Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), perhaps the most prominent of the democratic socialists, reflected on the 2020-era wave of leftist policies and social unrest by claiming that “woke 1 was crazy.” In saying so, she categorized this whole era as a sort of first wave wokeness, the impetus for major cultural shifts that have propelled numerous democratic socialists into elected office. Now, she continued, there’s a new era—and elected officials should be judged by their current policies, not by whether or not they embraced the first wave.
What AOC is asking us to do is forget the past. So let’s recap the major public safety issue of that era.
The first wave of wokeness used the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to gain significant traction on defunding law enforcement and reallocating budgets to social services instead. The slogan “Defund the Police” rose to prominence in this first wave. AOC herself stated in 2020 that “defunding the police means defunding the police” in response to New York City’s proposed budget cuts to the police department—meaning that simple budget cuts were not sufficient, but a complete overhaul was necessary. The Minneapolis city council vowed to defund the police department and reimagine it into a department focused on violence prevention and community safety; for the next four years, Minneapolis saw an exodus of police officers and a major spike in violent crime, including homicides, carjackings, murder, and theft.
For the women living in these localities who embraced the “Defund the Police” policy, their lives were made much more dangerous. These women—responsible for going to their offices, caretaking their children, and visiting the local grocery store— didn’t ask for the police to be removed. The businesses burned to the ground, decimated and looted in the wake of anti-police BLM riots, did not ask for the police to be removed. Take business owner Lucy Hosley, a middle-aged Black woman in the Bronx, whose deli was ransacked in a BLM riot. “We’ve been here all night cleaning up,” she said. “You said Black lives matter … look what you did to my store.” Lucy Hosley needed the police—not a department crippled by budget cuts and officers discouraged from engaging criminals.
Today, while the slogan has all but evaporated, the policies remain. The Democratic Socialists of America’s website states that the policy goal is to “demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system.” Taking away the police’s ability to wield force, have a political voice, and receive funding is literally defunding the police. While prominent democratic socialists have attempted to backtrack from this slogan, their own stated objectives remain clear. As more individuals come to office with these beliefs, the policies will also be elevated, and the second wave of woke will be just as damaging as the first.
The uncomfortable truth is that the first wave of wokeness is no different than the current wave of wokeness; it’s just painted in a softer light. No matter the packaging, it is a deadly poison to a flourishing society. It is not the answer to the real problems facing American women. When communities are broken, the answer is not to defund their protection, but to identify and address the root issues, such as family brokenness, cyclical government dependency, and failure to prosecute violent crime and gangs. Socialism always has and always will endanger and impoverish those who suffer under it—and that’s exactly what will happen under any new wave of wokeness breaking down on the sands of our nation.