Yesterday, I wrote about how Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman will be the first sitting Democrat in the United States Senate to receive an invitation to Donald Trump's Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. While many Democrats are still falling all over themselves to bash Trump at every turn, Fetterman is actually acting reasonably, conceding that Trump is president and they must work together, and finding issues of common interest on which they can make progress. It's earned him a ton of respect, and quite frankly, it's refreshing.
Now, I can't help but wonder if New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is vying for an invitation herself. While speaking to Punchbowl News earlier this week, AOC pointed out why she thinks Democrats "occasionally" lose elections: "The reason why I think oftentimes Democrats occasionally lose elections is because we’re too reflexively anti-Republican, and that we don’t lean into an ambitious vision for working-class Americans strongly enough." She also told the outlet that she's willing to work with Trump and support his policies that align with her own beliefs.
Those are pretty big statements from a woman who just a few months ago compared Trump's vision for the country to Putin's Russia. But hey, we all say crazy things that we don't necessarily mean during election season, right? Even former presidents, I presume. I mean, did you see President Obama yucking it up with Trump at Jimmy Carter's funeral yesterday? Pretty crazy for a guy who calls him a threat to democracy whenever an election season rolls around.
While the fact that she voted "no" on the Laken Riley Act this week doesn't give me too much hope just yet, I'm still on the fence about whether or not I trust this newfound desire for bipartisanism from ultra-progressive AOC. However, I think following through on what she says would be beneficial to her. Back in November, we learned that her district shifted several percentage points towards Trump compared to how it voted in 2020, even though the congresswoman won her own re-election bid without question.
After the election, AOC took to Instagram to ask her voters why and shared some of their responses with her followers. One response seemed to sum up the general consensus: "I feel that you both are outsiders compared to the rest of DC, and less establishment."
But is she still an outsider? A recent article in the Guardian claims, "The representative has changed remarkably during her time in power. She started in office in 2019 as a progressive firebrand but drifted increasingly to the center in a seeming attempt to appease the party leaders and advance her career. 'AOC Is Just a Regular Old Democrat Now,' New York Magazine proclaimed last year after she endorsed Joe Biden for a second term. Gradually, she seems to have abandoned everything she once stood for."
I may have missed the part where she "drifted to the center" myself, but AOC did challenge the Democrat leadership last month when she ran against Gerry Connolly to become the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, a position that would have given her a great deal of power and maybe appealed to Democrat voters who crave fresher young voices. However, she lost the position to Connolly — who is 74 and currently undergoing chemotherapy for cancer — in a 131-84 vote.
"For a while, it seemed like AOC had a real shot at winning, but then 84-year-old Nancy Pelosi, recovering in hospital from hip-replacement surgery, reportedly made a bunch of phone calls and urged people to back Connolly," the Guardian reports.
Related: Crossing Party Lines: Fetterman to Make Historic Trip to Mar-a-Lago
Another problem AOC faces is that at least one prominent Democrat in her district — who helped her get elected in the first place — feels that she's "betrayed" and abandoned her constituents. Fox News reported that "Some constituents have likened conditions along Roosevelt Avenue to those of a Third World country, while others say the migrant women soliciting sex in front of businesses remind them of a red-light district in Bangkok."
So, I couldn't care less about what goes on in the Democrat Party — they don't have a ton of leverage here at the moment (though I don't fully trust the Republicans in Congress not to screw that up, either). While a few of them, like Fetterman, have realized why they're losing elections, it doesn't seem like many others are on board, and I don't suspect they will be until Nancy Pelosi's walker is parked next to her own casket when it lies in state.
But for some reason — maybe because we're both women of the same generation and if history is going to repeat its term-limitless self, I'm potentially stuck covering her for the rest of my career — I am curious about where AOC goes next. Will she truly move to the center and become the Fetterman of the House? Will she actually land an invitation and go to Mar-a-Lago? Or will she continue pushing the scary far-left views of "The Squad," proving all this talk of bipartisanship was just a bunch of baloney to promote her own agenda and political ambitions?
Last month, one of my colleagues here at PJ Media and I were talking about people who we'd like to interview, and while there aren't a lot of Democrats who are high on my list, I'd truly love to talk to AOC and see if we can find some common ground. So, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, if by any chance you're out there reading this, let's make it happen. I bet we can find some issues on which we agree. It'll be a friendly interview, I promise.
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