- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she "ate shit" as a bartender and in Congress.
- "The day-to-day of my day job is frustrating. So is everyone else's," Ocasio-Cortez said.
- Ocasio-Cortez said members of Congress are "just susceptible to groupthink" and "delusion."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she "ate shit" both as a bartender and in her job in Congress in a new interview with the New Yorker.
Ocasio-Cortez went from a bartender and waitress in New York City to a member of Congress virtually overnight in 2018, when she knocked out powerful, long-serving Democratic congressman Joe Crowley in a major upset victory.
The New York Democrat is now in her second term in Congress and has become one of the most influential figures in the Democratic Party — but she says she still runs up against roadblocks and frustrations.
"And so the day-to-day of my day job is frustrating. So is everyone else's," Ocasio-Cortez told the New Yorker's David Remnick. "I ate shit when I was a waitress and a bartender, and I eat shit as a member of Congress. It's called a job, you know?
Ocasio-Cortez described Congress as a "shit show" and "scandalizing, every single day, saying that "the most powerful people" are "just susceptible to groupthink, susceptible to self-delusion."
"I deal with the wheeling and dealing and whatever it is, that insider stuff, and I advance amendments that some people would criticize as too little, etc," she said. "I also advance big things that people say are unrealistic and naïve. Work is like that."
The New York Democrat expressed frustration not just with the "groupthink" in Congress and with President Joe Biden's economic agenda remaining stalled, but also with Biden not using the full extent of executive authority to advance Democratic priorities like student debt cancellation.
Congress, she said, "is designed to revolve around a very narrow band of people who are, over all, materially O.K." and results in people like her constituents being taken for granted because they're perceived as "reliable Democrats."
When asked about her potential aspirations for higher office, Ocasio-Cortez said her vision for her future is more "decentralized" and focused on mass organizing movements, like the ongoing Starbucks unionization effort.
Ocasio-Cortez also added that she thinks "all the time" about leaving elected office altogether.
"When I entertain possibilities for my future, it's like anybody else. I could be doing what I'm doing in a little bit of a different form, but I could also not be in elected office as well. It could come in so many different forms," she said.