In a recent discourse, podcaster Joe Rogan advised Democrats that shedding their “woke” label requires transparency. He suggested they need to openly identify the flaws in their past policies and explain the rationale behind previously supporting them.
Rogan questioned, “If you championed ‘defund the police’ without fully considering its ramifications, then let’s discuss the impact. What exactly did you expect to achieve and how did that work out for you?” He was pressing liberals on whether they thoroughly contemplated the fallout from advocating for police defunding.
He went on to assert that there’s a potential path to redemption, but it hinges on candor. “To earn genuine trust, admit where mistakes were made,” Rogan emphasized while reflecting on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks about the evolution of “woke” culture.
“Acknowledge your missteps, and genuinely express your thoughts on those errors,” he urged. He stressed the importance of honesty and sincerity, highlighting that people need to sense the embarrassment over misguided decisions and recognize the herd mentality that was followed.
Rogan cautioned, “Without that acknowledgment, you’re stuck in pretense. Persisting in deception only deepens the disillusionment over time, and that’s how politicians often end up disillusioned themselves.”
Later in the same podcast, Rogan’s guest, YouTuber Chris Williamson, voiced skepticism that Democrats would have ever distanced themselves from Woke 1.0 in the first place if former Vice President Kamala Harris had won the election.
“Think about what would have happened if Kamala had won,” he said. “Would AOC have been talking about Woke 1.0 was crazy or would that have been a continuation of, ‘Well, look, we put the policies out, people like the policies.’ How much of this is a reversal of the position because it wasn’t effective?”
Fox News Digital reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment.
Commentators across the political spectrum voiced doubts about whether the modern Democratic Party actually plans to pivot from far-left cultural issues.
“I don’t believe the Democrats want to be seen backing away from wokeness, especially now that they’re sharing a ‘big tent’ from people who want to empty the prisons,” Media Research Center’s NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham told Fox News Digital.
“They’re just less confident than they were in 2020, when they could proclaim that race riots are ‘rebellions’ and violence was an acceptable method to create the social change they wanted. It was like political Drano.”
Democratic consultant and former House Judiciary Committee minority chief counsel Julian Epstein offered a stern warning to his party.
“There is not much difference between Woke 1 and Woke 2. They both involve the commodification of grievance and rage, and then the packaging of lunatic ideas that do little to help voters and seek to make them permanent wards of the state,” he said.
“This is completely different from Democrats of the ’90s who would proclaim the U.S. as the best opportunity machine ever invented and then try to give people agency.”
Mary Marslender, a Republican consultant and the president and founder of Leverage PR, suggested that talk of ditching Woke 1.0 in vague terms is a cynical strategy.
“The vague talk of ditching ‘Woke 1.0’ is a temporary political strategy; it’s not genuine course correction,” she said.
“Democrats refuse to specifically call out the craziness; they have yet to stand up for women by preventing biological males in women’s sports, stop the DEI agenda in our schools and institutions or advocate for safe communities by stopping their support of soft-on-crime progressive prosecutors. Additionally, their lack of concrete policy reversals is revealing.
“Democrats wanting to distance themselves from Woke 1 have claimed they want to ‘fix our broken immigration system,’ but such rhetoric rings hollow when they oppose interior enforcement, call to abolish ICE, defend violent illegals who have crossed our borders and unequivocally support sanctuary cities.
“Had Harris prevailed, the same coalition that championed the 1619 Project, policing reforms adjacent to defunding and gender ideology in schools would have viewed any moderation as betrayal,” she added.
“It’s power, not principle, that drives the Democrat Party. Until Democrats can explicitly admit fault and demonstrate a serious reversal of Woke 1, American voters are right to treat the so-called ‘post-woke’ shift as a temporary political strategy rather than a genuine course correction.”
Former Republican National Committee spokesperson Elizabeth Pipko said recent events indicate Democrats are simply responding to which way the wind blows.
“Democrats of today tend to turn with the wind,” she said. “Depending on what is most popular with their base, that’s what you’ll hear from candidates during the primaries. And then, during the presidential election, you’ll notice the Democrat nominee pretending they never supported abolishing police, men in women’s sports or abolishing [ICE].
“Watching Democrats in 2026 pretending they never called for defunding the police has been incredibly entertaining considering almost all of them still have old posts up clearly advocating for that very policy,” Pipko continued.
“Considering how much damage some of these views have caused, it is extremely pompous to simply dismiss this time in our politics as ‘Woke 1.’ This shows how little Democrats actually believe in the what they say or do.”
Theo Wold, former White House deputy assistant for domestic policy under Trump and former assistant attorney general, suggested that even Rogan was not showing enough skepticism toward the Democrats.
“AOC’s sarcastic dismissal of Woke 1.0 isn’t a sign that Democrats are abandoning a leftist agenda. It’s a sign that they’re moving on to Ohase 2 of their project,” he said.
“She now casually laughs at the radical ideas she actively promoted just a few years ago. And Joe Rogan, unfortunately, is too gullible to see the truth: This is who Democrats are,” Wold added.
“They won’t abandon these ideas or apologize for them because they believe them, and when in power, they will ruthlessly advance them.”