to answer the thread title: yeah kinda probably

Power at the national level needs replacements occasionally, but there's strong evidence AOC was always astroturfed and was always positioned as a sheepdog - it sucks but it's probably time to revise your understanding of her career to include a removal of any sincerity in her image at any point. It was always a work.

But sometimes one or two oddballs actually end up there, but I really think in general, these folks get bent over and read in like every state asset does. Bill Hicks had a joke that the CIA shows you a different angle of the kennedy assassination - I think it more likely the second you fuck up you are put in a position to be blackmailed - that Diddy/Epstein pedo shit surely goes deeper than a couple of pimps getting one over on some pop culture celebrities - we know better than that - and while I'm not saying everyone in congress is a nonce, i am saying they either did work that got them the nod to take the position from powerful people, or they have blackmail. I don't think you stay in the club otherwise.