A new star on the sky

[airiefairie]

Thousands of exulted young supporters meet her everywhere she goes to deliver a speech: be it in the Bronx where she was born, or Kansas, Michigan, or any other place around the US. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fills both town-halls and people's hearts to the full. She is a real star: beautiful, smart, fiery, and with an impressing biography. She grew up in a family of workers in one of New York's poorest neighbourhoods. Her family originates in Puerto Rico but she was sent to a mostly white school. Then she studied economics in Boston and simultaneously worked to fund her studies. At 22 she launched a publishing firm, and at 28 (just a couple of months ago) we saw her as the victor in a primary where she was pitched against no other but the local Democrat titan, Joe Crowley.

He is twice her age, and many orders of magnitude richer, and he was of course considered the front-runner in that race. In fact he was cited as the likeliest next Speaker of the House. Now that she has defeated him, Alexandria says her victory was not just her personal success but that of an entire team, a whole movement. She openly defines herself as a Democratic Socialist. She had been part of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. And Bernie adores her.

She promises to never stop fighting until every single person has at least an existential minimum at their disposal that would guarantee them a life of dignity. Her top priorities are higher salaries, universal health care for all Americans, and free access to high education. She often says every modern, moral and wealthy society shouldn't have people who are too poor. The applause these words tend to draw is of course explosive. It sends a message to Republicans. They like to dismiss her with denigrating words like, "that little girl who lives in a world of her own". They slap the label of Socialism on her, and accuse her of disingenuousness. Most of them of course hate that word, it triggers them like no other. Socialism. Some conservatives are even going as far as to compare her to Venezuelan president Maduro, the socialist dictator. Or why not Castro.

There are even Democrats who are afraid of her, and the possible turn to the left that she represents for their party. Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat now turned Independent, says that if her victory in the Bronx is indicative of the new direction of the Democratic Party, then the Democrats should consider the midterm elections lost.

Apparently, people aged 20-30 beg to differ. They consider Alexandria one of them, and a carrier of new hope that morality and justice could again be restored in modern politics. She has often said that when it comes to realising some goals that are unambiguously moral and just for society, it always turns out there's not enough money for that. But when it comes to granting tax cuts to billionaires, or approving the funding for endless wars, money is always suddenly available.

She is 28 now. And she could become the youngest member of the House ever, very soon. As divided in their assessment of her as they might be, there is one thing all Democrats agree on: they need to regain control of the House at any cost, come November.

Now that America has had an African American president, perhaps it's time the first Latin American woman from the Bronx entered the White House. In any case, lots of young Americans have long dreamt of such a thing. Sure, president Trump still has no reason to fear her - for now. She will only be eligible to run after 2024, because of the 35 year requirement. As for the Republicans, they may already be in trouble.

Comments

[mahnmut]

Good luck to her, of course. But I'm afraid America is not ready to have a social-democrat at high office (because that's what she is, as well as Sanders).

[oportet]

Seems like both parties should have learned their lesson about underestimating someone...

Even if the Dems aren't ready to move that far left, the smart move would be to do just enough to get her approval of the 2020 nominee (genuine approval would be best, but if not - get her to sell it better than Bern did for Hill).

[fridi]

I do not like Bernie Sanders for any number of reasons, but most of his current positions, at least on economic issues, are no different from those John F. Kennedy once espoused. That’s how far our polity has slid in a half century, that the Kennedy mainstream is now considered “leftist socialism.”

[luzribeiro]

And now Ayanna Pressley has won the Democratic nomination for Massachusetts.

The leftist response to the rightist response to the leftist... ughhh my head's spinnin'.