Ocasio-Cortez, Emerging as a Crusader Candidate for the Presidency, Is Meeting Her Moment

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is emerging as a crusader candidate for the presidency in 2028. By choosing the classic American path of letting the office seek her, the New York Democrat is demonstrating political savvy that will challenge her party’s aged establishment — not to mention Republicans — hoping to halt her rise.On Friday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez spoke with an erstwhile advisor to President Obama, David Axelrod, at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Mr. Axelrod said that there were “a lot of people who would like you to run for president,” sparking thunderous applause.Mr. Axelrod noted that it “sounded like even more” clapped for the prospect of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez running against the Senate minority leader, Charles “Chuck” Schumer, one of the Democratic Party’s old guard. Yet there was silence when he asked, “How many would like AOC to stay in Congress?” The audience wanted her talents in the White House.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t respond with the standard political plays of dodging and false humility. Instead, she transcended the question, saying she has bigger things in mind. Crusaders of her sort have sprung up in America ever since the Revolution, when patriots dared to dream of an independent republic that was said to be impossible.The Soviet Union dubbed President Reagan the “Crusader” from the time he began speaking out against communist infiltration of Hollywood. He confounded the USSR because of his firm ideology and incorruptible nature. Reagan was seen as fighting for America itself, not because he wanted, whenever he entered a room, the band to strike up “Hail to the Chief.”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said that she isn’t one who has “been, like, fantasizing about being this or that since the time you were seven-years old.” This lack of an agenda, she said, is “tremendously liberating because I get to wake up every day and say: ‘How am I going to meet the moment?’”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, she asks, “What move or what decision can I make today that is going to get us closer to that future stronger, faster, better than yesterday?” She laughed off a Washington Post editorial rebuking her for believing that accumulating a great deal of “wealth is inherently immoral, probably criminal and definitely illegitimate.”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said that what’s “funny about that is that they assume that my ambition is positional.” She called allusions by the editorial board — and the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos — to her future were “a veiled threat.” It was “the elite saying, ‘If you want this job, you just stepped out of line, and we want you to know where the real power is.”The message, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, was “the modern-day barons who own the Post and own the algorithms” will decide her fate. “We’re going to make an example out of you,” she imagined them saying. “They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat, and my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.”Officeholders “come and go,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “But single-payer health care is forever. Workers’ rights are forever. Women’s rights, all of that.” This, too, was met by cheers. She struck the posture of someone who would be happy returning to private life if she could achieve these goals.The former speaker, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, chafes at Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s influence. Yet it has only grown since 2018, when she became the youngest person ever elected to Congress. Being known by the initials AOC testifies to her stature. By tradition, monograms are reserved for presidents, titanic figures, and Rock ‘n’ Roll legends.Washington’s powerbrokers cannot sling the usual mud to dull a crusader’s luster or buy them off with baubles, which positions Ms. Ocasio-Cortez well for a presidential run. Her young, Democratic base is itching to overthrow the old barons, and they’ll do anything to see that their star meets her moment in 2028.

Ocasio-Cortez, Emerging as a Crusader Candidate for the Presidency, Is Meeting Her Moment

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