When Trump supporters in Michigan erupted into chants of “AOC sucks” last week, it was clear that the 29-year-old congresswoman had joined a select company of hated Democrats.
From the sound of the chants, you’d think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, widely known as AOC, was challenging Trump herself. But while Ocasio-Cortez might not be old enough yet to run for president, the freshman lawmaker is making her mark on the 2020 race.
Though AOC won’t be on the ballot herself, Democrats seeking to capture her young following are endorsing her ideas, imitating her communication styles, and currying her favor.
Casting a shadow over the 2020 race
In just a few short months, Ocasio-Cortez has become a political force to be reckoned with. Now just a few months on the job, the freshman congresswoman has become a progressive foil to the president, and despite a lack of experience, she has far greater name recognition than most Democrats, including some who are running for president.
To the candidates fighting in a packed primary for the mantle of “true progressive,” an endorsement from the leader of the party’s unofficial vanguard is a coveted asset. When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) cracked open a beer on camera on New Year’s Eve — in a clear attempt at imitating AOC’s Instagram cookouts — and met with AOC for lunch last week, there was no doubt what impression Warren was seeking to cultivate.
BREAKING: We had labneh https://t.co/ZAT15wx4ex
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 28, 2019
But with an army of Twitter followers and an uncanny ability to generate headlines, AOC is pushing her party further to the left, leaving 2020 hopefuls struggling to catch up. The 2020 Democratic race has been a veritable scramble among candidates — who are, by comparison with AOC, uninspiring and nowhere near as controversial — to prove their progressive bona-fides, often by signaling support for far-left proposals that AOC has helped catapult to the mainstream.
And while AOC’s gaffes invite jibes from Republicans, her influence is no laughing matter. All six senators running for president — Warren, Bernie Sanders (VT), Kamala Harris (CA) Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Cory Booker (NJ), and Amy Klobuchar (MN) — have sided with her widely mocked Green New Deal.
Indeed, AOC’s platform, from the Green New Deal to Medicare For All, has become an unofficial litmus test for Democrats seeking the presidency. With her spirited radicalism and diversity credentials, Ocasio-Cortez is seen by many as the face of a new party that is sanguine about socialism, keenly interested in diversity, and eager to rewrite the rules of the political system — whether it’s abolishing the Electoral College or packing the courts — to bolster Democrats’ power.
Villain to the GOP
AOC’s political star has steadily risen since her shocking primary victory over longtime Rep. Joe Crowley last June. At the time, the political world was abuzz with speculation that she was, as DNC chairman Tom Perez put it, the “future of the Democratic Party.”
But as AOC has become a household name over the past few months, her ignorance of policy and devil-may-care attitude toward facts have helped fashion her into somewhat of a villain to Republicans, who have been eager to attack Ocasio-Cortez’s widely-mocked Green New Deal, with its much-maligned proposals to eliminate airplanes and cut down on meat consumption.
Her headline-grabbing gaffes have become the butt of endless jokes, but it’s a testament to her influence that her enemies are talking about her — and an awful lot. An analysis of AOC’s social media reach showed that articles about the congresswoman doubled, on average, the number of interactions of articles on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Party’s actual leader.
In a time when censorship on social media platforms has become a hot-button political topic, that kind of reach is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But Twitter is still a website, and at the end of the day, there’s a difference between retweets and votes.
When Sen. Mitch McConnell forced a vote on the Green New Deal, it was evident that even Democrats who have endorsed the climate change plan see it as a token of sensitivity to climate change rather than a serious proposal. Forty-three Democrats, including the six senators who have voiced support for the deal, voted “present” rather than go on the record supporting it.
The Democrats who demurred seem sensitive to the risks of going all-in with AOC’s agenda, especially as recent polling found that a majority of Americans disapprove of the young congresswoman. Her low rating is driven mostly by widely shared contempt among Republicans, whose dislike of the self-described Democratic Socialist leaped from 52 percent in September to 73 percent in February in a Gallup poll.
Democrats seeking her endorsement in the primary will eventually have to win over moderates in the general election, but a turn toward the center could prove difficult for those who veer far to the left. And yet, echoing its predecessor (“Lock her up!”), “AOC sucks” is an unmistakable indication that the young lawmaker, polarizing and inexperienced as she may be, is seen as a leader of her party by enemies and friends alike.
What does that mean for Democrats going into 2020? Only time will tell.
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