I agree and this is not what I’m trying to say. I’m also not saying AOC is the best possible elected official participating in our political system.

What I am saying is that material conditions have improved locally to the point that we are organically growing our power base and as an ML it pains me to say that a non-insignificant amount has come from AOC attaching her name to things like our food drives and labor organization, then at the events and over time the actual leftists who participate in them like myself have recruited people and those people have recruited people to the point that in the last ten years before AOC we had a few dozen people at the most to hundreds of people after we had a well known political figure attach their name to us.

Don’t get me wrong, AOC is NOT radicalizing people, but the pipeline is real and working in ways I never thought possible with such efficiency. Our groups have grown exponentially and now are growing organically. The aid we’ve set up to help people has recruited those people into our movement. Our ideology, because of praxis possible due to AOC’s willingness not to persecute the left and instead nominally attach herself to it, are winning the hearts and minds of people. They see US as the champions of these issues in our community, NOT AOC, and that’s the critical difference and tipping point. They may not see the system as incapable of meaningful reform yet, but they do see direct action as MORE capable of reform.

I hope this clears up what my intention was in writing this