On the anniversary of Michael Brown Jr.'s killing, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told ABC she and other progressive candidates have 'moved away' from pandemic-era statements on police and prison abolition, framing 2020's rhetoric as belonging to a different moment. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani echoed the sentiment days later, saying he does not believe in defunding police and favors working with the NYPD. City Councilman Chi Ossé, once inspired by the abolition movement, has embraced the term 'woke 1' to describe that earlier period.
Critics, including the author of this piece, note that none of the three ever introduced legislation matching their 2020 rhetoric that they now need to retract, and that Mamdani's own campaign had promised to maintain NYPD's headcount before a DSA working group pressured him toward reversing a pledge to add officers and funding. The piece argues that framing 'defund' as mere 'rhetoric' obscures that the NYPD budget remains roughly $11bn, and questions how that squares with a stated commitment to reducing inequality-driven crime.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.