8 AOC News Stories that are neither Sweaters nor Checkmarks

8 seems to be the magic number this week on Twitter - 8, blue check marks, and fanboys rallying for the new troll king. Every content creator had a dig at the new CEO, but for followers of AOC, there were an unfortunate number of sweaters. So many goddamned sweaters.

Between the sweaters were arguments about sweaters. Which politician has the most expensive line of sweaters? Who has Union-made sweaters? Whose sweaters are made in the USA? And who had to force themselves to care about any of this because of a tired meme?

It was almost nice to see the usual boomer political memes that cycle endlessly on Facebook (“The puzzle said 2-4 years, but I did it in 3 weeks!”) if only to have a break from the sweaters.

There were, of course, the usual sexist trash tweets that follow any viral post by a woman on social media, replete with “What would you do for $8 ;)” and the usual “hot bartenders shouldn’t have opinions”

Anyway!

To steer the conversation away from the dumpster fire, I give you 8 things AOC has done recently that have nothing to do with sweaters or checkmarks. Feel free to explore any of the topics, form an original opinion, or just take a break from the AOC + $8 + Sweater algorithm.

1. AOC is campaigning on the Green New Deal and continues contextualizing it to her constituents’ needs. On Thursday, she was in the Bronx discussing creating sustainable new housing. She encouraged her constituents to keep dreaming and fighting for their voices to be heard.

2. She posted a cringy video on Instagram starring her dog, Deco, endorsing Governor Kathy Hochul for re-election. She got a lot of pictures of her constituents’ dogs in reply.

3. She came together with Righteous Eats to talk about some of the millions of stories of immigration and of the unique struggles of feeding people during the pandemic. She had some pretty good tamales and listened to constituent voices. (Interestingly enough, she had nothing to say about the pupusas on National Pupusa Day.)

4. AOC and her team have been spreading the word with her new constituents after New York finished it rapid, confusing redistricting. She has been visiting schools and organizations to answer questions while also distributing resources with her constituents to help them find their polling places. For some parts of New York, the primaries between established Democrats in newly formed districts were more intense than the elections taking place now, in November.

5. AOC has been hosting a whirlwind of town halls between events and appearances. A MAGA mob crashed one of the town halls and shouted bigoted slurs over and over. The rest of the audience seemed absolutely exhausted of yet another outburst from the group. AOC’s response was to dance the hate off. This infuriated many, many MAGA’s, but hopefully it inspired the poor teachers and admins subjected to these mobs during school board meetings.

6. She was on MSNBC News with Jamie Raskin (MD) to discuss the “environment of fascism in the United States of America” with Chris Hayes. The interview focused on voter suppression and intimidation at ballot boxes. Some states have removed ballot drop offs because of fear of violence. Meanwhile, MAGA Republicans have already shouted fraudulent elections before Election Day has even occurred.

7. AOC was on Pod Save America and discussed how the Democratic Party has let down the Latino community, including DREAMers and immigrants. She also brought up criticism from advocates and legal scholars regarding Biden’s presidential pardon of cannabis-related crimes that removed exactly zero people from jail. AOC was kinder than many scholars by suggesting the pardon was a step in the right direction, but that much more needed to be done.

8. Perhaps one of the loudest points she has been driving home is public safety. She was at Boston University last month taking on challenging questions from Dr. Ibram X Kendi about policing, violence, and justice. As a victim of intense violence in her civilian past and as a target during the Insurrection, AOC had tremendous perspective.

If you want to read about 8 major victories under AOC's belt last summer, you can check out this summary in which she describes 8 massive projects her office finished up.