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In June of this year, a young woman named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress in the New York primary. Her primary win over Joseph Crowley sent shock waves through the Democratic caucus for many reasons – she’s a woman, she’s not yet 30 years old, she’s a liberal/progressive socialist, etc. On Election Day, she won the NY 14th congressional seat with approximately 78% of the vote. She will be one of a wave of new Democratic Party blood joining the House of Representatives in January. The problem? Representative-Elect Ocasio-Cortez is like a lot of Millennials – a bit cash-poor, with not a lot of savings.
After becoming the youngest woman ever elected to Congress on Tuesday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a very real concern: how she was going to pay rent in Washington, D.C. Before beginning her campaign as a democratic socialist running for the House of Representatives, the New York City native — who turned 29 last month — worked as a bartender at a taqueria in N.Y.C. She told the New York Times that while she saved money from that job and planned ahead with her partner, she was still admittedly concerned about finding housing, since during the transition, her salary won’t kick in for three months.
“I have three months without a salary before I’m a member of Congress,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “So, how do I get an apartment? Those little things are very real.”
“We’re kind of just dealing with the logistics of it day by day, but I’ve really been just kind of squirreling away and then hoping that gets me to January,” she added.
[From People]
When I read these quotes last week, I was charmed by Ocasio-Cortez because she sounded so REAL. Genuinely real, like a girl I would know, a college friend or someone I might know from the gym. She doesn’t have a trust fund, she doesn’t come from a wealthy family, and she doesn’t have a million lobbyist friends who are just dying to give her a discount on a luxury apartment. But other people started dunking on Ocasio-Cortez, because… she was honest about her money struggles.
Like many Millennials, Ocasio-Cortez is absolute FIRE on social media. When Fox News mocked her for, you know, being real about living paycheck to paycheck, she tweeted a lot of great stuff about how idiotic it is to make fun of the millions of Americans who don’t have savings, who live paycheck to paycheck, etc.
And one more example of how she keeps it real:
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