Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wants her fellow progressives to receive amnesty for the insane policies and rhetoric they promoted during the 2020 pandemic because she knows those positions are anchors that will be hung around their necks in future elections.
Ocasio-Cortez made these comments while defending Francesca Hong, the socialist state representative who is about to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin. In 2020 and 2021, Hong loudly and proudly declared her support for abolishing prisons and policing, positions she claims she no longer supports. According to Ocasio-Cortez, “During this time and especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window” and “Of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.”
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That’s not a good excuse. Calling for the abolition of prisons or policing is delusional, no matter whether there is a global pandemic or not. Calling for abolishing prisons, in particular, should be disqualifying for anyone to hold any elected office. Hong was 31 years old in 2020, which is old enough to know that advocating prison abolition is a moronic decision by about 25 years.
Hong’s radical comments were not limited to supporting letting all criminals roam free or abolishing the police, either. She dove heavily into racism, claiming that her half-white son’s whiteness made her uncomfortable and that the United States exists thanks to its “toxic white supremacy culture.” If Hong was simply a dumb college student during the pandemic, you could maybe give her a pass. In 2020, she was a 31-year-old woman running for political office. She doesn’t get a do-over just because it was a “crazy” time.
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The most likely reality is that Hong actually believes the crazy things she was saying in 2020 and 2021 and is now trying to run away from those positions because she is running for statewide office in a swing state. Even Ocasio-Cortez views the crazy positions of “Woke 1.0” warmly, as evidenced by her comments that “I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful.” (Worth noting, Ocasio-Cortez supported prison abolition in 2019, before the pandemic that she is trying to use as an excuse).
What happened in 2020 is that Hong, Ocasio-Cortez, and their fellow socialists overreached. They thought the Black Lives Matter riots would permanently remake American politics and make their left-wing positions popular. Because it didn’t play out that way, Hong, Ocasio-Cortez, and the rest now want a do-over for 2020, knowing full well they put all their cards on the table six years ago and that they must lie about their positions now to maintain chances to win among broader electorates.