On ABC News “This Week” on Sunday, Rep. Alexandria made two startling admissions—yes, she’s thinking about running for president (“I haven’t ruled out the possibility”), and perhaps related, she put distance between herself and the left’s “woke” politics of the late 2010s and early 2020s.

“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke One was crazy,’” she said, likely referring to this tweet by New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé.

Host Jonathan Karl followed up by asking whether the movement had gone too far, noting that Ocasio-Cortez herself had once supported defunding the police.

She responded:

Well, you know, I think—that during this time and during—especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton Window. We were shut down. There were some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns.

And I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that had—that were had in that time were quite fruitful. I think that when we talk about crime today, it’s fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down, right? And I think that we all share in the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that, you know, during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today. And I’m grateful that these candidates have the opportunity to present who they are to their electorate and what they’re campaigning on in this moment.

For arguably the highest-profile progressive politician in the country, that was a remarkable acknowledgment.

Ocasio-Cortez framed that moment through the lens of the “Overton Window”—the range of political ideas considered acceptable to discuss in mainstream politics. During the upheaval of the pandemic, nationwide protests following George Floyd’s murder, and widespread economic disruption, that window expanded dramatically. Proposals that would have been dismissed only months earlier suddenly entered mainstream political debate, including those infamous calls to defund police departments.

A demonstrator protests outside the state capitol, on May 31, 2020, in Minneapolis. Protests continued following the death of George Floyd, who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25.AP

To be sure, the slogan “defund the police” energized activists who felt ignored by the political establishment. But its deep unpopularity handed Republicans a political gift they continue to use years later. There’s a meaningful distinction between advocating police reform and arguing for defunding police departments, yet Republicans successfully collapsed the two into a single attack line. Democrats have been paying the political price ever since.

At its core, the modern Republican message is built around safety: cultural safety (“the trans agenda”), economic safety (tariffs and protectionism), and physical safety (more police). The first two arguments are often built on shaky foundations. The third taps into something much more fundamental. Personal safety ranks alongside food, water, and shelter as one of people’s most basic concerns. Telling voters they’ll have less of it has never been a winning political message.

It’s no accident that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made expanding the police force one of his first major decisions in office, despite criticism from the Democratic Socialists of America. Whatever activists may want, elected officials understand that voters expect the government to provide public safety. Less of it is never a winning political hand. 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at an announcement event of a city-wide, discounted grocery plan for city-run municipal grocery stores, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, July 27.AP

The reaction to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments has been predictably intense.

At The Atlantic, Idrees Kahloon wrote, “The fact that she is declining to defend—and indeed wishing to move past—these positions shows how radioactive they have become. If only things were so easy.” As he noted, Republicans have little incentive to let Democrats forget the left’s excesses from just a few years ago.

Others reached the opposite conclusion. The New Republic’s Perry Bacon Jr. defended that era in a piece headlined, “Actually, AOC, Woke 1.0 Did a Lot of Good Things for This Country,” arguing that movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo produced meaningful progress, even if some of the rhetoric became politically damaging.

Republicans, unsurprisingly, responded with triumphalism.

Rep. Brandon Gill posted: “You don’t get to spend years pushing to fundamentally transform the country, divide it on racial lines, inject DEI into every institution, and then try to brush it off as a minor misunderstanding when your worldview turns out to be extremely unpopular with the American people.” 

That would have more salience if Republicans weren’t headed toward an electoral armageddon, walking in lockstep to President Donald Trump’s incredibly unpopular agenda. 

Gill and his ilk shouldn’t celebrate too quickly.

If Democrats spend the next few election cycles distancing themselves from the excesses of “Woke 1.0,” Republicans are likely to spend the next decade pretending they had little to do with enabling Trump. Political parties are rarely judged only by their successes. They also spend years trying to escape the consequences of their worst mistakes. The difference is timing.

Democrats are dealing with arguments that peaked roughly five years ago. Republicans are defending policies that are affecting voters’ lives right now—from higher prices to economic uncertainty to growing political instability.

In other words, their excesses are current, ours are half a decade in the past, and ever more distant by the day. 

The voters can decide accordingly.