On the 3rd January, 2019, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will become the youngest woman in history to serve in the United States Congress. At 29, Ocasio-Cortez has been passionately vocal about the issues that have affected her throughout her life, as a working-class millennial of Puerto-Rican descent. A self-described ‘democratic socialist’, Oscasio-Cortez achieved her victory against the Democratic incumbent, Joe Crawley during the nominations, and then Republican opposition Anthony Pappas as Congressperson for New York’s 14thCongressional district. She touts policies that include tuition-free universities and public school, a renewable electricity grid for New York by 2035, and a single-payer healthcare system. And her considerably more leftist policies don’t end there. Ocasio-Cortez has declared her support for criminal justice reform, electoral reform, the black lives matter and lgbt+ movements, and has even stated she would support the impeachment of Trump. These passionate arguments for basic human rights may seem more fitting to be heard from a student radical than a politician.
Yet as time passes, despite the increase of fiscally and socially conservative policies, Ocasio-Cortez’s election is a reminder that not only are all millennials of voting age, but they are now old enough to run for Government. And they’re doing it. Older white, straight, cis, male figures who speak for the left, Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, may have made a significant impact upon politics, but here we have a young woman who looks and speaks and lives like the people she is representing. I won’t be surprised if we hear much, much more about Oscasio-Cortez, and her exciting effect on US politics, following her swearing in.
