Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants Democrats to bury the summer of 2020 and pretend the defund crowd was just a phase.
The party’s consultants love the new script, and the cable shows keep playing along.
And one woman from Bernie Sanders’ inner circle just pulled the receipt AOC hoped nobody kept.
Bernie’s Old Spokeswoman Brought the Transcript
Briahna Joy Gray ran press for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, then built a career needling the Squad for going soft on everything from Medicare for All to the party bosses.
Now she has turned that needle on US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
It started when an old clip of AOC explaining her “Woke 1 was crazy” line from an appearance on ABC’s This Week began making the rounds again. In it, she insisted she had been talking about manners, not the agenda.
“What I was referring to, even in the context of that interview, was how we make the progressive movement one that isn’t rooted in judgment, castigation, or being closed off,” she said.
Gray called that a fib, flat out. “AOC is lying. The ‘woke 1’ statement was made in response to a question about ‘abolish prisons’ and ‘abolish the police,’” she posted on X.
And she didn’t stop at the accusation. Gray posted the actual question host Jonathan Karl asked, which centered on Wisconsin socialist Francesca Hong, her Thanksgiving mess, and the slogans “abolish prisons, abolish police” that Karl noted plenty of winning progressive candidates had picked up.
But Karl asked about policy. AOC answered with a laugh and a catchphrase she credited to a local city councilman. The talk about tone showed up later, after the clip went everywhere.
The Thanksgiving Socialist Behind the Question
Hong is the reason AOC needed a fire exit in the first place.
The Madison state lawmaker, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, once posted that “police exist to uphold white supremacy.” In October 2021 she went further: “Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.” A year before that, she wanted a national holiday gone. “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621.”
Funny how a run for governor changes a person. Hong told Pod Save America, “I will not abolish the police,” and rebranded her prison-free dream as “more aspirational.”
Bernie Sanders wouldn’t endorse her. Ilhan Omar and left-wing streamer Hasan Piker happily rallied beside her anyway.
Wisconsin Democrats picked Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley over her in the August 11 primary. And at the watch party for Republican nominee US Representative Tom Tiffany (R-WI), the crowd cheered when early returns showed Hong out front, because they figured she was the easiest opponent on the board.
AOC Wrote the Defund Playbook Herself
Here’s the stretch of history AOC would rather nobody dig up. She didn’t sit on the sidelines during Woke 1. She marched at the front of the parade holding the banner.
In early June 2020, with Black Lives Matter rioters torching storefronts from Minneapolis to Manhattan, she tweeted, “If police budgets bought peace, the $6 billion NYPD budget would’ve bought the most sophisticated de-escalatory operation in the world.”
That same month she lectured fellow Democrats who worried about how the slogan played with voters. “But poll-tested slogans and electoral feasibility is not the activists’ job,” she wrote. “Their job is to organize support and transform public opinion, which they are doing.”
Then Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council struck a budget deal they sold as a billion-dollar cut to the NYPD. AOC called it a con. “Defunding police means defunding police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math,” her statement read. “This is not a victory. The fight to defund policing continues.”
Even after voters punished House Democrats that November, she held her ground. “It’s about a budget shift,” she said.
Nothing in that paper trail sounds like a scolding tone. It sounds like a woman who meant every word, right down to the dollar figure.
The Left Wants Its Slogans Back
But Gray isn’t some lone crank shouting into a podcast mic. Defector, the left-wing sports and culture site, tore into AOC from the same direction, arguing that the right turned “woke” into a weapon against black political movements and that AOC made a serious error by borrowing the punchline.
Gray’s own history explains some of the fury. The Hill dumped her as co-host of Rising in June 2024 after she rolled her eyes on air at the sister of a hostage Hamas held in Gaza. She has spent years hammering the Squad for not fighting hard enough.
Maybe this is just an old grudge playing out on social media. Folks on the far left love nothing more than catching a former hero getting comfortable.
But the transcript doesn’t care about anybody’s motives. Karl asked about abolishing police and prisons, and AOC said Woke 1 was crazy. Those two facts sit side by side on tape.
Conservatives aren’t letting her slide either. Reason’s Billy Binion asked, “Are we really just going to forget that Woke 1 was a mob mentality that temporarily ruined multiple people’s lives?”
Same Agenda, Fresh Coat of Paint
Look closely at AOC’s own defense, and the whole argument gives itself away. In that very same answer, she promised the movement would keep “fighting for the same things and not changing our principles.”
So the policies stay. Only the sales pitch gets a makeover.
Any man who ever bought a used pickup knows how that goes. A fresh coat of paint on a truck with a cracked block still leaves you sitting on the shoulder of the interstate waiting for a tow.
Gray and AOC aren’t fighting over goals at all. They’re fighting over volume. Gray wants the slogans shouted from the rooftops. AOC wants them whispered until after the polls close. Neither one has put defund, abolition, or the rest of the 2020 wish list in the trash.
The rest of the Democrat bench has picked a third option, which is pretending the word means nothing. Maryland Governor Wes Moore told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I don’t know what Woke 1 is, but frankly, I don’t know what Woke 2 or Woke 3 is either.” US Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) offered a similar shrug.
And Hong’s favorite word, “aspirational,” keeps popping up for a reason. An aspiration doesn’t die. It waits around for a Democrat legislature and a governor willing to sign whatever lands on the desk.
The DSA already put Zohran Mamdani in New York’s City Hall and pushed Hong to the doorstep of a nomination in a swing state. Every one of those runs hands Gray’s wing more muscle over candidates who would rather talk about grocery prices.
If AOC runs for anything bigger in 2028, the activists will have those 2020 tweets queued up before she finishes her announcement speech. Republicans will have them ready too.
AOC says Woke 1 was crazy. She also says she never changed her principles. She still hasn’t told anybody which of those two statements her old defund tweets belong to.
Sources:
Newsweek, “Bernie Sanders’ former spokesperson accuses AOC of lying”
Deseret News, “AOC says ‘Woke 1 was crazy’”
Defector, “The Crazy Thing About Woke 1 Was How It Was Exploited”
Fox News, “Controversial socialist chef flip-flops on abolish the police, says she’s ‘serious about public safety’”
Fox News, “Socialist Francesca Hong struggles to explain call to ‘Cancel Thanksgiving’ as post resurfaces”
Daily Wire, “DSA’s Anti-Thanksgiving Governor Candidate Is Even Too Far For Bernie”
Wisconsin Watch via Milwaukee Courier, “David Crowley leads Tom Tiffany in first fall gubernatorial poll”
Streetsblog NYC, “Advocates, Pols to Mayor: Defund the NYPD Now”
RedState, “AOC is not happy with measly $1.5 billion NYPD budget cut”
Washington Free Beacon, “Sanders claims nobody he knows supports defunding police”
New York Post via Fox News, “AOC defends ‘defund the police’ mantra after Dem losses”
Daily Wire, “Democrats Suddenly Can’t Define ‘Woke’ After AOC Says It Was ‘Crazy’”
Times of Israel, “Far-left US pundit who rolled eyes at hostage’s sister axed by The Hill”
