Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) may not be old enough to run for president yet, but the 29-year old democratic socialist isn’t writing off the prospect.
AOC told Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery” on Sunday that she has thought about mounting a presidential bid before, but she finds being a controversial first-term lawmaker a “tough” job already. The freshman congresswoman also wouldn’t say whom she supports to take on Trump — but said that the prospect of a Biden bid doesn’t “animate” her.
AOC for president?
Since her shock victory over former Rep. Joe Crowley in June, Ocasio-Cortez has become one of the most well-known, and indeed controversial figures in American politics. With more name recognition than some Democrats running for president, Ocasio-Cortez is the de facto leader of a new generation of radical Democrats and something of a progressive kingmaker.
AOC’s rise has prompted questions about her own political ambitions. At 29, AOC would not be old enough to run until 2024. While she’s still too young to run herself, supporters of Ocasio-Cortez have encouraged her to seek the presidency. Speaking with “Skullduggery,” AOC admitted that she has considered it.
“I think about it every once in a while, but … this is pretty hard already,” she said.
This isn’t the first time AOC has had to address buzz about her presidential ambitions. When Vox writer Matthew Yglesias wrote a December column calling for the 35-year old threshold to be lowered so she could run, she responded flatly, “How about…no.”
Progressive kingmaker
While Ocasio-Cortez is not running herself, 2020 Democrats have silently, and some not so silently, curried her favor while adopting planks of her progressive agenda, from the Green New Deal to Medicare for All. Last month, progressive firebrand Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) met with Ocasio-Cortez for lunch.
AOC’s status as a leader in her party was evident when “Skullduggery” asked about her thoughts on the Democrats vying for the nomination. Ocasio-Cortez wouldn’t endorse any candidates, but did say she is “supportive” of progressive patriarch Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). She also called Warren’s policies “truly remarkable and transformational.” Warren, the first Democrat to announce her candidacy, is one of the more radical candidates, floating proposals to abolish the electoral college and pay reparations for slavery.
However, Ocasio-Cortez made it clear that the centrist Biden doesn’t fit her idea of moving forward.
“That does not particularly animate me right now,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I can understand why people would be excited by that, this idea that we can go back to the good old days with Obama, with Obama’s vice president,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “There’s an emotional element to that, but I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward.”
Asked about how she envisions her role politically, Ocasio-Cortez said she “[wants] to be useful.”
“I just want to be most useful, and I’m not trying to kind of impose some personal ambition,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I think that, if a window opens and I feel like I can do well, and do better, and offer more to people, then I would consider it. But … I don’t have like a 10-year plan or a five-year plan or anything.”
Socialist dystopia?
Speaking of five and ten-year plans, Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, which calls for the elimination of carbon emissions by 2030, was shot down in the Senate last month in a 0-57 vote.
Since entering Congress, Ocasio-Cortez has become known largely for the trillion dollar climate change resolution. A draft calling to eliminate air travel and regulate “cow farts” has become something of a Republican meme, and the lawmaker’s many gaffes have made her into the right’s favorite running joke. Critics find in her ramblings the entitlement of a young progressive generation and the know-nothing politics of radical socialism.
But it’s a testament to AOC’s influence that Trump supporters broke out into chants of “AOC sucks” at a Trump rally last month, evoking as it does “Lock her up,” a sign that AOC has entered a select league of hated but influential Democrats.
Ocasio-Cortez has also been compared to Trump for her inability to accept criticism and a cavalier attitude toward facts, famously declaring it’s more important to be “right” than factually correct. Between her mercurial, tyrannical personality and her far-left politics, living under a President Ocasio-Cortez would probably be a lot for the right like what living under Trump is for the left.
AOC’s rise has not been received well by all in her party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who took another shot this week in a series of oblique jabs at the progressive upstart when she called AOC and her allies “like five people,” despite nearly 70 Democrats voting with AOC almost 95 percent of the time.
At this stage, any talk of an Ocasio-Cortez presidency is pure speculation. But with the party trending in AOC’s direction, is it really such an outlandish proposition?
No comments: