AOC’s Old-Fashioned Machine Politics
Democrats could learn not only from her social-media skills but also from her constituent services.
Delivering for her constituents.
Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North AmericaSome constituents of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually got something out of politics this year beside a barrage of campaign advertisements: With a sliver of the almost $19 million that she raised on her glide to re-election, AOC bought and gave away 200 Thanksgiving turkeys.
Turkeys are reminiscent of New York’s Tammany Hall, which used to deliver birds, along with coal and other useful things, to Democratic constituents. Much of AOC’s New York City district is poor. If government is hobbled, and mediating institutions like political parties and unions (another traditional source of holiday turkeys) are diminished, constituent needs go unmet. That’s both challenge and opportunity.