AOC says ‘Woke 1 was crazy,’ but Democrats still owe voters an explanation

"Woke 1 was crazy." New York Democrat Rep.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently borrowed the phrase from New York City Councilman Chi Ossé to describe the politics of 2020.

"Woke 1" gives Democrats a convenient way to put ideas such as defunding the police and abolishing prisons in the past.

That was then.

This is now.

There’s a psychological term for this kind of separation: compartmentalization.

Consider how compartmentalization works in ordinary life.

A married man can have a wife and children at home and a girlfriend on the side, keeping the two lives separate enough that he rarely confronts the contradiction.

Compartmentalization allows us to separate conflicting parts of our lives rather than reconcile them.

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ SHRUGS OFF PAST 'DEFUND THE POLICE' COMMENTS, JOKING 'WOKE 1 WAS CRAZY' That appears to be what Democrats are trying to do with 2020.

There is the Democratic Party of 2020, when progressive ideas that once sat outside the mainstream suddenly gained influence.

Then there is the Democratic Party of 2026, talking about affordability, economic populism and winning back voters who recoiled from the cultural politics of the past several years.

"Woke 1" puts a neat dividing line between them.

Changing your mind requires confronting what you once believed.