Mockery and derision abound for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) GQ profile, where she delved into her potential presidential aspirations. The New York firebrand has been a political tour de force since she clipped longtime Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) in a primary challenge in 2018. She’s unabashedly left-wing. She commands a national constituency that could fill campaign war chests. However, the young left-winger from the Big Apple was bearish about her White House hopes, though her reasoning behind that was more along tangential lines than anything that could genuinely spell trouble for her.
Ocasio-Cortez’s policy positions aren’t what’s holding her back from a national campaign. It’s not that the Green New Deal bans the internal combustion engine and aims to kneecap the American economy for the sake of hippies in Portland, Oregon. It’s not the insane tax structure she wants to establish that would destroy the job-creating and investing class, nor is it that she wants to open the floodgates at the border and defund not just immigration enforcement but all police. It’s that America hates women. AOC also thinks she could die in September. (via NY Post):
The socialist firebrand New York Democrat speculated about the possibilities of her launching a future White House bid in a wide-ranging and fawning cover interview with GQ magazine published Wednesday.
Ocasio-Cortez said that while she tries to hold onto the belief that anything is possible, her experience in Congress has “given me a front-row seat to how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women.”
“And they hate women of color,” added the 32-year-old, who was described in the article as the “political voice of a generation” and “bona fide culture celebrity.”
“People ask me questions about the future. And realistically, I can’t even tell you if I’m going to be alive in September. And that weighs very heavily on me. And it’s not just the right wing. Misogyny transcends political ideology: left, right, center,” the democratic socialist continued.
[…]
Ocasio-Cortez also theorized how, even if she were to be elected commander-in-chief, she’d face the wrath of the political system — from the Senate to the Supreme Court — that she says would impede her goals.
“There are still plenty of limitations,” she claimed. “It’s tough, it’s really tough.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the congresswoman spoke of the “open hostility” she encountered from her own Democratic Party colleagues after taking office in 2018.
“It was open hostility, open hostility to my presence, my existence,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“Since I got here, literally day one, even before day one, I’ve experienced a lot of targeting diminishment from my party. And the pervasiveness of that diminishment, it was all-encompassing at times. I feel a little more steady on my own two feet now.
“But would I say that I have the power to shift the elected federal Democratic Party? No.”
Did you catch that? As others have noted, it goes beyond policy—the woman has no grasp of our system of government. Ocasio-Cortez goes on about how checks and balances and judicial review could hinder what she wants to do if she were in the executive. She also doubts that she can shift the national Democratic Party, given the pervasive marginalization inflicted upon her by members of her party since she arrived on the Hill. The one notable thing about AOC is that she has passed zero bills with her name on them, yet she has accrued an earned media balance that is astronomical.
No conservative should breathe sighs of relief here. AOC downplaying her ambition is sickeningly coy and feels like a prelude to an ambush. Hillary Clinton has taken herself out of the running for the White House. Other Democrats may not like her, but she seems like the only one who could catch fire in building a national operation around someone.
Say some prayers.
In a GQ cover story, AOC theorizes about being president but is worried about the checks and balances of… the other branches of government. pic.twitter.com/WzR8JfLyrY
— Nathan Brand (@NathanBrandWA) September 7, 2022