Not every freshman member of Congress lands a 60 Minutes interview in her first week on the job, so kudos to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for propelling herself onto the national scene with such gusto and willingly accepting the label of “radical” when thrust upon her.
That’s great fun for Democrats and especially millennials who love her spunk. But it’s also fodder for right-wing media and their efforts to paint the new Democratic majority as a bunch of tax-and-spend leftie wackos, which is not true.
Taken as a whole, the new freshman class of Democrats moves the caucus right, not left, though you’d never know it by the way the self-identified “Fabulous Four”—Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar—have dominated the news coverage. Their versatility (Omar is the first Somali American in Congress, Pressley the first black woman elected from Massachusetts), their colorful language (Tlaib laid claim to that) and their social media skills make them exceptional standouts.