Architect of chaos. the president should not be asking for more money to an agency that has systematically violated human rights. a pop culture sensation. there is no question that she s arrived in washington as a phenomenon. a master of communication. her use of social media feels more like the future than most of what people have paid consultants lots of money to help create for themselves. ocasio-cortez s agenda of radical reform is already deeply felt in the halls of congress. alexandria ocasia cortez s base wants her to stick to this administration. the politics of revenge and stick it to corporate democrats. i m going to be the bad guy, which i m sure half the room would agree with anyway. a 29-year-old democratic socialist is ready to shake up not just her party but all of washington, d.c. and we are going to rock the world.
Democratic district, ocas ocasio-cort ocasio-cortez s win in the primary practically guaranteed her victory in the general election. but her reach went way beyond politics. almost overnight she became a bona fide celebrity. i ve never seen this sort of surge in popularity in public awareness for a traditional candidate, i definitely never have. she appeared on late-night talk shows, fielded tweets from movie stars, sold out fund-raisers. amid the storm of attention, ocasio-cortez and the justice democrats plotted how to use her primary win to trigger a nationwide trend. the entire mission of this was not about one candidate, but about a movement. it is the right thing to do. that summer, aoc toured michigan, missouri, and appeared with bernie sanders in kansas, stumping for progressive candidates in upcoming primaries. change takes courage. change takes guts. she traveled quite a bit to help push this platform of getting money out of politics. she thought as an obligation
Discussion into those moments. she doesn t feel like she s being managed. she just comes across as herself. you know, i think it s so important that we humanize our government. it really kind of opens up the window to show that anyone can serve. her use of social media feels more like the future than most of what people have paid consultants lots of money to help create for themselves. with the spotlight on aoc, conservatives continue to take aim. some attacks got personal. there s criticism pouring in over a tweet eddie scary, a writer for the right-wing washington examiner, posted a photo of ocasio-cortez from behind with the caption, i ll tell you something that jacket and coat don t look like a girl who struggles. after we elected incredibly diverse congress in the house and the amount of women that elected, oh, you know what, maybe we are in a post-sexist america. and we re finding out very, very quickly that that is not true.
Was key to ocasioer on tez s platform. as a whole her policy stands were unabashedly leftist. getting money out of polit politics, medicare for all, fighting to are affordable housing, housing as a human right, abolishing i.c.e. i.c.e., the u.s. immigrations and customs enforcement agency, was created after the attacks on september 11th. ocasio-cortez confronted trump s zero tolerance immigration policy head-on, calling for the outright abolishment of i.c.e. a lot of establishment democrats did not want to address that issue because they didn t want to look like they were being soft on immigration. she was ahead of the curve, she forced them to address that issue. almost immediately ocasio-cortez s boldly progressive agenda seemed to have a palpable influence on the competition. within a week of alex announcing her campaign, joe crowley for the first time in his career supported medicare for all. she texted me the news where she was so excited about it.
ocasio-cortez attracted activists, progressives who were itching to fight for something, not just against president trump. alexandria was really the thing that gave me hope back in politics. i had started giving up. i was like, this is too hard, there s too many powerful interests here. people who are fighting back can t really make a difference in our country. we re a very scrappy group running purely on private donation, no corporate money. ocasio-cortez assembled an eclectic team to run her campaign. a former actor, a food blogger. everyone kind of did it because this was something that needed to be done, this was a message that needed to get out there, and alexandria was willing to be that messenger. we thought, no matter what happens, even if we pull crowley one foot to the left, that s been an endeavor worth undertaking. ocasio-cortez wanted her political brand to reflect her message of soerm right arm, so she turned first to her friend,