Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ‘The People Will Show Me the Way'

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a day ago

It's an early May afternoon in Washington, D.C., and as a group of demonstrators gather outside of the Capitol protesting cuts to Medicaid, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in her congressional office, excitedly pulling bright pink, blue, and yellow yarns out of her purse.
'I am knitting a cardigan; I call it my Fruity Pebble sweater,' says Ocasio-Cortez, holding the colorful jumble against her black dress. The congresswoman has recently started knitting as an alternative to doomscrolling. 'This is a practice that forces me to slow down. In a moment like this, when there's so much chaos, it is designed to basically just wear our nervous system down raw, so we are then overwhelmed, paralyzed, and have to accept whatever new development there is going on that day.'
Ocasio-Cortez is no stranger to existing in chaos — she was thrust into the national spotlight in June 2018 when she upset House Democratic Caucus chair Joe Crowley in New York's 14th congressional district primary election. The attention has brought Ocasio-Cortez her fair share of both recognition and abuse, which we talked about when we met last year at a diner in Queens to discuss her legislation to end nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes online. A lot has changed since then, especially politically. President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 race, Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him on the top of the ticket, and Donald Trump was elected for a second time.
Trump's whirlwind first 100 days in office steadily chipped away at democracy as we know it, with free speech, due process, and the balance of power in the crosshairs. In that time, the Democratic Party has come under fire, accused of not being ready to meet the moment that is demanded of party leadership. But a notable exception to this narrative has been Ocasio-Cortez, whose 'Fight Oligarchy' rallies with Sen. Bernie Sanders have drawn tens of thousands of people in states like California, Utah, and Colorado.
Ocasio-Cortez brings up this 'moment in history' throughout our conversation this spring. She talks about how this is a time when communities need to come together with courage rather than fear, how Democrats need to chart a path for a more inclusive future rather than constantly play defense, and how, above all, connectivity helps to avoid despair.
The congresswoman has a background of community organizing, and there's evidence of that throughout her D.C. space. A gallery wall in her office features posters of political calls to action — End Evictions! Climate Justice for All! — alongside photos of rallies and protests. 'It's a way for me to bring home here,' she says. As we speak, people line up outside of her office to write on the neon Post-it notes covering her door. There are handwritten messages from people from the U.S. and abroad, thanking her, telling her different versions of 'never stop fighting' or, as it's written in Spanish, 'nunca dejas de luchar.'
'I feel very indebted to people for how powerfully people are choosing to show up, when everything about this moment would support tuning out,' Ocasio-Cortez says. 'We need Democrats that are willing to stand up and brawl and not be afraid to fight on these issues, and we need mass collectives of people organizing in the streets,' she says. 'I believe it's always been that combination that is able to stop the encroachment of authoritarianism and fascism.'
The last time we met, we talked about , the bill you are co-sponsoring that would give survivors of sexually explicit deepfake AI abuse recourse to sue. Why is it more important now than ever?We saw Trump's announcement at the State of the Union for the Take It Down Act [legislation requiring platforms to remove nonconsensual deepfake porn], which passed through. But what we are still missing is victim-centered legislation that actually gives victims the power and the ability to advocate for themselves and to fight for themselves and have their day in court, and that's what Defiance does. It gives people who have been subject to nonconsensual, deepfake pornography the civil right of action so that they can pursue justice for themselves and to seek damages for this kind of sexual abuse and harm. Defiance is tremendously important, because Take It Down centers other people, right? But Defiance is about helping the disproportionately, and overwhelmingly, women and children who are affected by this.
So much has changed in the world of AI even since last year. Since we last met, the outsize influence of tech billionaires in politics and on democracy itself has only grown. How does that affect the average person in America?There is almost no area of our lives that has not been affected by this tech-billionaire class because they're buying elections. The balance of the Senate has been shifted because of the crypto lobby dumping millions of dollars into right-wing authoritarian candidates. And it's important to note that this money is not going into just issue-lobbying alone. This isn't about crypto billionaires trying to buy favors for the crypto industry. This is about crypto billionaires trying to install and support authoritarians and fascists, because they believe that if those fascists are personally close to them, then they can control far beyond the regulation of financial instruments. They think they can really start imposing this dystopian worldview that includes everything from the subjugation of women to democracy itself. And we're seeing this play out right now in the fight over Medicaid. Beyond the Senate, Elon Musk dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into trying to buy the U.S. presidential election, and he is trying to recoup that investment by getting one of the largest tax cuts for billionaires in American history — which the Republican Party is trying to pay for through massive cuts to Medicaid, for Americans with disabilities, health care for the poor. They're trying to cut Medicaid and SNAP food assistance to pay for additional tax cuts for Elon Musk and his industries, as well. And so it's really important for people to understand that this goes beyond tech. This is about the extreme concentration of money and power.
What did you think when you watched President Trump's inauguration and powerful tech CEOs Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Sundar Pichai were sitting so close to him? This is a moment in history personified. This is not just people buying favors. This is about who controls this country, and everyone else is just a formality, and that is the worldview that we are up against right now. This is the stakes of the present moment. And when Sen. Sanders and I talk about oligarchy, this really is what this is. It is beyond partisan as well. It is concentrated. It is most concentrated in the Republican Party. But it's also the power that controls our politics writ large.
Your Fight Oligarchy rallies with Sen. Sanders have drawn enormous crowds. What are you tapping into that other politicians haven't been able to access?We are willing to name the problem in a way that has been challenging for [others] in the Democratic Party to confront. There's been this debate about 'Do Americans understand oligarchy or not?' And I think that's a farce. I think that's a cover for the fact that a lot of Democrats don't want to talk about oligarchy. There's a lot of Democrats that are uncomfortable with the fact that Americans feel this way, that Americans see the extreme concen­tration of wealth, they recognize viscerally that it is untenable and, frankly, un-American. I think a lot of folks are uncomfortable squaring that with the fact that they're having dinner parties with the very people that are — and trying to court and curry favor with — the very individuals who hold power in a way that is unsustainable in this country. And so I think it's less about the fact that Americans don't understand oligarchy, and I think it's more about the fact that people in power are uncomfortable with the degree that Americans do actually see it.
Some people online joked that the Fight Oligarchy name was the FO in 'fuck around and find out.' Was that intentional?[Laughs.] I can't say that it was intentional, but I do think that hindsight is twenty-twenty. We should — I will unofficially adopt it as a part of the slogan, because we are in the 'find out' part now for sure.
What does being on this tour with Sen. Sanders mean to you?It means a lot to me, personally, and also in this moment. I would not be in Congress were it not for Sen. Sanders, in a very literal way and in a figurative way. I never, ever, ever thought that someone like me could be in politics, and it wasn't until Sen. Sanders ran [for president] in 2016 and showed that grassroots, small-dollar fundraising can actually help working people and unlikely candidates run for office. Even just from his literal example and how he structured his campaign; if it weren't for that, I wouldn't have ever even considered running for office. But then, of course, in a deeper and more meaningful way, his commitment, his values, that someone who shares my beliefs can make it in American politics, can even exist in American politics is — he is a huge inspiration for why I ran in the first place. He has continued to be a friend and provided a lot of guidance and counsel on my loneliest days here, and so to be able to do this with him is something I will cherish forever.
'We need Democrats that are willing to stand up and brawl.'
And also zooming out for the country, I think it's been tremendously important, too. It's not only that I'm doing this with Bernie, but that I'm doing this with every American who shows up. I had this moment on the rope line in Denver — when I first got elected, the crush of media and attention was very, very overwhelming. It was genuinely overnight. It's kind of funny, sometimes I talk to my colleagues, or sometimes I'll talk to other members, and they'll be like, 'Yeah, like the waitressing thing that's just a story, right? Like you waitressed once, right? But what were you really doing?' But it's real.
I was literally bartending while I was running for office. And so it was an overnight, light-switch kind of situation. I wasn't steadily building a career or anything like that. And so overnight, I win this primary, and because of the nature of that victory, it was just this massive crush of media and attention. Of course, a lot of hate, but also a lot of support. But all of it was very overwhelming. I don't think I was able to really allow it to sink in, and, on a personal level, I wasn't really able to feel it all, because it was so overwhelming.
What happened at the rally in Denver?On this tour and especially after all of these years, duking it out here in Congress, and being subject to a lot of … whatever, even within my own party — this tour has been very healing for me, personally. It is tens of thousands of people who, despite everything falling apart around us, still want to work for something. On a personal level, I'm more of a low-key person, and so sometimes [with] all the people, it can feel like a lot. But I was on this rope line in Denver, it really started to feel like — I am feeling trans­formed by this, and I feel like people are feeling transformed by this. It is a collective experience. And so to me, it's just to be able to do this, to do it with Bernie, to do it with people, it has been so powerful, and it has been the privilege of my life.
Switching to immigration, I've been reporting on U.S.-citizen children who are being , one of whom was a four-year-old boy in active treatment for metastatic cancer. He's the second U.S.-citizen child with cancer that President Trump has deported. How do you think the public should be responding to this?Listen, I come from a background of organizing. If this president is breaking the Constitution and if he's starting to deport and force out U.S. citizens from this country, that, to me, is shut-it-down territory. We've seen collective action happen before, and mass civil resistance is one of the critical pieces that we have, and it requires both, right? We need Democrats that are willing to stand up and brawl and not be afraid to fight on these issues, and we need mass collectives of people organizing in the streets. I believe that it's always been that combination that is able to stop the encroachment of authoritarianism and fascism.
President Trump recently implied he's not sure he has to uphold the Constitution, and many of the actions of his administration involve denying people due process. Beyond kids, we've also seen this in the cases of people deported to El Salvador, including Bronx resident Merwil Gutiérrez, who you've spoken about. What do we risk when we don't have proper due process for everyone in the country, U.S. citizens or not?The Constitution is the only thing that really defines us as Americans. Despite the right wing's attempts, we are not a country that is ethnically defined. We are not a country that is defined by any one person, ideology, etc., except for the Constitution. What makes America America is enshrined in that document, our freedoms. People need to understand that when the president attacks the Constitution, he is attacking our country. We all swear an oath to the Constitution. As federally elected officials, we swear an oath to uphold, to defend, to protect the Constitution of the United States. First and foremost, if the president is in any way confused about his responsibility, he should resign. Any president should resign if they don't understand that, at the core, that's what his job is. Trump knows exactly what he's doing. He wants to transform the definition of what it means to be an American — from upholding the Constitution and our freedoms — to a pledge of loyalty to him. That is what a cult of personality and authoritarian regimes are all about.
While on the subject of deportations, I want to talk about the and being detained in detention centers because they've been outspoken on Palestine. What does this mean for free speech in America?
This has been our concern even before this moment. I have a history and a record of opposing a lot of the slush-fund dollars that Congress was approving into ICE [Immi­gration and Customs Enforcement] and CBP [Customs and Border Protection], because I felt like we could see the risk of this moment happening. When you funnel tons of money and no strings and exert little to no oversight or authority into ICE and CBP, you can set up the breaking of the Constitution, using ICE and CBP as the mechanism for violating our civil and constitutional rights. And it's the same thing when it comes to Palestine.
In the United States, everyone can talk about free speech as much as they want. The right wing can, as they have been, play this victim card around free speech all they want. And it's not just Republicans. In both parties, everyone was talking about cancel-culture fears. Social repercussions for saying hurtful things [were] treated as though [they were] a constitutional crisis. When the fact of the matter is the most heavily policed speech in America, no matter who is in charge, has always been the advocacy and the recognition of the humanity of Palestinians.
'When the president attacks the Constitution, he is attacking our country.'
For a very long time, this groundwork has been laid and enforced. This idea conflating that recognizing the human rights of Palestinians is somehow equal to antisemitism, those bricks and those dangerous foundations have been laid for a very long time, especially since Oct. 7, 2023. It should not come as a surprise when we also see organizations like AIPAC [pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee] and the crypto lobby going after and attacking human rights advocates and trying to unseat those in Congress, conflating antisemitism with people who just want to see Palestinian kids have their human rights protected. It all lays groundwork for this moment, because this administration has seized on that predicate. They have seized on all of those pretenses that have been laid before and say, 'OK, well, if you believe that recognizing the plight of Palestinians is antisemitic, then it shouldn't be that much more of a step further to revoke people's green cards, accuse them of terrorism, accuse them of working with Hamas,' because that is some of the discourse that has been allowed in the Democratic Party as well.
You can take on that mantle, you can pretend that it's bipartisan, and what's important for people to understand is that that then becomes the predicate for attacking our Constitution. An authoritarian regime, or the Trump administration, is never going to use politically popular or overwhelmingly sympathetic targets to dismantle the Constitution. They are always going to use the people most maligned and most marginalized in order to attack and erode the rights of every American, precisely because they know that not everyone will come to their defense.
After the election, you reached out to people in your district who voted for you and also voted for Trump. What did you learn about these voters?I know it's a hard pill for some people to swallow. But at the end of the day, if you are interested in the psychology of people who overlap between throwing a vote to Trump and throwing a vote to me on the same ballot, no matter what you think about it, those people believe he and I to be honest, to be direct. Honest about what we think, right? I say what I believe. They don't think I'm bullshitting them. They know that I'm fighting for them. And it's true, in terms of my relationship to these folks: You send me to Congress, and I'm going to fight for you, and I'm going to put your interests first. It's strength, too.
It's also [about] where people get their information. I tend to be in the places where sometimes Trump is in terms of where they get their news.
In national conversations, people see one thing, but at home, what people experience is my presence. I'm very present in New York. It's not unusual for me to be walking down the street in Jackson Heights or in the South Bronx or in Astoria, and people see me and they have eyes on me. Trump did that, too, in this last election — he had [hundreds of] rallies in the last cycle. It's something that I think sometimes gets overlooked.
Polling indicates that while President Trump's approval rating has fallen substantially, Democrats aren't necessarily gaining. What should the party's leaders be doing differently? And what can voters do to influence how Democratic leaders handle Trump? It's sometimes less about party leadership and more about the party, because this is a party that selects its leaders. The Democratic Party selects its leaders, and its leaders act at the behest of the party members in the caucus. In a moment where we see Trump losing but you don't see Democrats gaining in that loss, first and foremost, it cuts directly against a lot of assumptions here about politics being zero-sum. Politics are not zero-sum.
And I think one of the things that people can see, if they want to see it, in November, is that this isn't just this binary spectrum where one person's gain is another person's loss and vice versa, and also moving to the quote-unquote right, or picking up moderates, doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to keep your base. We run real risks in collapsed turnout, and the trick is not necessarily always in choosing one or the other, but we actually need all of it in order to win. One of the struggles that the party has is in deciding what the party itself stands for and who it wants to be. In fact, one of the most uniting principles, which is economic populism and genuinely fighting the oligarchy in this country, is also a political third rail inside the beltway of Washington, D.C.
What do you mean by political third rail? It's something that is tremendously popular with people, but a lot of our electoral system is based on appealing to the one percent.
So it's a political movement that's being missed because of how the electoral system works?Right. If you depend on big money to win, it's hard to get in front of a crowd and talk about the problems with big money.
Trump says he's using tariffs to try and bring manufacturing back for the American worker. Is there any part of this idea that you support?The way that they've gone about this tariff business is insane. The Biden administration used targeted tariffs. The existence and presence of tariffs, in and of itself, is not this explosive Chicken Little the-sky-is-falling kind of thing. Sometimes people have this blanket reaction, and it's like they have amnesia over the fact that President Biden did institute 100 percent tariffs on certain Chinese energy exports. So you can't look the other way when Biden does it and then act like every single tariff is bad when Trump does it. However, what Trump is doing is blowing a hole in not just the U.S. economy. The blanket nature of this — as though we're somehow going to start manufacturing mangoes in the United States of America — I mean, give me a fucking break.
'I say what I believe. [Voters] don't think I'm bullshitting.'
You have been fighting against Republican cuts to Medicaid. Can you talk about how these cuts will affect people?Medicaid is one of the largest insurers in the United States of America. One in five people get their insurance in whole or part or in part from Medicaid, and that's before we even talk about Medicare.
If you buy your insurance off of a health exchange, even if you're buying a private health insurance plan off of an Obamacare or state exchange, you will be affected, because Medicaid expansion affects ACA coverage.
Medicaid expansion affects people with disabilities, people who are looking for work, whose job doesn't cover health insurance, whose job doesn't pay enough for them to have health insurance. Out of every 10 babies born today, four of [those births] will be covered by Medicaid.
We are talking about a massive devastation of our social safety net. And for all of this conversation that Republicans talk about with [Medicaid work requirements for] quote-unquote, able-bodied men — they are very literal in that —people with mental health issues, I think they would consider them able-bodied. We are talking about one of the biggest revocations of health insurance and health care in the United States of America. It is tremendously dangerous.
Why do you think Republicans are pushing for this? Who benefits from it? The whole reason we're here is [because] they're talking about waste, fraud, and abuse. I've been sitting through a lot of these debates. The only time the Republicans brought up a number of alleged waste, fraud, and abuse is $50 billion. Even if you believe them, then why did they put $850 billion as the number for their cuts? Where's that other $800 billion coming from if you said the waste-fraud-abuse number was $50 billion? And the reason for that is because this is not a health-care-cut bill. This is a bill where they have an assignment — they are trying to give trillions of dollars in collective tax cuts to billionaires, and they have to pay for it. And so the thing that they have identified to pay for it is one of the largest areas of expenditures in the United States, which is health care.
Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency has made significant, broad sweeping cuts to federal agencies, and the destruction of the social safety net has been a long-term goal of Republicans. How can Democrats rebuild it after this assault has caused so much harm, and are you scared of what you're seeing happen to democracy?When it comes to social safety net, I am very concerned, because one thing we see in terms of patterns is that Republicans will gut something, and then when Democrats are in the majority, we're not able to get the votes to bring it back at one hundred percent. For the last 30 years, we've experienced death by a thousand cuts — the slow erosion of our everyday quality of life.
I genuinely do believe that an important response to all of this stuff getting decimated is rethinking our social safety net entirely. Making it more inclusive, making the middle class not feel cut out from these kinds of supports, saying, instead of how do we just try to climb our way back to what was, what if we just expand Medicare? What if we either lower the age of Medicare to include everybody, let everyone buy into it, or if the party is not there yet, what if we lower the age of qualifying for Medicare to 50, or even lower? So that people can understand that we're not just constantly trying to stop bleeding, but that we actually have an ambitious vision for this country.
That kind of offense is the only thing that's going to get us back to the place that we need to be.
Do you listen to music or watch any TV shows to wind down?I have had the Bad Bunny album on repeat. I love that he's bringing salsa back. Rauw Alejandro is doing that, too. I'm a big salsa person. It's such a nice outlet. I like it because the lyricism is so dramatic. Everyone's breaking up, everyone's got the love of their life. It's so funny.
As a Puerto Rican, the album is very cathartic, and it's very political. It speaks to a lot of what's happening to us and our people right now.
Did you see that this morning Bad Bunny announced that he's going on a world tour and he's not going anywhere in the United States, other than his residency in Puerto Rico?We just don't have figures like that anymore. I think about the Civil Rights Movement, and I think about people like Harry Belafonte and all of these artists who really did risk everything, risk their careers and their popularity in order to support and take part in people's movements, and to use their art, a whole album about that. It's more rare now, or at least it feels that way; I wasn't around then. The pressures of the industry are to be as broad as possible. When you have someone who does something gutsy like that, first of all, people come through for it, and it's super compelling.
Speaking of tours, do you know what you want to do with the momentum from your Fight Oligarchy rallies? I think there are different ways of looking at politics. Some politicians look at voters and electorates and try to make predictions. I really do believe, even despite all of this, I really do believe in people. I believe in our collective conscience. So, I don't have any master plan, but I believe that the people will show me the way.
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