The Ocasio-Cortez effect
The 360 is a feature designed to show you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories.
What’s happening
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upset Rep. Joe Crowley in the New York 14th District primary – an incumbent with nearly 20 years in office who was considered a likely heir to Rep. Nancy Pelosi – it was a jolt to the Democratic Party. At 29, Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman elected to Congress. She is Latina, working class, and as a Democratic Socialist, leans much further left than the majority of her party.
In her short time in office, Ocasio-Cortez has pushed buttons on both sides of the aisle. She’s also redefining the rules of political engagement through social media – perhaps unsurprising for a millennial digital native, but her fluency has nonetheless knocked the establishment off balance. She has used Instagram to talk policy with viewers while she’s cooking and posted behind-the-scenes videos and photos to bring transparency to her role as a congresswoman. She’s a master of the counterpunch on Twitter, where she has 2.4 million followers, and recently gave a group of fellow Democrats tweet lessons.
Her star power has both dazzled and disoriented the D.C. swamp. At times, neither party seems quite prepared to parry her progressiveness. She is a popular punching bag for right-wing media, but there are also reports that Democrats are “exasperated” and trying to “rein her in.” As one House Dem told Politico, “She needs to decide: Does she want to be an effective legislator or just continue being a Twitter star?”
She’s had flubs — misstating a Pentagon budget line for one – but, in her favor, many of the policies she supports are popular. Her suggestion for a 70 percent marginal tax rate on the highest income bracket sparked immediate backlash from pundits, but a poll conducted earlier this month found 59 percent of respondents in favor.
It’s too early to say whether Ocasio-Cortez will win hearts, minds or votes. But she’s making waves, and there’s no shortage of opinion on how she’s doing so far.
Perspectives
Ocasio-Cortez is green, but authentic – and it’s working for her. “Yes, she’s green (in more than one sense). She has made some clumsy mistakes. But she’s authentic, fearless and unpredictable — with beliefs that seem to have, at their core, a moral humanity.” — Columnist Margaret Sullivan,
Ocasio-Cortez is beating Trump at his own game. “Ocasio-Cortez is compelling because Republicans — even more than Democrats — know the power of political disruption from their recent experience with a social media savvy, brash outsider with no political experience.” – Juan Williams,
AOC could be great, but she has to learn Congress isn’t just about her. “There’s a good chance Ocasio-Cortez is going to crash and burn before she gets a chance to deliver on that progressive agenda she was sent to Washington to promote. That would be a shame. … She must not forget that she is merely one vote in a conglomerate of self-interest entities occupying space in Congress. She has to understand that without the help of other Democrats — and if she’s lucky, some Republicans too — she’s not going to get anything accomplished.” – Dahleen Glanton,
Without more substance than social media stardom, she’ll be a flash in the pan. “In the end, all fame is fleeting and Ocasio-Cortez will have to transition from the life of Twitter reality star into effective lawmaker who can accomplish things in Congress. Only time will tell whether she is able to harness her early media power into an effective bully pulpit to pressure her colleagues into supporting her initiatives — or whether, like so many before her, she simply fades into obscurity.” – Kalev Leetaru,
In AOC, we see what it might look like for the Left to retake control. “Now we need Ocasio-Cortezes everywhere, young Democratic Socialists of America lefties in office who will not be intimidated by the advice of the wise elders to slow down, calm down, shut up. We will remember what Martin Luther King said: when the pragmatic liberals say “wait,” they almost always mean “never.” – Nathan J. Robinson,
Her success is more than a cute social media story. ”Thus when a 29-year-old former bartender of Puerto Rican descent beats a senior Democratic leader of the House, and then proceeds to set the political agenda during her first week in office, it’s more than a cute social media story. AOC is one answer to the bigger question of how social media impact not just the portrayal of political power, but its seizure and exercise.” – Antonio Garcia Martinez,
What happens next
Ocasio-Cortez won a seat on the influential House Financial Services Committee, which oversees Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission. With a Republican president and Senate, no progressive legislation has a chance of being signed into law until 2021 at the earliest, but Ocasio-Cortez can continue to use the bully pulpit of social media to advance her favored policies, like the Green New Deal. She’s also likely to back progressive challengers to her sitting colleagues, and she could face a primary challenge herself in 2020.
Fox News hosts have imagined what her entry into the 2020 presidential race might mean (a constitutional impossibility because she is too young), but her long-term future is wide open. Wired magazine argued that she’s “very likely a harbinger of a new American political reality,” and historians interviewed in New York Magazine compared her to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (equating her social media presence to his fireside chats), Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (the first African-American woman ever elected to Congress) and Joshua Giddings (an abolitionist Whig member who was one of the founders of the Republican Party).
