How Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes Blows American Politics
Dmitry Kurkin
If in politics they made up something like weekly pop charts, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, a New York congresswoman, whom almost nobody knew about a year ago, would easily have won first place in them today - she is still called the former barmaid and waitress in the news. At the age of 29, becoming the youngest woman elected to the US House of Representatives, a representative of democratic socialists (the wing that nominated Bernie Sanders for the 2016 presidential election - Cortes took part in his campaign, and now may well be considered his full heir) in history. But this symbolic record was clearly not going to be limited.
In the very first month of her activity in the congress, Cortes managed to announce two crusades against poverty and global warming. And it does not bother her at all that in her native country she is treated like Baron Munchhausen, who had a war with England on the daily schedule for four o'clock in the afternoon. When asked by TV presenter Stephen Colbert, "On a scale from zero to anything, how far are you not *** to those who tell you to slow down?" She laughs and replies: "Zero." And recalls that Martin Luther King was once considered a highly controversial figure and marginal.
His own reputation as a heretic and a troublemaker of tranquility, Cortes builds up by leaps and bounds. Now she frightens the major financiers at the Davos forum with proposals to raise tax for rich compatriots (specifically: raise it to 70 percent for all whose annual income exceeds 10 million dollars) and declares that for the people of her generation the fight against global warming should be "World War II war ":" Millennials, people from generation Z and all those guys that will come after us, look and say: "The world will end in twelve years, if we do not deal with the problem, and your main question now is what price we will pay for it ? “".
The breakthrough of Okasio-Cortes into big politics happened in June of last year, when it sensationally won the democratic primaries in New York. The word “sensationally” does not quite accurately convey the scale of the surprise: Cortes won the election, in which bookmakers rated her chances as 18 to 1 - that was simply not the case in the recent history of American politics.
In Okasio-Cortes, one can guess a person who is tempered by tweeting and ready to fight his rivals in their own field.
At the same time, which is typical, not only her personal rating increased, but also her interest in her ideas: according to Merriam-Webster, after her victory, the number of search queries for the word "socialism" increased by 1,500 percent. Socialist initiatives form the core of the Cortes program. In her opinion, "a system that allows people to become billionaires is immoral": "We really agree with a society in which someone can afford a helipad at a time when the percentage of homeless people in New York has grown to the maximum since the Great depressed? " And of course, with such an agenda, it was immediately added to the lists of socially dangerous demagogues who encroached on the very essence of the American dream: conservative economist Ben Stein even compared it with "Hitler, Stalin and Mao," saying that her ideas "lead to mass murder , dictatorship and genocide. "
The US political establishment continues to treat Okasio-Cortes as an urban fool and urges not to respond to its attacks. Press Secretary of the White House Sarah Sanders, commenting on the congresswoman’s eschatological forecast, said: “I don’t think we should listen to her opinion on any issues - in particular, that which is in the hands of much higher authority - and certainly not a newly elected congresswoman to argue on when the end of the world will come. "
But it is not so easy to dismiss Okasio-Cortes, it guesses the person who has been hardened on Twitter and ready to fight his rivals in their own field. Appealing to a divine beginning and the Bible? Okay, here are some quotes from Genesis and Leviticus to confirm my position on ecology. Cortez, who, unlike her older colleagues, discovered Twitter around the time she came into politics, understands the power of social media. If they don’t win wars for the presidency (although some commentators in the United States seem to still seriously believe that Trump was brought to power by Kremlin trolls taking advantage of Facebook’s loopholes), influence is being won. On Cortez, 2.6 million are now subscribed to Twitter, and even if you deduct inactive users and bots, the audience will still be not much lower than the television one - and simply not working with it is short-sighted. More importantly: Cortez knows who he is addressing and, in his rhetoric, easily envelops pop cultural references - for example, the Spice Girls.
According to recent polls, three-quarters of the American Democrats would have readily voted for the Okasio-Cortes in the presidential election.
In times of political instability - and in the USA, where the government suspended operations, having failed to agree on a budget for 2019, now is just such a moment - the platform is often intercepted by eccentrics or simply atypical characters tearing a pattern. And Okasio-Cortes with its model of socialism quite fits this description, but this is only one of the reasons for the rise of its popularity. The other is that a brisk native of the Bronx district is simply not like the politicians of the previous wave and may well become a role model for the next wave.
According to recent polls, three-quarters of the American Democrats, both party and non-system sympathizers, would have readily voted for the Ocasio-Cortes at the presidential election. This survey is purely speculative: because of its age, Alexandria cannot take part either in the next elections or in the next (she will be 35 years old only in October 2024). But he shows that a substantial part of the electorate is starved by politicians of a new type - even if it does not share all their ideas. At some intuitive level, they cause more confidence.
It’s too early to talk about a presidential ambition, and not only because of her age. The example of Bernie Sanders shows that the ideas of socio-economic equality are not very popular, even when the favorites of the presidential election have a negative trust rating. But if in the USA they ever elect a woman as president, then it will probably not be someone like Hillary Clinton, but someone like Okasio Cortes.
PHOTO:Wikipedia