“What we saw last night, and what we are seeing this moment is a real passing of the torch,” Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC as she’s known, said during a Dream.org event at the Union League Club of Chicago. “Not only with the tremendously selfless decision that Joe Biden made. Nancy Pelosi also gracefully handed the torch to Hakeem Jeffries in the House, also making history as the first Black speaker—I’ll claim it now, but we gotta get there in November.”
AOC’s comments at the convention in Chicago represent a thawing of relations between the two women, a frostiness that was defined as much by politics as by age.
Last year, the congresswoman was able to recast herself after the old guard that had controlled House Democratic leadership for decades stepped aside, saying her life “completely transformed” after the powerful 84-year-old California Democrat left leadership. These days, Ocasio-Cortez, 34, is trying to stick to her left-wing principles while partnering with centrists.
Her praise of the Democratic power broker reflected a commitment to bridging political divides within her party. AOC’s willingness to work with more moderate Democrats has disappointed some of her fans on the left, which she admitted on Tuesday can be gut-wrenching for her.
“It is sometimes the incoming from our friends that’s the most hurtful,” she said, “It is the most hurtful because these are the folks that you don’t want to disappoint the most.”
Speaking like someone who has grown and learned from the lessons of her elders, Ocasio-Cortez said she believes that “any winning political program requires a coalition. We cannot win just with our own camp.” Winning, she said, “actually requires tension. We have to hold that tent tight.”
Some of her critics, she suggested candidly, weren’t holding up their end of the deal.
“One thing that I’ve honestly felt, especially as a woman, especially as a person of color, is that sometimes there is a disposability culture where people say, ‘Oh, this person messed up at this one thing.’ Or ‘I really disagree with this person, they’re done to me now, and I’m going to go and look out for the next person or the next thing,’” she shared. “We need each other. And even if we disappoint each other, we need each other to be better.”
Asked how she dealt with all the incoming criticism from both sides of the aisle, Ocasio-Cortez answered with two words: “I pray.” As she did to prepare for her big speech Monday night.
“Yesterday morning, I was very nervous before going on to the convention,” Ocasio-Cortez said, leading one audience member to shout “congratulations” about how well she did. “I spent that morning talking with my friends who I’ve known since childhood, talking to my family, praying.”
Despite her focus on working with mainstreamers, the congresswoman displayed her Squad bonafides Tuesday morning. She hugged the first Gen Z member of Congress, Rep. Maxwell Frost, and peppered her remarks with criticisms of corporate greed, arguing that Democrats need to make class politics central to their message.
“There is no making nice with Wall Street and having a strong economic message and a strong economic plan,” she said.
That argument fits perfectly with another mission: slamming Trump.
“He is Wall Street, he is corruption, he is just like a rot from which so many people suffer,” Ocasio-Cortex said. “And we can just call it out.”
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