{"id":42120,"date":"2026-08-13T02:03:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42120"},"modified":"2026-08-13T02:03:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:03:34","slug":"wisconsins-democratic-primary-was-a-test-for-the-post-woke-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42120","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin\u2019s Democratic primary was a test for the post-woke left"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"zephr-anchor\">\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\"><em>This story appeared in <\/em>Today, Explained,<em> a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/today-explained-newsletter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Subscribe here<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Wisconsin won\u2019t be the very first state to get a socialist governor, after all. In Tuesday\u2019s gubernatorial primary, Democrats there narrowly selected David Crowley, a moderate county executive, over the democratic socialist and <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/6012286-francesca-hong-wisconsin-democratic-socialist-thanksgiving\/\">reformed Thanksgiving-hater<\/a> Francesca Hong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">This contest was widely seen as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/499015\/francesca-hong-david-crowley-wisconsin-governor-primary-democratic-nomination\">a test of the progressive movement\u2019s strength<\/a> beyond deep-blue cities\u2026and a bit of a mess. Two candidates dropped out amid scandal just weeks before the election. Crowley himself suspended his campaign and endorsed another candidate, only to reenter the race with less than a month left. That teed up a chaotic, last-minute showdown between establishment Democrats and the party\u2019s upstart left-wing contingent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">That contingent was expected to win in Wisconsin, where Hong campaigned on practical issues like universal childcare, free school meals, and opposition to new data centers. But she also struggled to explain controversial positions that she staked out at the height of the pandemic \u2014 positions that both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wispolitics.com\/2026\/pro-crowley-group-launches-ad-knocking-hong\/\">pro-Crowley groups<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpr.org\/news\/gop-ads-attack-hong-liberal\">Republicans<\/a> pilloried in well-funded attack ads.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The furor certainly riled up Wisconsin Democrats: They turned out <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/daveweigel\/status\/2087405652830298413\">in huge numbers<\/a> on Tuesday. And while Hong <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2026\/08\/11\/us\/elections\/results-wisconsin-governor-primary.html\">performed well<\/a> in Madison and other liberal strongholds, voters in both Milwaukee and most rural counties went for Crowley.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The Wisconsin primary was weird and messy, so I wouldn\u2019t generalize its results too much. But there\u2019s little doubt that Hong suffered from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/498368\/francesca-hong-cancel-thanksgiving-abolish-police-prisons\">her association with \u201cWoke 1\u201d<\/a> \u2014 a strain of early-2020s social justice activism that many on the left now want to disavow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">You\u2019d probably recognize Woke 1, even if you haven\u2019t heard the term. More than a movement or a policy agenda, it was a strident, binary way of talking about race, class, and social justice that peaked after the racial reckoning of 2020\u2026and that ultimately alienated many centrist and working-class voters, including some in minority communities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">\u201cDefunding the police\u201d = classic Woke 1. So are calls to abolish police or prisons \u2014 or, as Hong proposed in one infamous 2020 tweet, to cancel Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Many Democratic voters agreed with the impulses behind these slogans \u2014 police and prisons need reform; colonialism bad \u2014 but felt alienated by the rhetoric around them. And even in Woke 1\u2019s heyday, issues like immigration and racial justice mattered less to most Americans than things like healthcare and inflation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">As left-wing candidates attempt to build new and broader coalitions, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/america-actually\/498647\/why-progressives-are-backing-off-woke-1\">many seem to have gotten that message<\/a>. Politicians like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed have both walked back comments about defunding the police, for instance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Instead, they\u2019ve centered issues like affordability and healthcare and begun openly discussing how their positions changed. \u201cThere was a huge opening of the Overton window\u201d during the pandemic, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SFwAnMLBSOw\">said Sunday<\/a>. \u201cRhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\"><strong>\u27a8 Spend more intentionally. <\/strong>Frugality was all the rage in the wake of the Great Recession, when a generation of popular, thrift-focused bloggers taught Americans to do more with less. Pop culture has since turned on frugality, as a value \u2014 in part because people feel so pessimistic about their long-term economic prospects \u2014 but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/life\/498268\/inflation-prices-frugality-great-recession-money-finance\">it\u2019s still worth mining the old-school frugalsphere for relevant lessons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--block-placement _13j8zv41 _13j8zv40 duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<ul class=\"duet--article--unordered-list _10sa9omi uyby7v0 pn04iq1\">\n<li class=\"uyby7v1\"><span class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>Did you know\u2026<\/strong>that since 1980, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/463046\/urban-fires-death-united-states-firefighters-accidents-new-york\">the number of fires in the US has fallen<\/a> by more than half? Thank more effective smoke alarms, automatic sprinklers, and fire-resistant furniture and finishes. <\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"uyby7v1\"><span class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>Today\u2019s trivia:<\/strong> Which German philosopher wrote <em>Critique of Practical Reason<\/em>? (You can find this and other brain puzzles <a href=\"https:\/\/link.vox.com\/click\/6a46cfd46352b082500e86fe\/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudm94LmNvbS8yMTUyMzIxMi9jcm9zc3dvcmQtcHV6emxlcy1mcmVlLWRhaWx5LXByaW50YWJsZT91ZWlkPWM3Mzg0ZDJhYzRmZDQ0YzcyZDI4OGQ4N2YxZjM5NDlh\/664389def568f1a4620aa3aeC7b08b10b\">in Vox\u2019s daily crossword<\/a>. Look for the answer in tomorrow\u2019s edition.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"uyby7v1\"><span class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>Yesterday\u2019s trivia:<\/strong> Yesterday we asked you for the country whose capital is Vientiane. That would be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-pacific-15351898\">Laos<\/a>, which \u2014 together with China, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam \u2014 has one of the world\u2019s only one-party communist governments. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here. Wisconsin won\u2019t be the very first state to get a socialist governor, after all. In Tuesday\u2019s gubernatorial primary, Democrats there narrowly selected David Crowley, a moderate county executive, over the democratic&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/gettyimages-2289635241.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.737892056687%2C100%2C78.524215886627&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}