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You can’t erase woke
The Washington Examiner ^ | 10 Aug, 2026 | Byron York

Posted on 08/11/2026 6:55:05 AM PDT by MtnClimber

YOU CAN’T ERASE WOKE. This political season, like the last couple, has featured Democratic candidates not only running for office but running away from things they said from 2019 to 2021.

The latest is Francesca Hong, the somewhat loopy front-runner for the Democratic nomination for governor of Wisconsin. In the last few days, Hong has walked back her 2020 call to “cancel Thanksgiving” so the nation can “stop celebrating colonialism.” She has also backed off her 2019 and 2021 calls to “defund then abolish” the police. And she no longer stands by her 2021 call to “abolish the Senate,” which she made when she was angry that senators did not convict President Donald Trump in his second impeachment.

Hong spent the weekend before the primary shrugging off her not-so-old outrageous statements. “I had some hot takes, some bad takes on Twitter,” she told reporters. “But I’ve evolved, I’ve learned. I think it’s more dishonest not to learn.”

Hong did not address a more fundamental question: Isn’t it a problem that she ever believed those things? Hong was in her early 30s when she expressed the views listed above. Now approaching 40, she has been slow to back away from them, and only under pressure. Isn’t that a problem?

The progressive answer to that question came over the weekend from far-left superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). “I have a local city councilman that has this saying: Woke 1 was crazy,” she said with a laugh on ABC News’s This Week Sunday. “And I think that what’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.”

That is what Ocasio-Cortez wants, and what Hong wants, and what lots of other socialists and progressives want, but it is fortunately not the way the political system works. Things a candidate has said in the past, especially in the recent past, mean something. They should face questions about them.

Graham Platner, who won the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine, had a ton of social media posts to run away from. None of them forced him out of the race; that happened only after he was accused of sexual assault. In Michigan, Abdul el Sayed, or Abdulrahman Mohamed el Sayed, as Republicans call him, also had a lot of posts to live down — which he successfully did, winning the Democratic nomination for Senate.

Neither candidate faced a particularly adversarial press when it came to those old posts. They were running in Democratic primaries where there were less likely to be impassioned arguments about such views. For el Sayed, and for Hong if she wins, the situation will be different in the general election campaign, where they will be running against Republicans who will be more than happy to point out their statements from a few years ago.

Kamala Harris got to experience that in the 2024 presidential race. Remember that Harris ran for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. She was a terrible candidate and dropped out in December 2019. But she left a record of ridiculous comments that came back to haunt her in 2024.

“If there was a bad idea, she embraced it,” this newsletter noted earlier this year. “Green New Deal, Medicare for all, mandatory assault weapon buybacks, amnesty — the whole lot. (Harris also said she was ‘open’ to the idea of packing the Supreme Court.)”

Then there was the legendary moment in the 2024 presidential debate in which Trump accused Harris of “wanting to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.” Some Harris supporters reacted with outrage — surely Trump was making up a crazy charge like that! But no, Trump was correct. Harris had actually made the pledge in writing in a 2019 questionnaire for the American Civil Liberties Union. Her views from five years earlier hurt her a lot in 2024.

Now, Ocasio-Cortez says the important thing is “to assess what a candidate is saying now.” But why not take what that candidate said just a few years ago into account? “I don’t love this idea that nothing anyone said or did in 2019-2020 counts,” tweeted left-leaning writer Matthew Yglesias. “Like it’s fine as a sociological observation, but I want political leaders who keep their heads even in the face of dumb fads.”

Francesca Hong did not do that. Abdul el Sayed did not do that. Kamala Harris did not do that. And woke was indeed crazy. So now, it’s entirely reasonable for voters to ask why those candidates believed it so fervently.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: leftism

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To: alternatives?

From “Witness for the Prosecution”:

“The question is, Frau Helm, were you lying then, are you lying now, or are you not in fact a chronic and habitual LIAR!”


21 posted on 08/11/2026 8:00:24 AM PDT by decal (They won't stop, so they'll have to be stopped)
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To: alternatives?
If they significantly change their stated views in five years, then what is the worth of their current statements?

STOP THAT REASONABLENESS THIS INSTANT! YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!

22 posted on 08/11/2026 8:02:03 AM PDT by 17th Miss Regt (Fascist, deplorable, and proud of it!)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...
Guess again. If the DSA takes over, the first order of business will be to purge rivals and useful idiots (like the media shills), and install their own downliners.

23 posted on 08/11/2026 8:09:06 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (The Demagogic Party is just a collection of violent, rival street gangs.)
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To: MtnClimber

Ignorance can be cured.
Stupid is forever.


24 posted on 08/11/2026 8:22:01 AM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: Liz
The corrupt MSM wants this story to be 'old news' by the time the midterms come around.

These commie brats are the same people 'journalists' went to prep school with. Cut from the same cloth. Lazy creepy 'hate American' prep schools their wealthy over indulgent parents sent them to... the money money money kids...

Cut from the same cloth.

Expect the press to support commies. The FoxNews folks to choose what video to show when their 'talents' are talking are already kissing commie butt with their choices. Does anyone at FoxNews ever WATCH their own channel?

25 posted on 08/11/2026 8:27:29 AM PDT by GOPJ (Iran's goons don't need a "Tokyo Rose" -they've got sh*ts at MSNOW like Jim Vandehei. Ali Vitali etc)
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To: VRW Conspirator

And play said ad nonstop.


26 posted on 08/11/2026 8:29:22 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: MtnClimber

Especially if they’re on the left.


27 posted on 08/11/2026 8:29:45 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: bk1000

Exactly.


28 posted on 08/11/2026 8:30:24 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: j.havenfarm

Well said.


29 posted on 08/11/2026 8:30:43 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: MtnClimber

Nose rings, purple hair, and tattoos would prove you correct


30 posted on 08/11/2026 8:42:33 AM PDT by Keyhopper (Indians had bad immigration laws)
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To: MtnClimber

Yes, you can. Quit spreading lies. Pinoche got rid of the commies. Rome got rid of the Carthaginians. The Brits got rid of Tsuggis. If we quit hamstringing the IdF they could get rid of the hamas savages.

Hate filled wanna-be rabid dogs have but one solution. You just have to have the courage your descendants need.


31 posted on 08/11/2026 8:45:52 AM PDT by bobbo666
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To: MtnClimber

The DemonRATs are very busy establishing ethnic anti-american colonies all over the nation.


32 posted on 08/11/2026 9:11:06 AM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again," )
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To: hanamizu

The left’s insane campaign ads.
<><>“I love trans kids the most.”
<><>“America deserved 9-11”,
<><>“Abolish the Senate”,
<><>“Thanksgiving should be canceled”,
<><>“We’re living on stolen land”.


Where’s the men in the white coats when you need them?


33 posted on 08/11/2026 9:48:38 AM PDT by Liz (“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies the work of His hands." (Psalm 19:1))
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To: MtnClimber

The woke needs to be put to sleep.


34 posted on 08/11/2026 10:51:03 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo )
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To: Liz

“The left’s insane campaign ads.
<><>“I love trans kids the most.”
<><>“America deserved 9-11”,
<><>“Abolish the Senate”,
<><>“Thanksgiving should be canceled”,
<><>“We’re living on stolen land”.

That’s the shit they are teaching in college. But only moron students would believe it.


35 posted on 08/11/2026 10:54:12 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo )
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To: Bon of Babble

What’s amazing to me is that any American would vote for this idiot who is not only openly anti-American, but brags about it.
___________________________
She appears likely to win the DSA primary. Commies are afflicted with mass formation psychosis syndrome (MFPS). Mattias Desmond coined the term to explain the inexplicable large population of individuals overcome with Covid Crazy during the past epidemic. MFPS has a contagious quality, infecting the mind and rationality and spreads among like minded individuals. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a subset of the Commie MFPS. I am certain the malady will soon be listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). When will we decide to commit these crazies, remains to be seen? With regard to the Commie ‘woke’ syndrome, Yuri Bezmeov stated emphatically that it was futile to waist your time trying to reason with the indoctrinated, brain washed believers.


36 posted on 08/11/2026 11:03:34 AM PDT by iontheball (, )
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To: MtnClimber

What’s the difference between some politician’s brain and manure? Manure can be useful.


37 posted on 08/11/2026 11:16:56 AM PDT by Vaduz (NEVER TRUST A DEMOCRAT)
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To: Vaduz

:) Good one.


38 posted on 08/11/2026 11:18:37 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

BUMP


39 posted on 08/11/2026 12:47:32 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. --DJT)
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To: MtnClimber
"far-left superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). 'I have a local city councilman that has this saying: Woke 1 was crazy,' she said with a laugh on ABC News’s This Week Sunday. 'And I think that what’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.'”

Woke 1 was about lying like your life depends on it to accomplish your objectives.


40 posted on 08/11/2026 3:15:27 PM PDT by clearcarbon (Fraudulent elections have consequences.)
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