"'Woke 1' was crazy." So said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on ABC News' "This Week" earlier this month. 

She said she was quoting New York City Councilman Chi Osse, whom The New York Times characterizes as "far left." This was where Ocasio-Cortez seemed to be located on the ideological spectrum after her surprise defeat of House Democratic leadership member Joseph Crowley in the 2018 Democratic primary. 

At that time, she was a 28-year-old former waitress and organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign. Today, a decade later, she's a nationally known figure often mentioned as a presidential candidate. In polls for the 2028 nomination, she ranks fourth in the RealClearPolitics average, behind 2024 nominee and former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Polymarket places her odds of winning as better than any of theirs. 

As a possible national candidate, Ocasio-Cortez obviously has a motive to brush aside, as she did with a charmingly self-deprecatory laugh, the exotic positions she and other Democrats took on issues, particularly after the death of George Floyd in May 2020 and the ensuing multicity violent rioting. 

They included demands to "defund the police" or even abolish police departments, to step up the already institutionalized demands for "diversity, equity and inclusion" hiring, and promotions in bureaucracies, public and private, for racial reparations. These weren't just words: Cities such as New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Minneapolis did hustle to partially defund........

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