A PROFILE OF ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ
But that’s all part of the strategy Ocasio- Cortez described during her pump-up introduction of Teachout... “We bring the energy, and they show us the way,” she said in a speech about young people’s role in political activism, which helped no one forget how young Ocasio- Cortez is compared to Teachout, a law professor and longshot attorney general candidate who – at 46, and seven months pregnant – was the resident grownup in the student union. At an event in Brooklyn the following day, the full slate of New York’s Democratic Socialist candidates shared the stage. Most would soon lose their primaries. But Ocasio-Cortez and her win injected the scene with a sense of possibility. When a supporter shouted, “I love you!” she replied, popstar-style, “I love you too!” As the lead-in to her speech, she translated the vaguely revolutionary refrain of the Latin American song Teachout and Cynthia Nixon had been dancing to when I’d arrived minutes before. At one point, the candidates sang a groovy rendition of “Happy Birthday” for Sanders, who was turning 77 and whose super PAC supported several of their campaigns. Ocasio-Cortez slipped away after addressing the crowd – “probably to canvass,” an event staffer told me. It helps, when you’re knocking on Brooklynites’ doors to talk up a socialist state senate candidate, to have a certain celebrity sheen. And Ocasio- Cortez’s star appeal is such that Sephora sold out of the shade of lipstick she wears within 24 hours of her beating Crowley. Plus, Ocasio-Cortez’s knowledge gaps and her resilience after mainstream media
types criticize her – like CNN’s Tapper, the Washington Post ’s Glenn Kessler, and the folks at PolitiFact who’ve graded her public statements “false” or “pants on fire” three times – betray a brassiness that the 18-to- 25s seem to appreciate. Supporters take her seriously, if not literally, to borrow a phrase.
Her point, in other words, transcended truth.
One I met this summer, 19-year-old Esther Joseph, summed it up. When I asked whether she thinks inexperience and limited expertise ought to matter, Joseph recalled, “She was on one of the late-night shows, and she was talking about the budget and what we could do about it.” Ocasio-Cortez misunderstood the entire $700 billion defense budget for 2018 to be the amount of last year’s military spending increase in a July interview with the Daily Show , after which, “Fox News came at her, She’s so wrong! And I was like, Yeah, but she has a point.” Her point, in other words, transcended truth. And indeed, as President Donald Trump has proven, to topple the establishment – to reduce them, in so doing, to Crowley-esque caricatures of their former selves – you don’t need truth. You only need a core of supporters who are convinced they know what you mean, even when it’s all made up.
Alice B. Lloyd is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard .
American Consequences 49
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