(CNN) — At first glance, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has zero in common with President Donald Trump.
She’s a 29-year-old, Latina, liberal member of Congress from New York City who proudly touts her “intersectionality.” Trump is a 72-year-old white male who ran on a conservative platform aimed at “Making America Great Again.”
Yes, they are very, very different from a background, ethnicity and political ideology perspective. But in the way they conceive of politics — and the way they practice it — there are lots more similarities than either one would likely admit.
He made an unlikely ascent to the highest office in the country. She flew onto the scene in 2018 as a rising star in the Democratic Party and has even been tapped to train House Democrats, many of whom are decades her senior, on how to use Twitter more effectively.
This quote from Ocasio-Cortez, part of an interview she gave to The Washington Post, got me thinking about how they are alike:
“I fight back. I don’t know what they say, but I think [Republicans] are attracted to conflict. They need a foil. I don’t think they see that they’re losing the war. They’re making all these battles, but they’re losing the war.”
That sounds a lot like Trump’s famous/infamous pledge that he is a political counter-puncher. “People have to be careful because at some point I fight back,” Trump said in October 2017. “I’m being very nice. I’m being very, very nice. But at some point I fight back, and it won’t be pretty.”
It’s not just that both Ocasio-Cortez and Trump imagine themselves to be fighters in the political arena, but the way that they fight — and where — that is similar.
Trump made a campaign in 2016 out of his willingness to fight on all fronts at all times. He would fight with anyone — even the most sacred cows in politics. When Trump said of the late Sen. John McCain, “he’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured,” the expectation was that the comment would end his candidacy before it really even got started. It didn’t. When he attacked a Gold Star family for speaking at the Democratic National Convention, he didn’t suffer for it. He went after the Pope! And on and on.
Now, to be clear, Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t done the amount of fight-picking with seemingly un-attackable sources as Trump. But she also hasn’t been around politics as long. And in a protracted Twitter scrap with journalists, she raised questions about how fact checkers for news organizations go about their jobs — and questioned whether their methodology was right. And then there was the time, on her first day in Washington last November, when Ocasio-Cortez participated in a protest at now-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office designed to draw attention to the issue of climate change.
While neither of those moments are on the same level as Trump’s attacks, it speaks to a willingness to take on long-established institutions and ideas that have governed politics and official Washington — and to do so without any real concern for the impacts on either yourself or the institutions.
And then there is the fact that the preferred weapon of political combat for both Ocasio-Cortez and Trump is Twitter.
Trump’s use of the social media site is now legendary — as he often dashes off double-digit tweets in a single day, most of them focused on attacking those who disagree with him. Ocasio-Cortez takes a similar approach to those with whom she disagrees. Using her large following — 2.4 million followers and counting — Ocasio-Cortez regularly seeks to use the site to dunk on her critics or perceived critics. (Nota bene: I have been on the receiving end of one of these dunk attempts.)
Like Trump, Ocasio-Cortez benefits from an “amen” chorus on Twitter. Whatever she tweets, whoever she hits, is cheered by her followers. Ditto Trump, whose legion of online followers often don’t even make an attempt to ascertain what the actual facts of any situation he engages in actually are. They just take his word for it.
Obviously there is huge political power — online and off — in that sort of loyal following. It allows both Trump and Ocasio-Cortez to end-run the so-called “media filter” and deliver their preferred message or fact check or whatever directly to supporters. Few politicians — even at the national level — enjoy that level of freedom and power.
(Sidebar: Another commonality between Trump and Ocasio-Cortez is that the size of their Twitter following coupled with their willingness to go after people via the social media site has created a healthy fear of both of them in the political world.)
What Trump and Ocasio-Cortez ultimately have in common is that they are products of a new age in politics in which charging at establishment windmills is glorified rather than castigated.
And one in which the massive reach of social media allows a single politician to have as much — or even more — influence and power than a massive media organization. They are, without question, the two brightest stars of this new world. Even if they choose to shine in VERY different ways.
The-CNN-Wire
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