Her background
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born into a Catholic family in the Bronx area of New York City on October 13, 1989, the daughter of Blanca Ocasio-Cortez and Sergio Ocasio. She has described her Puerto Rican community by stating that "We are black; we are indigenous; we are Spanish; we are European.” This means her background therefore enables voters to be able to connect with someone who has had the same experience growing up in a poor working-class neighbourhood.
Her experience
She also has a huge amount of experience, because in 2018 she was elected to the House of Representatives in the 14th district of New York. After what was very much a grass-roots campaign in which she operated out of a paper grocery bag as she had very little money at the time. She also was the first person since 2004 to challenge the seat, which means to me, she is prepared to take on big challenges and defeat the establishment when she needs to. During her campaign she was endorsed by many civil rights groups such as Black Lives Matter. However, she was ignored by many of New York's big democrats, such as mayor Bill de Blasio and State senator Andrew Cuomo. This again indicates to the people of America that you don’t need to show that the establishment supports you in order to create change.
She is also famous for submitting the green new deal to the Senate in which she set out the goal of a net-zero carbon USA in 10 years. This gained support from the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and many progressive Democrats, but was unfortunately dismissed by the established Democrats, such as the leader of the house of representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
Why I think she should run for the white house
In my opinion AOC should run for the white house, because the American political landscape is ready for a socialist, progressive and a female president. I believe she can level up American society. Her polices include Medicare for all, cancellation of student debt, free tuition and federal job guarantee. These polices mean Americans will not have to choose between a heart operation and feeding the family for example, as well as not having to pay up to $30,000 in student debt. They will also be given a job that pays at least $15 an hour and comes with benefits such as health care, family leave policies and childcare. This will also allow America to get rid of involuntary unemployment. I believe she can win the nomination, because she can bring in mass support from the Hispanic and working-class voting community. She can energise a community of youth voters that often feel disconnected from the established Democrats that tend to run on non-developing moderate polices such as Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. However, I believe it will be tough for her as she probably won’t get the support from the big names in the democratic party, such as
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, as they have a track record of supporting candidates that (as Michael Moore said in Fahrenheit 11/9) “just keep America ticking along not fixing its problems” In addition, if she was to win the presidency, she would now have overcome the American fear of socialism and persuade swing voters that she is the right candidate and not to vote for the GOP (republican) candidate that would run against her. In my opinion she can overcome all these problems, because she is very much liked by the left wing and centralist media such as CNN. She can also rely on her huge social media offering that results in millions of followers. If she puts Bernie Sanders as a VP on her ticket, she will win the presidency as this could even bring in a whole state worth of democratic voters. Even though Hillary Clinton won the nomination at the DNC in 2016, Bernie Sanders won the West Virginial nomination. This block of voters could get her well over the line in my opinion, she won’t win the Electoral College, which tends to always be moderate and often republican, because in the majority it is voted by big energy and big pharmaceutical company backed politicians.
Written by Lewis Bassindale
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