From Matt Taibbi‘s “Woke 2 Wants a Mulligan for Woke 1”, posted today — “Gearing for a White House run, Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez laughs off ‘Woke 1’ as ‘a little crazy’…on the strategy of losing every political battle in order to win the political war”:
Jonathan Karl, ABC News, 10:25 mark: “Did the woke movement go too far with some of those [radical] positions? I mean, you…you briefly supported the idea of defunding the police.”
Ocasio-Cortez: “You know, I think that…I think that during this time, and during, especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window. We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we’ve seen because of those shutdowns. Yeah. And I think that the…the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful.”
Taibbi: “Discussions! Fruitful! Quite a way to describe ‘Woke 1,’ the first pass at saturation-bombing America with race paranoia, scarlet-lettering, and threats in an effort to produce grotesque public displays of ideological obedience“….thank you!
“Ocasio-Cortez went on to say, ‘Of course, during lockdown, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.’ What she means is, ‘We tried to shove it down your throats through the sheer power of our freakout before. This time, we’re going to get elected first.”
“AOC has to refer to ‘Woke 1’ because ‘Woke 2‘ is now ascendant, and its primary characteristic is its effort to remarket itself as a viable electoral movement, less insane than that initial run from a screeching mob of torch-bearing, half-literate buffoons who tried to burn the American project to the ground. Since Woke 2 is, like AOC, dusting itself off to run for office, it wants you to forget this earlier incarnation, even though none of its adherents have apologized or changed their minds.”
Significant Taibbi summary: “Everyone uses different language now, and even though ‘woke’ ultimately became a punchline that helped elect Donald Trump in 2024, she’s happy it succeeded in moving the Overton Window.”
** The Overton window, according to AI, is “a political model describing the range of ideas, policies, and language that the public finds acceptable at any given time. Named after American policy analyst Joseph Overton, it helps explain how fringe or radical concepts can shift into mainstream political viability over time.”
Abdul El-Sayed is now the leading spokesperson for the far more palatable Woke 2: