” They were crazy. And that “they” includes her.

 

All told, there are only two possible explanations as to why a person might have fallen for “crazy” “Woke 1.” Those are (1) that they have poor judgment and are thus liable at any moment to fall prey to the most destructive ideas on offer, or (2) that they are cowards who understood that their behavior was destructive but proceeded anyway in the hope of being left alone. Both of these explanations ought to be disqualifying in a candidate for public office. Unlike Ocasio-Cortez and the aspirants whom she is defending, tens of millions of Americans did not fall for “Woke 1.” Better still, many of those people fought back against it, often at great personal and professional cost. When choosing our future leaders, we ought by rights to draw from them, not from those who screamed at them like disciples of the occult.

 

What of forgiveness? What of it, indeed? Putting to one side that there is a difference between receiving mercy and attaining ever-higher office, it remains the case that neither Ocasio-Cortez nor her “local city councilman” have asked for absolution. They have merely laughed their transgressions away. Any serious attempt to grapple with their role would involve answering a host of questions — questions such as: Which parts of “Woke 1” were “crazy,” and why? Which people were wrong about it, and why? Who, by contrast, was right, and what positions did they take that made them so? Why, unlike them, do you think you fell into the panic? And what practical steps have you taken to ensure that you’ll oppose a future recrudescence?

 

I doubt that Ocasio-Cortez could answer these questions. Heck, I doubt she’s thought about them for more than a couple of minutes. Rather, I suspect that, like many progressives, she believes that she and her friends are entitled to the occasional world-breaking meltdown and that the proper role of everyone else is to go along with it as they might with the tantrum of a small child. Well, I will not. We held an election during “Woke 1,” and the senators who were elected at that “crazy” time are still serving in Congress. What happens today matters tomorrow — even when, as appears to be the case here, it eventually becomes inconvenient to discuss. The “crazy” demands of “Woke 1” were not for a 2 percent increase in the capital gains rate but for the wholesale rejection of racial equality under the law, the government-led reorganization of the American economy, the abolition of the police, the provision of sex-change operations for minors, and the erasure of the U.S. border. It is salutary indeed if the progenitors of those demands have recognized the errors of their ways, but it will take more than an “oops” before they are trusted again.

 

Were the tables turned, Ocasio-Cortez would presumably be able to recognize the absurdity of her position. Since around the same time as “Woke 1” reached its peak, many Republicans have insisted that Donald Trump won the 2020 election — which he did not. Understandably, Democrats do not trust the politicians who have made this claim, and quite obviously, they would not consider the matter settled were those figures to dismiss any questions about their past dishonesty by nonchalantly observing that the 2020 election was “crazy.” By all accounts, Ocasio-Cortez is on the verge of asking voters for a promotion — to the U.S. Senate or perhaps even to the presidency. If she wishes to reassure them that she can be trusted with more authority, she’ll have to do better than this.