My take is that everyone who is a part of the capitalist machine but who resists it will either get completely sidelined or somehow appropriated by it. In The Squad's case, they got appropriated, but not in the "selling out to corporate interests" way (though there has been a little bit of that, see Palestine-related votes), but in the "acceptable target" way. As long as the media machine hypes up the existence of The Squad, people will think they have more influence than they do, and you can constantly run pieces like this one blaming everything that goes wrong on the most left wing elements of your party.