Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the Democratic Party's new stars. But is her fame helping or hindering its chances at the next election? Photo / AP
She is young, bold and outspoken - and should be Donald Trump's worst nightmare. But this vocal critic is only helping the President.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a rising star in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party — bold, outspoken and hugely popular on social media.
But the millennial congresswoman is reportedly sparking concerns among some top Democrats, with fears her defining presence could lose the party crucial swinging voters at the 2020 election.
The issue has come to a head this week, with Ms Ocasio-Cortez at the centre of a Twitter spat with US President Donald Trump.
And while his comments were officially condemned as racist by the House of Representatives, the latest spat could be actually helping Mr Trump win the 2020 election.
It started when in a series of tweets, the US President suggested the new generation of Democrats who have been feuding with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should "go back" to their countries to fix their governments, saying "you can't leave fast enough".
When his tweets were labelled racist, Mr Trump insisted on Tuesday that his tweets suggesting the four Democratic congresswomen of colour return to their countries "were NOT Racist," and he appealed to fellow Republicans to "not show weakness" and to resist a house resolution condemning his words.
"I don't have a Racist bone in my body!" Mr Trump exclaimed on Twitter, a day after declaring that "many people agree" with his assessment of the four freshman politicians.
"Those tweets were NOT Racist," Mr Trump wrote on Tuesday amid a continued backlash to his weekend tweets that progressive women "go back" to their "broken and crime-infested" countries.
The original tweets were aimed at Democrats Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. All are American citizens, and three of the four were born in the US.
You’re right, Mr. President - you don’t have a racist bone in your body.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 16, 2019
You have a racist mind in your head, and a racist heart in your chest.
That’s why you violate the rights of children and tell the Congresswoman who represents your home borough, to “go back to my country.” https://t.co/adlCUO7r0v
TRUMP'S OUTSPOKEN RIVAL
Since being elected, Ms Ocasio-Cortez has been an outspoken critic of Mr Trump.
But an anonymous Democratic group leaked an internal poll to Axios revealing swinging voters strongly dislike prominent progressive politicians, such as Ms Ocasio-Cortez.
According to the poll, Ms Ocasio-Cortez had a 22 per cent approval rating, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota had a 9 per cent approval rating among 1003 "likely general-election voters who are white and have two years or less of college education".
Seventy-four per cent of these voters had heard of Ms Ocasio-Cortez, while 53 per cent had heard of Ms Omar.
"If all voters hear about is AOC, it could put the (House) majority at risk," a Democrat involved in the 2020 congressional races said. "She's getting all the news and defining everyone else's races."
The same poll viewed the term "socialism" favourably by just 18 per cent of voters compared with 69 per cent who disliked it, while "capitalism" was viewed 56 per cent favourably and 32 per cent unfavourably.
Some progressives have dismissed the survey, saying it just marks the latest attack on the party's left wing.
Waleed Shahid, the communications director for Justice Democrats, described the polling as "infuriating" and "truly bizarre".
It’s infuriating and truly bizarre that Democratic leaders and consultants released anti-AOC and anti-Ilhan polls to the press **under the condition of anonymity** this morning. https://t.co/MVRnA7bNf2
— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) July 15, 2019
But the leak in itself adds to the widening rift in the Democratic Party, where disagreements between party leadership and progressive new politicians have dominated headlines recently.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Ms Omar and their fellow freshman congresswomen Ms Tlaib and Ms Pressley have repeatedly butted heads with Ms Pelosi this past week over impeachment, immigration and the consolidation of power in Congress.
Ms Pelosi sparked tensions after she appeared to dismiss the four women during an interview with The New York Times in which she said "they're four people, and that's how many votes they got".
In an interview with The Washington Post, Ms Ocasio-Cortez accused Ms Pelosi of "singling out" women of colour, which prompted criticism from longtime Democrats.
But could it really be enough to cost the Democrats the next election?
IS AOC'S 'SQUAD' HINDERING THE DEMOCRATS?
Ms Ocasio-Cortez clearly ruffles feathers among both Republicans and Democrats.
But whether she's actually setting back progress for a 2020 Democratic win is not as clear-cut as the new polling implies.
The debate over whether their politics are counter-productive didn't start with the recent feud with Ms Pelosi. It dates back to the midterm elections after which Ms Ocasio-Cortez was sworn into Congress.
Gorana Grgic, an expert at the United States Studies Centre, says on one hand, the popularity of the "squad" only goes so far.
"If you look at the districts that all four of these women are in, they're solidly blue," she told news.com.au. "AOC is maybe the only example of beating the old guard of the Democratic Party … but the other three obviously replaced representatives that were going into retirement.
"If you look at the 2018 results, where the election was mostly won by the Democrats was in the mid-west, where you had these Republicans that obviously couldn't get support given that they were associated with the Trump administration.
"Nancy Pelosi is aware of the fact that a lot of these moderates have carried the Democratic Party."
Dr Grgic also said the ongoing tensions between Ms Ocasio-Cortez and Ms Pelosi had done little to help the Democratic Party's image.
"When you're in opposition and part of the legislature and having a winning hand on the Supreme Court, it certainly doesn't help when you have disaccord in your own rows," she said.
But at the same time, Ms Ocasio-Cortez is doing her job — she's representing the concerns of her constituents.
"AOC is representing parts of New York that are very progressive and want her to keep fighting the good fight," Dr Grgic said.
"While it doesn't help for the broader perception of party unity, I don't think that will have too many detrimental consequences.
"They're holding Trump to account and really pointing out all the malpractices within the administration. But they're also setting the agenda on some of the most important public policy issues — everything from healthcare to immigration."
TRUMP'S CALCULATED MOVE
Mr Trump, who won the presidency in 2016 in part by energising disaffected voters with inflammatory racial rhetoric, made clear he has no intention of backing away from that strategy in 2020.
His words, which evoked the trope of telling black people to go back to Africa, may have been partly meant to widen the divides within the House Democratic caucus, which has been riven by internal debate over how best to oppose his policies.
And the President isn't backing down either.
"It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me," Mr Trump said on Monday at the White House.
"A lot of people love it, by the way."
And while Mr Trump's attacks this week brought Democrats together in defence of their colleagues, the gamble is also paying off.
His allies noted he was also having some success in making the progressive politicians the face of their party.
The Republican president questioned whether Democrats should "want to wrap" themselves around this group of four people as he recited a list of the quartet's most controversial statements.
"Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party," he wrote on Tuesday, adding: "See you in 2020!"
"The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four 'progressives,' but now they are forced to embrace them," he tweeted on Monday afternoon.
WHY CONSERVATIVES KEEP COMING FOR AOC
Conservative critics are clearly fascinated with Ms Ocasio-Cortez, having made her the subject of sustained attacks.
Some of the criticism has focused on her self-identifying as a "democratic socialist", and the viability of her signature proposals like the Green New Deal and abolishing the entire Homeland Security department.
Other attempts to smear her — like criticising her for working as a bartender, pointing out her high school nickname and posting an amateur music video she appeared in — have fallen flat, largely because she has spun them in her favour on social media.
But at the end of the day, at 29 years old, Ms Ocasio-Cortez is ineligible to run for President next year. Why the sustained effort to tear her down instead of focusing on high-profile candidates like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris?
The Atlantic's Adam Serwer suggested the New Yorker's ethnic background may explain why she's so threatening to many of her critics.
"In America, when people of colour succeed despite the limits placed on them and use their new-found status to indict the system for holding others back, they are held up as proof that the limits do not exist, they are denounced as ingrates, or they are pilloried as frauds incapable of the successes attributed to them," he wrote in January this year. "The exception is if they present their success as evidence that the structural barriers are not as great as they seem, and that in truth, the only thing that holds back marginalised communities is their own lack of ability or motivation.
"If they affirm the righteousness of the class and caste system that they defied to succeed, they are hailed as heroes by the same people who would otherwise have denounced them as frauds."
Dr Grgic suggested Mr Trump would be wary of any opponent with a similar skill set to him. And despite Ms Ocasio-Cortez and Mr Trump's polar opposite political oppositions, their methods of interacting with the media and the wider public are surprisingly similar.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez has used social media to her advantage, with Time magazine naming her one of the most influential people on the internet.
"Donald Trump is wary of anyone who is able to steal the limelight and command so much media attention," Dr Grgic said. "Her rise was a really unexpected story. Everything since then and the way she's been able to use social media and really garner a great followership is something Donald Trump has clearly been watching because he himself is very active on these channels."
Dr Grgic also said there may be a darker dimension at play, comparing the recent racial attacks on Ms Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow young congresswomen to the "birther" conspiracy theory he pushed against Barack Obama.
"In terms of the nativist white nationalist theme, it's the same sort of attacks. But I think she is someone who is very skilful at playing the media, and she knows she can set the agenda pretty easily given the followership she has," Dr Grgic said.
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