Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., may want to laugh off “woke 1,” but it won’t be that easy.
A former Democratic fundraiser who brought in tens of millions of dollars for the party spoke to Daily Mail to reveal what he believes the next steps will be for AOC and others who agree with her.
“You can’t just, like, hand-wave it away and laugh about it without actually explaining how your views have evolved,” said Evan Barker, author of ‘Nothing Left: Confessions Of A Democratic Operative.’
Previous, radical positions such as defunding the police, abolishing ICE, using gender-inclusive terminology like “Latinx” and others can’t just be ignored like they never happened. Especially since they were so unpopular with even the Democratic voter base that lawmakers were forced to back off or risk losing reelection.
“She knows that a lot of these things are now viewed as insane and lacking common sense but she’s not actually explaining what views she had that were crazy, and, how her views have changed,” Barker told the outlet.
As for the future of the party as a whole, the former fundraiser thinks Democrats are creating “incompatible” policies for themselves in an attempt to “pivot” away from unpopular positions.
“I think Democrats are trying to pivot, and they’re not pivoting by addressing or actually changing their social policies or culture views. They’re just pivoting by going harder into economics but you can’t pair lefty economics with super lefty social views. They’re just incompatible,” she said. “FDR wasn’t woke.”
She has received messages from “several disillusioned Democrats and Independents” since writing her book, but admits she has also gotten “many more welcoming messages from Republicans.” However, the party doesn’t appear interested in taking any advice offered in the book.
“People want to talk about the economy, people want to talk about gas prices. Yeah, that’s true, but at the same time, like, Republicans aren’t going to let you forget that you had these crazy views,” Barker pointed out.
“I think that they think that they’re winning right now, and so they don’t want to address a lot of the underlying issues that cause them to lose, and that’s been unfortunate.”
Democrats are likely hoping that voters are so upset with Republicans and President Donald Trump specifically that they are willing to pull the lever for the left in November without requiring party members to dive into the evolution of their positions. While this could be the case, having no good explanation could also be damaging to their 2028 chances as Republicans pound on their previous embrace of radical ideology.
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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