Let AOC Be AOC

The Hamburgler charges that AOC is coming for your cheeseburger or that AOC’s green dream will end up causing starvation induced cannibalism creates ridicule rich targets, as they should.

AOC is a strong, powerful woman.

AOC is disrupting the status quo.

And AOC is threatening the viability of the current Politburo-aged House leadership.

AOC will outlast them and will take the reins of official leadership, if she wants them, as opposed to the unofficial leadership she has now.

Politically, AOC has painted Speaker Pelosi into a corner. What is so interesting is it appears that AOC has done so unconsciously. Her strategy is the political equivalent of rope-a-dope. AOC has not responded to Pelosi’s attacks on Medicare for All and the New Green Deal (the “Green Dream,” according to Pelosi) but she has let Pelosi get over-extended politically inside her caucus.

And at some point, the progressives will strike back against the lock-down of their key parts of their agenda. It does not help Speaker Pelosi that the Dem Presidential candidates are virtually all backing these policies.

But it is the AOC powered publicity and support for the Green New Deal and Medicare for All that forced the Speaker to publicly and privately lock-down any chances that Medicare for All or the New Green Deal would be considered or even get hearings. Speaker Pelosi feared the political backlash from giving these proposals any more oxygen than the high wind-fueled fire of support from the strong warm breeze known as AOC.

And, Speaker Pelosi is against impeachment.

So that is the third big variance to the AOC/leading Presidential candidate wing of the Dem party.

Speaker Pelosi’s attempt to rebuke Rep. Omar over her remarks about Israel were going swimmingly until AOC (more or less) took the pen and started re-writing the resolution, which resulted in the House floor vote being postponed. It is yet another example of the reach of AOC.

AOC gave the older generation a tutorial on the difference between ‘calling out’ which should be done at the last resort, once ‘calling in,’ failed. The message was, aside from a total rewrite of the resolution, there should not be any resolution, since it is ‘calling out.’

And the fact that one of Politico’s stories about the angst and disruption in the House caucus meeting about the resolution inspired by Rep. Omar’s remarks did not mention AOC except to quote another Dem Rep. calling out those who are legislating by tweet, is yet another signal of the rising fear of AOC in the halls of Dem insider power.

Ultimately, one set of ideas and supporters will win.

Speaker Pelosi who is 78, or AOC, who is 29.

This is not going to be a fair fight.

Eventually power tells the truth.

And the truth is that the old guard’s days in House leadership are numbered, and a younger, Medicare for All, New Green Deal, pro-impeachment vanguard of progressives will take leadership spots, sooner or later.

The AOC rewrite of the Omar resolution is an object lesson of AOC’s power and her quick learning of the rules and how things work. The passions the Omar resolution unleashed in the House Caucus are also instructive of the distribution of power in the Dem House Caucus.

Let AOC be AOC. (She will anyway, regardless of any attempts to attack or discredit her.)

My sense is there is no stopping her march to strategically, on a wholesale level, change the Dem party and their legislative agenda.

Speaker Pelosi’s early wins to contain AOC will erode over time.

I’ve said it before, there is no denying it, the force is strong with AOC.

It is clear she is a natural genius at politics and media.

And that she has filled a huge political gap and is aggregating her power and support.

Her clear willingness and natural ability to exercise that power has earned her even more support and creates a virtuous, self-reinforcing circle of exercising and aggregating power.

Make no mistake.

AOC is no flash in the pan.

The old guard Dem leadership inside the Beltway, when I mention AOC to them, universally have flashes of alarm and fear pass instantly across their faces and in their eyes.

They know AOC is coming.

And she won’t be stopped.