[UPDATE April 20, 2019] At the suggestion of arper in the comments, I’ve edited the title to more appropriately reflect how the post evolved. He also suggested I could edit the body of the post. That’s true, but I think that the comments section is probably the best place to resolve such things (except obvious typos). I agree with comments that suggest the Democratic response is a more a mix of admiration and a irritation, but certainly not hatred.]
Let me just say it out front. I think AOC is one of the best things to happen in 2018/2019. In this post I'm going to explain why I think she's pissing off so many people in Washington and beyond. But if you aren't interested in that, just scroll down to the bottom for her video and its positive look to the future. When it gets trashed by the president and others, you can come back and see why I think they do that.
So here are of her qualities:
- She's smart in the sense that she understands how lots of things fit into the larger macro picture.
- She's articulate.
- She's able to share her love of life.
- She's able to respond to her detractors with wit, humor, dance, and hope.
- She's not shy.
- She's using her new Congressional seat to actually do things this country needs.
- She's savvy with social media.
- She's able to give voice for the marginalized: women, people of color, blue collar workers.
- She's beautiful. (This isn't something that we're supposed to comment on, but we all know that looks matter.)
And anyone who’s really good at things, particularly someone who has been traditionally marginalized in a society, is not only a personal threat to competitors are traditional power holders, but also a threat to the their world order.
OK, let's take a short side trip. When I was a junior in high school, I delivered the mail as a Christmas break job. I delivered in my own neighborhood, my own street even. I was fast. My supervisor was my regular mailman (there were no ‘mail-carriers’ in those days.) After a couple of days he pulled me aside and said, "Steve, you get paid by the hour and when you finish your route, your time is up. You don’t earn any more money. What's your hurry? Pace yourself. When you get to your house, take a break, have lunch, before starting again."
Later, as a grad student, I learned about 'soldiering' when I read
Frederick Taylor'sThe Principles of Scientific Management. He described how workers get into a comfortable pace at work and how frisky new workers (like me delivering mail) upset that comfortable pace. If the new person can do the work so quickly, management would raise their expectations. So the workers first start to subtly hint to the worker (as my supervisor did) to slow down and take it easy. If that doesn't work they get more aggressive, which could lead to sabotage and even physical violence.
I think this is a key reason there's so much negative press about AOC. She's making her co-workers in Congress look bad. (Of course, attacking her personally because her ideas threaten others’ values is important (and related) too.)
For the Republicans it's about everything:
- Policy
- Climate change
- Immigration and demonization of immigrants
- Supporting the wealthy over the poor
- She belongs at the bottom of their power hierarchy (or ’she doesn’t know her place’)
- She pokes holes in all their pronouncements and her responses to their criticisms are way better than what they can do
- She's just smarter than most of them and makes them look bad
For Democrats the issues are, perhaps, more procedural.
- She challenges the speed they are moving toward change in basic issues such as Climate and Health Care, Economic Reform, etc.
- Her activity and social media savvy and presence make them look like they're doing nothing.
- She brings a bright flash of life to a job they're doing with much less sparkle.
- She got elected by defeating one of their inner circle in the primary
- She's challenging the way they operate, their rules, their beliefs about what's possible, their strategy
Trump also skillfully used social media to by-pass the press and talk directly to his followers. And AOC is even better at using social media. She doesn't just use it, for her it's almost an art form.
And while some Democrats embrace everything she brings to Congress and their party, others see her as interfering with their routine, their way of seeing what's possible and how to get there.
Here's the video. It's a bit of social science fiction.
It looks to the future, what the world would look like if things got better because of the policies she's pushing. And it's close to how I envision things, though I'm less sanguine about what technology will do for us. Like all predictions there are probably flaws, but the attacks on her New Green Deal seem much harsher than criticisms of other people's predictions of the future, predictions that are less imaginative, more mired in the past.
And the video is beautiful. The artist, Molly Crabapple, does a great job. This format has come a long way since I wrote about
The Story of Stuff and then
the followup about Victor Lebow.