Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) raised eyebrows over the weekend of August 10th, 2026, when she appeared to shrug off her earlier enthusiasm for far-left cultural positions that have been considered electorally damaging. Laughing, she referenced a local New York City councilman’s saying: "Woke 1 was crazy."

The councilman, Chi Ossé, had used the phrase in a tweet to explain his previous statement that a "white man should not be the next speaker" of the City Council. AOC’s invocation of this phrase suggests a distancing from some of the more controversial progressive ideas of recent years.

Despite this apparent shift, critics argue that such conversions should not be accepted at face value. They caution against viewing "Woke 1" as an uncontrollable event that political figures passively endured. Instead, it is noted that figures like AOC did not attempt to halt the movement during its peak.

Examples of AOC’s past positions include a 2019 video criticizing New Yorkers who preferred to grow cauliflower over yuca in community gardens, labeling them complicit in colonization despite neither crop being indigenous to New York. In 2022, she defended the use of the gender-neutral term Latinx, chastising Democrats for abandoning it despite polls showing many Latin people disliked the term. She also took issue with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that cowboy culture originated in Spain, instead crediting "African enslaved peoples" for this cultural contribution.

The article draws a parallel to Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation where Odysseus refers to his era as "our Age of Bronze," suggesting that labeling the period as "Woke 1" and declaring it over may be overly simplistic or self-referential.

Notable Quotes

  • "I have a local city councilman who has this saying: 'Woke 1 was crazy,'" said AOC with a laugh.
  • Chi Ossé previously stated that a "white man should not be the next speaker" of the City Council.
  • The article references Christopher Nolan's adaptation, noting "there's something a bit too meta about calling it 'Woke 1' and saying, well, that's all over now, and we'd never do it again."

Sources