“Woke 1 was crazyyyy,” she said with a laugh.

The revolution will be sanitized. But as I remember it, “Woke 1” was a high-tech progressive jihad that relied on intimidation, public shaming, and economic ruin to dictate what words and ideas were permissible in the public square.

Words had long been tantamount to “violence” on the socialist Left. Now, silence was also violence. Woke 1 is when my local lawn care company was sending out emails promising to dedicate themselves to Black Lives Matter, lest some deranged 22-year-old with rainbow hair accuse them of harboring counterrevolutionary sympathies and drag them into a struggle session.

Every thinking person changes their views as they learn and grow. Elected officials and others involved in public discourse, though, surely have some duty to explain why. What was your intellectual evolution on wokeism? Even more pertinently, what was Woke 1?

Here is what Ocasio-Cortez’s comments tell us: 

The first possibility is that Ocasio-Cortez, if I may, and others now moving away from Woke 1, possess such principles and beliefs that they can easily be swept up in mass societal hysteria — so much so that they end up championing the most detrimental aspects of a “crazy” ideology. That means it can easily happen again. Considering where the Left is going these days, it will be a lot more destructive in its second wave.

After all, the positions you’ve staked out in the past matter because they’re one of the only ways the electorate can access your ideology and temperament. “During lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today,” Ocasio-Cortez said. Why? How you comport yourself during crises tells us a lot about your makeup and how you’ll act the next time there is a crisis. There is really no reason for voters to trust the judgment of someone who is swept up by a mob.

The other possibility, a far more likely one, is that Ocasio-Cortez has decided to run for the presidency or perhaps for the Senate and realizes that woke ideology, an outlook she would pick up again in a heartbeat if it were popular, isn’t liked by vast swaths of the public, and so she softens and dismisses her previous positions. The next time we have a pandemic or inflation, what kind of crazy will be unleashed?

And what was Woke 1?

Only days after Democrats took a beating in the 2024 election, Ocasio-Cortez removed “she/her” pronouns from her social media accounts. Which doesn’t exactly scream of authenticity. So, is using your “preferred pronouns” crazy? Is adopting pronouns that don’t match your “gender assigned at birth” crazy? Is using nonbinary pronouns crazy? Is performing “gender-affirming care,” needless life-altering surgery on confused children that destroys their development, crazy? Is it crazy to let biological males play in girls’ sports? What part was crazy?

Ocasio-Cortez was a gung-ho supporter of virtually every ideological element of the past 10 years. “Woke,” she once argued, was nothing more than a term pundits used as a “derogatory euphemism” for “civil rights” and progressive notions of “justice.”

Does Ocasio-Cortez now oppose DEI initiatives and racial quotas? Does she support Black Lives Matter, a movement that sparked the most expensive and prolonged domestic destruction in American history, including looting, rioting, arson, and homicide? BLM is an objectively racist movement that judges people on color rather than achievement. Is that crazy?

Does Ocasio-Cortez believe that reparations, which she’s supported, are crazy? What about land acknowledgments? Crazy?

Let’s not forget, Ocasio-Cortez hatched a “social justice” environmental policy that not only called for the elimination of all fossil fuel energy production by 2029 but also for replacing every “combustion-engine vehicle” — trucks, airplanes, boats, and 99% of cars — in the United States. Her Green New Deal would have compelled us to “retrofit every building in America” and build “high-speed rail at a scale” that would eliminate all air travel.

The plan offered government-guaranteed “family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and a pension,” “safe, affordable, adequate housing,” and “economic security” for all who are “unable or unwilling” to work.

I’m not sure if that’s Woke 1 — but it’s definitely crazy.

If Ocasio-Cortez abandons the ideas she championed to deal with an alleged crisis that could destroy the Earth in 10 years, now three years and counting, what does that say about her ability to evaluate crises and offer practical solutions moving forward? If Woke 1 was crazy because of its approach, but not its content, then we are back where we started.

More than any of that, referring to a “Woke 1” strongly insinuates that a Woke 2 or Woke 3 exists and that it is a more reasonable iteration of this ideology. But it’s probably worse.

Ocasio-Cortez was the first elected official, along with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), to appear on Hasan Piker’s live stream. Is Woke 2 normalizing terrorist-loving, Mao Zedong-adulating streamers?

Her first appearance on Piker’s show happened during peak Woke 1, Oct. 20, 2020. She appeared another three times to chat it up with a guy who had already argued that her New York constituents deserved 9/11. Ocasio-Cortez supports the same candidates as Piker.

The New York congresswoman is still a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which advocates nationalizing private corporations, the energy and transportation sectors, and all natural resources.

Woke 2? The DSA wants a new constitution that eliminates the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the Senate. It supports universal suffrage for noncitizens and felons.

‘WE HAVE TO SMASH THE STATE’: THE LEFT PREPARES FOR WAR

Is that crazy? And what kind of crazy awaits us when Woke 2 gets its hands on state power?

Someone should ask Ocasio-Cortez.