"Woke 1 was crazy," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said earlier this month on national television. "During lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today."

The firebrand congresswoman was attempting to explain why so many Democrats running for office this cycle are on the record supporting certifiably insane policies such as defunding the police, abolishing prisons, and canceling Thanksgiving.

AOC is right in the sense that "Woke 1," or whatever you want to call it, was crazy. If anything, the word "crazy" is a rather charitable way to describe an era of politics in which, among other things, professors were investigated for speaking Chinese words that resembled racial slurs in English, Oompa Loompas were gender-neutralized in the name of inclusivity, a popular children's cartoon was denounced for its "complicity in the global capitalist system," Stanford students had to recite a land acknowledgment before entering frat parties, children's fruit snack brands proclaimed the commitment to amplifying black voices, and the general public was bombarded with nonsense terminology such as "Latinx" and "birthing people."

However, it is absurd to suggest that "Woke 1" was merely a temporary fit of insanity brought on by the stress of COVID lockdowns—a policy pushed by scientific "experts" who would go on to squander their credibility by denouncing "racist" theories about the virus's Chinese origins and asserting that protesting white supremacy was the only "safe" reason to go outside.

The nonsense started years before the pandemic lockdowns and George Floyd riots of 2020, and it continued for years afterward. It's not as crazy as it used to be. Most Democrats stopped saying "Latinx" after realizing that even most Latinos thought it sounded ridiculous. They were somewhat chastened after watching endless clips of Kamala Harris endorsing taxpayer-funded sex-change operations for illegal immigrants in prison.

Nevertheless, the nonsense persisted. When Democrats gathered in February 2025 to elect a new DNC chairman, they opened with a land acknowledgment. Months later, two male vice chairs were stripped of their titles after the DNC determined their elections violated the committee's gender diversity mandates.