Does New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani think “Woke 1” was crazy?
The 34-year-old politician was asked about his thoughts on the matter during a Wednesday, August 12, press briefing after Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made waves for appearing to walk back some of her stances.
When the U.S. representative for New York’s 14th congressional district made a recent appearance on ABC’s This Week, she was asked about Democratic socialist Francesca Hong‘s resurfaced comments about canceling Thanksgiving amid her run for Wisconsin governor.
“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy,'” Ocasio-Cortez, 36, said, pointing out that Hong “moved away” from her prior remarks.
The term seems to represent pandemic-era politics when people pushed for extreme ideas like defunding the police.
When Mamdani was asked whether or not he had similar thoughts, he didn’t answer directly, but said that he does not believe in defunding authorities.
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“Look, I think that each person has a responsibility to tell New Yorkers — to tell Americans — when they’re running for office what they believe,” Mamdani said, as seen in video footage captured by Fox News Digital.
“And sometimes, what you believe can change,” he said, alluding to AOC’s thoughts on how Hong, like others, changed her stance. “It can develop. It can grow. And I know that there are some for whom they still believe in that.”
“I’ve made very clear that I do not believe in defunding the police, that I will not be defunding the police, and that to me, delivering critical public safety also looks like working with our police department alongside many other partners,” Mamdani said.
“And we’ve seen over the first seven months of this administration what that can look like when we’re talking about the fewest murders on record in New York City, the fewest shooting incidents on record in New York City,” he added. “That to me is how we measure a lot of our public safety.”
Political newspaper The Hill pointed out that AOC’s remark signals a “shift of sorts by a Democratic Party that is trying to figure out how to move on from the woke era.”
Republican strategist Brian Seitchik told the publication that “AOC walking back her support for wokeism is peak revisionist history,” adding that she “was one of the loudest and most recognizable ringleaders” during that movement.
However, Democratic strategist Joel Payne countered by saying that it is “totally appropriate for any Democratic elected official to have some reflection and look back and say that those conversations were productive but we didn’t nail all of them.”
This story New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani Reacts to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Woke 1 Was Crazy’ Comment first appeared on Globe. Follow Globe on Yahoo so you don’t miss what’s coming next.