Ocasio-Cortez signals Democratic intention to move on from woke era

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The Hill's Headlines (PM) - August 12, 2026

The Hill's Headlines (PM) - August 12, 2026

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was asked Sunday about some of the more inflammatory comments and positions from the left flank of the Democratic Party, the congresswoman quoted a New York City Council member to make her point. 

“Woke 1 was crazy,” Ocasio-Cortez said, echoing what the council member, Chi Ossé, has said, before laughing along with ABC’s Jonathan Karl during an appearance on “This Week.” 

The moment, political observers say, was consequential because while she borrowed the phrase, Ocasio-Cortez’s laugh underscored a shift of sorts by a Democratic Party that is trying to figure out how to move on from the woke era.

It is a party that seemingly wants to rebuild itself with progressive positions but does not want to be defined by the most extreme examples of cancel culture.

To put it simply, the party wants to stick to its roots without being accused of wanting to cancel Thanksgiving, a position Francesca Hong, the democratic socialist gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin who lost her primary Tuesday, once took online.

Hong, who lost the race by a small margin to moderate David Crowley, spent the final days of the campaign overexplaining and walking back the comments that ultimately ended up defining her campaign. 

“If you’re explaining, you’re losing,” one Democratic strategist said. “The comments she made, even if they were in the deep past, did her in. They became headlines today. And right or wrong, she was tagged to them and it hurt her campaign.”

There’s no question Democrats have faced a reckoning with voters over the excesses of woke. One of President Trump’s most successful ads of the 2024 cycle offered a nod to the issue, saying Democratic presidential nominee “Kamala [Harris] is for........

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