In all this, Ocasio-Cortez demonstrates campaign skills of a high order. She walks away with the movie, and not only because she’s the only winner. She’s quick on her feet, strategically alert, and absolutely sure of what she thinks, with an eye for her opponent’s jugular and a circulatory system that by all indications functions on pure ice water. A brief interlude in which she dissects one of Crowley’s multipage, full-color mailers—“this Victoria’s Secret catalog,” she calls it—is a master class in how incumbents like Crowley misread their own voters while still managing to make political consultants fabulously rich. Her use of social media shows perfect demographic pitch: agitprop, recipes, civics lessons, life affirmations like “You can grow through your imperfections,” jumbled together and running nonstop, make her Instagram and Twitter feeds endlessly informative and enjoyable. She’s Tony Robbins, Suze Orman, and Saul Alinsky, all in one.
.. There is much talk of diversity in Knock Down the House, and the candidates and activists are indeed diverse in the predictable ways: They run the gamut of body type, from endo- to ectomorph, of regional accent, of ethnicity, of class background. But when it comes to politics—Medicare for All or a universal job guarantee—they are ideologically uniform. You’ll find more diversity of views in the locker room of the Burning Tree Club than in a recruiting session for Justice Democrats.