Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New Yorker
On Crime:
Lower crime with violence-interruption programs, summer jobs
One of the ways that we engage is by backing some of the only policies that are actually supported by evidence to reduce incidents of violent crime: violence-interruption programs, summer youth employment. When we talk about the surge of violence
happening right now, when I engage with our hospitals, doctors, social workers, everyone's telling me that there's so many things we're not discussing. The surge in violence is being driven by young people, particularly young men.
Source: New Yorker on NY-14 2021 House incumbent, "An Insider?"
Feb 14, 2022
On Education:
Biden should pursue student-loan cancellation
One of the single most impactful things President Biden can do is pursue student-loan cancellation. It's entirely within his power. This really isn't a conversation about providing relief to a small, niche group of people. It's very much a keystone
action politically. I think it's a keystone action economically as well. And I can't underscore how much the hesitancy of the Biden Administration to pursue student-loan cancellation has demoralized a very critical voting block.
Source: New Yorker on NY-14 2021 House incumbent, "An Insider?"
Feb 14, 2022
On Education:
They're replacing history with white-nationalist propaganda
You have the complete erasure and attack on our own understanding of history, to replace teaching history with institutionalized propaganda from white-nationalist perspectives in our schools. This is what the scaffolding of Jim Crow was.
The question that we're really facing is: Was the last fifty to sixty years after the Civil Rights Act just a mere flirtation that the United States had with a multiracial democracy that we will then decide was inconvenient for those in power?
Source: New Yorker on NY-14 2021 House incumbent, "An Insider?"
Feb 14, 2022
On Government Reform:
Attacks on right to vote puts our democracy at risk
Q: You've used a phrase "if we have a democracy ten years from now." Do you think we won't?AOC: I think there's a very real risk that we will not. What we risk is having a government that perhaps postures as a democracy, and may try to pretend
that it is, but isn't. We've already seen the opening salvos of this, where you have a very targeted, specific attack on the right to vote, particularly in areas where Republican power is threatened by changing electorates and demographics.
Source: New Yorker on NY-14 2021 House incumbent, "An Insider?"
Feb 14, 2022
On Principles & Values:
Congress is a shit show, scandalizing every single day
Q: What is it like being a member of this institution, which from outside, looks like a shit show?AOC: Honestly, it is a shit show. It's scandalizing, every single day. What is surprising to me is how it never stops being scandalizing.
Some folks perhaps get used to it or desensitized to the things that may be broken, but there is so much reliance on this idea that there are adults in the room, and, in some respect, there are. But sometimes they're just susceptible to groupthink.
Source: New Yorker on NY-14 2021 House incumbent, "An Insider?"
Feb 14, 2022
Page last updated: Oct 14, 2023