Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez é uma insider agora?

Depois de três anos nos corredores do poder, ela viu o "show de merda" de perto - e não desistiu de sua visão de como mudá-lo.

David Remnick

The New Yorker

Ilustração de Lauren Tamaki

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, uma democrata que representa partes do Queens e do Bronx (incluindo Rikers Island), rapidamente se tornou a voz progressista mais proeminente na Câmara dos Deputados depois de derrotar um titular de vinte anos, Joe Crowley, e ir para o Capitólio em Janeiro de 2019. No Congresso, ela não está sozinha em sua defesa de questões que vão do Medicare for All ao Green New Deal; ela pertence à ala Bernie Sanders do Partido. Mas poucos na história da instituição se tornaram tão rapidamente foco de atenção, admiração e escárnio.

Eleita aos 29 anos, a mulher mais jovem a servir na Câmara, Ocasio-Cortez provou ser uma examinadora eficaz em audiências de comitês e mestre em mídia social. Em outras palavras, ela oferece substância e talento, e essa combinação parece levar seus críticos ao ponto de distração frenética. Fox News, o Post e o Daily Mail, junto com uma coleção de inimigos republicanos de direita no Congresso, obcecados por sua política de esquerda e sua celebridade. Em novembro, Paul Gosar, um representante republicano do Arizona que defendeu líderes nacionalistas brancos e votou contra a concessão da Medalha de Ouro do Congresso aos policiais que defenderam o Capitólio em 6 de janeiro de 2021, postou uma sequência de anime que o mostrava matando Ocasio. -Cortez com uma espada. Mais recentemente, um ex-assessor de campanha de Trump, Steve Cortes, foi online para zombar do namorado de Ocasio-Cortez, Riley Roberts, por seus pés de sandália, levando-a a responder: “Se os republicanos estão loucos, eles não podem namorar comigo, eles podem apenas dizer que em vez de projetar suas frustrações nos pés do meu namorado. Vocês esquisitos assustadores.”

Quando conversamos no início deste mês, pelo Zoom, Ocasio-Cortez falou longamente não apenas sobre o impasse que os democratas enfrentam agora, mas também sobre a atmosfera geral de trabalho no Congresso. “Honestamente, é um show de merda”, disse ela. “É escandaloso, todos os dias. O que me surpreende é como isso nunca deixa de ser escandaloso.”

A entrevista, que foi preparada com a ajuda de Mengfei Chen e Steven Valentino, ocorreu em 1º de fevereiro e foi editada para maior extensão e clareza.

Grande parte da agenda do governo Biden no Congresso praticamente parou. Um mandato que começou com grandes ambições semelhantes a FDR está agora parado. Como você avaliaria o desempenho do presidente depois de um ano?

Há algumas coisas que estão fora do controle do presidente, e há muito pouco a dizer sobre isso, com Joe Manchin e [Kyrsten] Sinema. Mas acho que há algumas coisas que estão sob o controle do presidente, e sua hesitação em relação a elas contribuiu para uma situação que não é a ideal.

Minha preocupação é que estamos entrando em paralisia de análise e não temos muito tempo. Na verdade, não devemos tomar como garantido este momento político atual e fazer tudo o que pudermos. No início do ano passado, muitos de nós da ala progressista – mas não apenas da ala progressista – estávamos dizendo que não queremos repetir muito do que aconteceu em 2010, quando houve essa oportunidade muito preciosa no Senado para que as coisas aconteçam.

As pessoas na Casa Branca de Biden argumentariam que as margens são as margens e a política de Manchin é o que são. Ele vem de um estado que é dominado por um voto muito mais conservador. E o Sinema é. . . imprevisível. Eles argumentariam que fizeram concessão após concessão e ainda não chegaram a lugar algum.

A Presidência é muito maior do que apenas os votos na legislatura. Isso é algo que vimos com o presidente Obama. Acho que estamos vendo essa dinâmica talvez se estender um pouco ao governo Biden, com relutância em usar o poder executivo. O presidente não tem usado seu poder executivo na medida em que alguns diriam ser necessário.

Para onde você se mudaria primeiro?

Uma das coisas mais impactantes que o presidente Biden pode fazer é buscar o cancelamento de empréstimos estudantis. Está inteiramente dentro de seu poder. Esta não é realmente uma conversa sobre fornecer alívio a um pequeno grupo de pessoas de nicho. É muito mais uma ação fundamental politicamente. Eu acho que é uma ação fundamental economicamente também. E não posso enfatizar o quanto a hesitação do governo Biden em buscar o cancelamento de empréstimos estudantis desmoralizou um bloco de votação muito crítico que o presidente, a Câmara e o Senado precisam para ter alguma chance de preservar nossa maioria.

O que está no reino do alcançável, o reino do possível, entre agora e a eleição?

É por isso que comecei falando sobre os poderes executivos do presidente, porque não acho que haja qualquer garantia de conseguir algo que Joe Manchin e Kyrsten Sinema aprovem que melhore significativa e materialmente a vida dos trabalhadores pessoas. É uma avaliação um pouco sombria, mas acho que, dada uma análise de seu comportamento passado, é justa. O presidente tem a responsabilidade de olhar para as ferramentas que ele tem.

Você teve alguma experiência política antes de ser eleito, mas foi de alguma distância. Você não era um membro do Congresso. Você não estava “na sala”. O que você vê na sala? Como é, no dia a dia, ser membro dessa instituição, que, devo dizer, de fora, parece um show de merda?

Sinceramente, é um show de merda. É escandaloso, todos os dias. O que me surpreende é como isso nunca deixa de ser escandaloso. Algumas pessoas talvez se acostumem com isso ou se dessensibilizem com as muitas coisas diferentes que podem estar quebradas, mas há tanta confiança nessa ideia de que há adultos na sala e, de certa forma, existem. Mas às vezes estar em uma sala com algumas das pessoas mais poderosas do país e ver como elas tomam decisões – às vezes elas são apenas suscetíveis ao pensamento de grupo, suscetíveis à auto-ilusão.

Faça um esboço para nós. Com o que se parece?

O plano de infra-estrutura, se fizer o que se propõe a fazer, os políticos terão crédito por ele daqui a dez anos, se ainda tivermos uma democracia daqui a dez anos. Mas o Build Back Better Act é a grande maioria da agenda de Biden. O plano de infraestrutura, por mais importante que seja, é bem menor. Então estávamos falando sobre juntar essas duas coisas. O Progressive Caucus luta, e então, por volta de outubro, chega um momento crítico. O presidente está então sob enorme pressão da mídia. Existe essa ideia de que o presidente não pode “fazer as coisas”, e que sua presidência está em risco. É o que eu acho que é apenas muito sensacionalismo. No entanto, as ramificações disso estavam sendo profundamente sentidas. E você tem pessoas fazendo corridas difíceis, e é “ele precisa de uma vitória. ” E então estou sentado em um grupo com algumas das pessoas mais poderosas do país falando sobre como, se aprovarmos a lei de infraestrutura agora, então será sobre isso que o presidente poderá fazer campanha. O povo americano lhe dará crédito por isso. Ele pode ganhar sua presidência com isso. Se não aprovarmos agora, arriscamos a própria democracia.

Quem está na sala? Você diz as pessoas mais poderosas.

Você está falando de todos, desde a liderança até pessoas que estão em lugares difíceis, mas todos os funcionários eleitos do Partido Democrata em nível federal. E as pessoas realmente se convencem a pensar que aprovar o plano de infraestrutura naquele dia, naquela semana, é a decisão mais singular e importante da Presidência, mais do que direitos de voto, mais do que a própria Lei Build Back Better, que contém a grande maioria do plano real do presidente. Você está sentado lá na sala e observando as pessoas se esforçarem para tomar uma decisão. É um momento psicológico fascinante que você está assistindo se desenrolar.

Não quer dizer que todas essas coisas que eles estão dizendo são cem por cento falsas. Mas eu venho de uma comunidade que muitas vezes é descontada de muitas maneiras diferentes, porque, você sabe, esses são “democratas confiáveis”. Tipo, o que ela tem a dizer não importa, etc. O que ela sabe sobre esse momento político? O que é lamentável, e que muitas pessoas ainda precisam reconhecer, é que as motivações e o senso de investimento e fé em nossa democracia e governança de pessoas em comunidades como a minha também determinam maiorias. Eles também determinam os resultados das corridas estaduais e presidenciais. E, quando você tem uma Câmara gerrymandered, quando você tem o Senado construído do jeito que está, quando você tem uma Presidência que depende do Colégio Eleitoral da maneira que ele faz, você está nesta sala e vê que todas essas pessoas que são eleitas são verdadeiramente representativas do nosso sistema político atual. E nosso atual sistema político é projetado para girar em torno de um grupo muito restrito de pessoas que são, acima de tudo, materialmente OK. Não gira em torno da maioria.

Você usou uma frase "se tivermos uma democracia daqui a dez anos". Você acha que não vamos ter?

Acho que há um risco muito real de que não o façamos. O que corremos é o risco de ter um governo que talvez se coloque como uma democracia, e tente fingir que é, mas não é.

O que vai nos levar a esse ponto? Você ouve falar agora sobre estarmos à beira de uma guerra civil — essa é a última frase de uma série de livros que foram publicados. O que acontecerá para nos levar a esse ponto degradado?

Bem, acho que começou, mas não está além da esperança. Nunca estamos além da esperança. Mas já vimos as salvas iniciais disso, onde você tem um ataque muito direcionado e específico ao direito de voto nos Estados Unidos, particularmente em áreas onde o poder republicano é ameaçado por mudanças nos eleitorados e na demografia. Você tem uma política reacionária e nacionalista branca começando a crescer em uma massa crítica. O que temos é a contínua aquisição sofisticada de nossos sistemas democráticos para transformá-los em sistemas antidemocráticos, tudo para anular resultados que um partido no poder pode não gostar.

A preocupação é que nos pareçamos com que outra nação?

Acho que vamos nos parecer com nós mesmos. Acho que vamos voltar para Jim Crow. Acho que é isso que arriscamos.

Qual é o cenário para isso?

Você já tem isso acontecendo no Texas, onde as leis de privação de direitos ao estilo de Jim Crow já foram propostas. Você fez com que membros da legislatura estadual, apenas alguns meses atrás, fugissem do estado para impedir que tais leis de votação fossem aprovadas. Na Flórida, onde todo o estado votou para permitir que as pessoas que foram libertadas da prisão fossem resseguradas depois de terem cumprido sua dívida com a sociedade, isso está sendo substituído essencialmente por impostos eleitorais e intimidação nas urnas. Você tem o completo apagamento e ataque à nossa própria compreensão da história, para substituir o ensino de história por propaganda institucionalizada de perspectivas nacionalistas brancas em nossas escolas. Isto é o que foi o andaime de Jim Crow.

Portanto, há muitos impulsos para comparar isso com outro lugar. Certamente há muitas comparações a serem feitas – com a ascensão do fascismo na Alemanha pós-Primeira Guerra Mundial. Mas você realmente não precisa olhar muito além de nossa própria história, porque o que temos, eu acho, é um caminho singularmente complexo que percorremos. E a questão que realmente estamos enfrentando é: os últimos cinquenta a sessenta anos após a Lei dos Direitos Civis foram apenas um mero flerte que os Estados Unidos tiveram com uma democracia multirracial que então decidiremos ser inconveniente para os que estão no poder? E vamos voltar ao que tínhamos antes, que, a propósito, não era apenas Jim Crow, mas também a extraordinária opressão econômica?

Do you think many Republicans share your concern about the fate of democracy? Do you have those kinds of conversations?

It’s a complex question because there’s so many different kinds of Republicans. But I’m reluctant to get into the navel-gazing of it, because, at the end of the day, they all make the same decisions. You might be able to appeal to the good natures or even a sense of charity of a handful, but ultimately we have what we have. At the end of the day, you know, who cares if they’re true believers or if they’re just complicit? They’re still voting to overturn the results of our election.

We’re constantly told, if you could only hear what’s being said in the cloakrooms, a lot of Republicans find Donald Trump repulsive but know that they’re going to lose their seats if they say so. Is being in Congress such a great job that you will trade your principles and soul for that job?

What I think some Republicans struggle with, the very few that are in that position, is a concern that they will be replaced by someone even worse. You know, O.K., externally I might look like a good soldier, I might look like I’m falling in line, but, if I lose my primary and I get replaced with ten more Marjorie Taylor Greenes, we’ll be in an even worse situation.

That’s perhaps where they may be coming from. And, to a certain extent, you do have these critical moments. You have January 6th, and, if Mike Pence had made a different split-second decision that day and done what President Trump was asking of him, we would be in a very different place right now.

When you are asked questions about whether or not Nancy Pelosi should stay as Speaker, when you’re asked questions about the rather advanced ages of Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, and Chuck Schumer, does it make a difference? You’re saying it’s structural. It’s not generational.

It’s both. The reason we have this generational situation that we do is also, in part, due to our structures. The generational aspect of things is absolutely pertinent to the kind of decision-making. There is this world view, this appeal, of a time passed that I think sometimes guides decision-making. President Biden thought that he could talk with Manchin like an old pal and bring him along. And, frankly, that was what the White House’s strategy was, in terms of what they communicated to us. That’s how they tried to sell passage of not even half a loaf but a tenth of the loaf. It was “We promise we’ll be able to bring them along.” There is this idea that this is just a temporary thing and we’ll get back to that. But I grew up my entire life in this mess. There’s no nostalgia for a time when Washington worked in my life.

Is it healthy or not for the Democratic Party for Nancy Pelosi to remain in place as the Speaker, as leader of the Democratic caucus in the House?

It’s really all about a specific moment that we’re in. We are in such a delicate moment of the day-to-day, particularly with the threats to our democracy. I believe that, at the end of the day, there’s going to be a generational change in our leadership. That is just a simple fact. Now, when that particular moment happens? I think it’s a larger question of conditions and circumstance.

You don’t want to go near this one.

It’s a tough question. It’s not even just a question of the Speaker. It’s a question of our caucus. I wish the Democratic Party had more stones. I wish our party was capable of truly supporting bold leadership that can address root causes.

Is it that the representatives don’t have the stones, or do you want a different public opinion, as it were? In other words, for example, take “defund the police” as a policy demand. Certainly, in New York City, no one is talking about that now. As a matter of protest? Yes. As activism? Yes. But we have a new mayor, Eric Adams, who is anything but “defund the police.” Who are you disappointed in?

I still am disappointed in leadership and in my colleagues, because, ultimately, these conversations about “defund,” or this, that, and the other, are what is happening in public and popular conversations. Our job is to be able to engage in that conversation, to read what is happening, and to be able to develop a vision and translate it into a course of action. All too often, I believe that a lot of our decisions are reactive to public discourse instead of responsive to public discourse. And so, just because there was this large conversation about “defund the police” coming from the streets, the response was to immediately respond to it with fear, with pooh-poohing, with “this isn’t us,” with arm’s distance. So, then, what is the vision? That’s where I think the Party struggles.

Aren’t you seeing the response in City Hall now in the shape of Eric Adams?

Well, I think you also see it in the shape of the City Council that was elected. You have a record number of progressives. People often bring up the Mayor as evidence of some sort of decision around policing. I disagree with that assessment. I represent a community that is very victimized by a rise in violence. (And I represent Rikers Island!) What oftentimes people overlook is that the same communities that supported Mayor Adams also elected Tiffany Cabán. What the public wants is a strong sense of direction. I don’t think that in electing Mayor Adams everyone in the city supports bringing back torture to Rikers Island in the form of solitary confinement. What people want is a strong vision about how we establish public safety in our communities.

One of the ways that we engage is by backing some of the only policies that are actually supported by evidence to reduce incidents of violent crime: violence-interruption programs, summer youth employment. When we talk about the surge of violence happening right now, when I engage with our hospitals, doctors, social workers, everyone’s telling me that there’s so many things we’re not discussing. The surge in violence is being driven by young people, particularly young men. And we allow the discourse to make it sound as though it’s, like, these shady figures in the bush, jumping out from a corner. These are young men. These are boys. We’re also not discussing the mental-health crisis that we are experiencing as a country as a result of the pandemic.

Because we run away from substantive discussions about this, we don’t want to say some of the things that are obvious, like, Gee, the child-tax credit just ran out, on December 31st, and now people are stealing baby formula. We don’t want to have that discussion. We want to say these people are criminals or we want to talk about “people who are violent,” instead of “environments of violence,” and what we’re doing to either contribute to that or dismantle that.

I’ve never seen anybody so quickly become a lightning rod for right-wing criticism and obsession. Why do you think there’s such a fixation on you personally?

I think there’s just some surface-level stuff. And, to be honest, it’s not just the right wing. I was laughing because a couple of months ago someone showed me some of the news footage and coverage from the night that I was elected. And, obviously, I didn’t see any of it because I was, like, losing my mind.

But there was this footage, I think it was Brian Williams. And it was, like, breaking news: the third-most-powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives seems to have been unseated by this radical socialist. All the buzzwords that the right wing uses now were also completely legitimized by mainstream media on the night of the election. I never had a chance. People act as though there was something I could have done. There really wasn’t. It was kind of baked in from the beginning, and my choice was how to respond to that.

And I think because I respond to it differently, that increases a certain level of novelty, which then increases interest. But then there’s also just the basic stuff. I’m young, I’m a woman, I’m a woman of color. I’m not liberal in a traditional sense. I’m willing to buck against my own party, and in a real way. And I’m everything that they need. I’m the red meat for their base.

Do you worry sometimes that you take the bait too much or poke the bear in a way that might not be, in retrospect, something you should’ve done? Like, for example, the Met Gala, the “Tax the Rich” dress, or your response to the really weird tweet about your boyfriend’s feet?

All the time. Every day you make decisions, and you have to make decisions about whether it’s a good idea to go after this or if it’s a bad idea to go after it. Sometimes you make good decisions. Sometimes you make less-than-optimal ones. And then you reflect on them and you try to kind of sharpen your steel.

What were the less-than-optimal ones?

Everything has a different goal, right? And so, if you’re at home on Twitter, or if you’re at home on TV, there are some things that are not for you. There are some things I do that you don’t like that are not intended for you to like, such as what happened with the Met Gala. There are a lot of folks who did not like that. There were some “principled leftists” who didn’t like that. But, when you look at my community, it’s not a college town, a socialist, leftist, academic community. It’s a working-class community that I’m able to engage in a collective conversation about our principles. And, honestly, there’s a response to that in some circles online that may be negative, but in my community the response was quite positive.

The response to the Met Gala was positive in your community? How did you feel it?

Yeah. Because sometimes you just need to give a little Bronx jeer to the rich and to the spectacle. You need to puncture the façade. My community and my family—we’re postal workers, my uncle is a maintenance man, my mom’s a domestic worker. Sometimes you just need to have that moment.

It is a bizarre psychological experience to live specifically now in 2022. We’re not even talking about a culture of celebrity. We’re talking about a culture of commodification of human beings, from the bottom all the way to the top. And there’s absolutely a bizarre psychological experience of this that also plays into these decisions. For example, like what happened in responding to these bizarre things, like about my boyfriend’s feet. I’ve felt for a long time that we need to talk about the bizarre psychological impulses underpinning the right wing.

It’s not “politically correct” to be able to talk about these things, but they are so clearly having an obvious impact on not just our public discourse but the concentration of power. We have to talk about patriarchy, racism, capitalism, but you’re not going to have those conversations by using those words. You have to have those conversations by really responding in uplifting moments. I don’t really care if other people understand it. Sometimes what seems to some folks a moment that’s gauche or something, I often do it with the intention of exposing cultural or psychological undercurrents that people don’t want to talk about. Which, by the way, is why I think sometimes people read these moments as gauche or low-class or whatever they may be. And sometimes how I feel is, if I’m just going to be this, like, commodified avatar thing, then I’m going to play with it, like a toy.

It’s a rough thing to deal with.

Yeah. It’s awful.

One of the cudgels used by the right these days, and not only the right, is fear about cancellation and “wokeness.” We’ve even heard members of the House give speeches about the dangers of so-called cancel culture. And, at the same time, it does seem like norms around speech are changing around fears of online backlashes. I know you’ve criticized that term, “cancel culture,” even dismissed it, but you did so in a tweet.

You look at the capture of power in the right wing, the ascent of white nationalism, the concentration of wealth. You cannot really animate or concentrate a movement like that—you can’t coalesce it into functional political power—without a sense of persecution or victimhood. And that’s the role of this concept of cancel culture. It’s the speck of dust around which the raindrop must form in order to precipitate takeovers of school boards, pushing actual discourse out of the acceptable norms, like in terms of the 1619 Project or getting books banned from schools. They need the concept of cancel culture, of persecution, in order to justify, animate, and pursue a political program of takeover, or at least a constant further concentration of their own power.

You talk about cancel culture. But notice that those discussions only go one way. We don’t talk about all the people who were fired. You just kind of talk about, like, right-leaning podcast bros and more conservative figures. But, for example, Marc Lamont Hill was fired [from CNN] for discussing an issue with respect to Palestinians, pretty summarily. There was no discussion about it, no engagement, no thoughtful discourse over it, just pure accusation.

Last month, an ex-staffer of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s told the New York Post that you could mount “a very, very credible challenge and quite likely beat her.” How do you feel about that? How do you view your political future?

I’m not trying to be, like, “I’m not like the other girls.” I’m not trying to position myself in that way. But I don’t think that I make these kinds of decisions as if I’m operating with some sort of ten-to-fifteen-year plan, like a lot of people do. Half this town, if not more, has been to a fancy Ivy League school. And so, as a consequence, everyone is, like, what chess pieces are being put down for what specific aspiration? I make decisions based on where I think people are and what we’re ready for, particularly as a movement. I think a lot of people sometimes make these decisions based on what they want, right? What I want is a lot more decentralized. I think it’s a lot more rooted in mass movements.

Could you see yourself walking away from public office entirely and going to a life of mass movements?

I think about it all the time. 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. I wake up, and I’m, like, what would be the most effective thing to do to advance the power and build the power of working people?

Well, do you wake up sometimes in your Capitol Hill apartment and say, What the hell am I doing here? I’m one representative out of hundreds. I’m in a gridlocked situation. I’m not effecting the change I want to, and I’d rather join, or lead, or help lead a movement outside of government?

I’ve had those thoughts, absolutely. We all have different options in front of us. And the choice of what option we take at any given point is a reflection of all of those conditions, our motivations, all of those things. And there are times when I’m cynical and I sometimes fall into that. I’m just, like, “Man, maybe I should just, like, learn to grow my own food and teach other people how to do that!”

But I also reject the total cynicism that what’s happening here is fruitless. I’ve been in this cycle before in my life, before I even ran for office, before it was even a thought.

O pessoal de mídia social da The New Yorker convidou as pessoas a propor perguntas para você via Instagram. A esperança é o tema que está no centro de quase todas elas. Se eu puder destilá-los, a pergunta mais básica é: O que você diria às pessoas, especialmente aos jovens, que perderam a esperança?

I’ve been there. And what I can say is that, when you’re feeling like you’ve lost hope, it’s a very passive experience, which is part of what makes it so depressing.

And that’s what I had to go through. There was all this hope when Obama was elected, in 2008. And, at the end of the day, a lot of people that had hope in our whole country had those hopes dashed.

I graduated. My dad died. My family had medical debt, because we live in the jankiest medical system in the developed world. My childhood home was on the precipice of being taken away by big banks. I’d be home, and there’d be bankers in cars parked in front of my house, taking pictures for the inevitable day that they were going to kick us out.

I was supposed to be the great first generation to go to college, and I graduated into a recession where bartending, legitimately, and waitressing, legitimately, paid more than any college-level entry job that was available to me. I had a complete lack of hope. I saw a Democratic Party that was too distracted by institutionalized power to stand up for working people. And I decided this is bullshit. No one, absolutely no one, cares about people like me, and this is hopeless. And I lost hope.

How did that manifest itself?

It manifested in depression. Feeling like you have no agency, and that you are completely subject to the decisions of people who do not care about you, is a profoundly depressing experience. It’s a very invisibilizing experience. And I lived in that for years. This is where sometimes what I do is speak to the psychology of our politics rather than to the polling of our politics. What’s really important for people to understand is that to change that tide and to actually have this well of hope you have to operate on your direct level of human experience.

When people start engaging individually enough, it starts to amount to something bigger. We have a culture of immediate gratification where if you do something and it doesn’t pay off right away we think it’s pointless.

But, if more people start to truly cherish and value the engagement and the work in their own back yard, it will precipitate much larger change. And the thing about people’s movements is that the opposite is very top-down. When you have folks with a profound amount of money, power, influence, and they really want to make something happen, they start with media. You look at these right-wing organizations, they create YouTube channels. They create their podcast stars. They have Fox News as their own personal ideological television outlet.

Legitimate change in favor of public opinion is the opposite. It takes a lot of mass-public-building engagement, unrecognized work until it gets to the point that it is so big that to ignore it threatens the legitimacy of mass-media outlets, institutions of power, etc. It has to get so big that it is unignorable, in order for these positions up top to respond. And so people get very discouraged here.

Going forward, what do you think is the optimal role for you to play?

With the Climate Justice Alliance, some communities here at home say that they don’t talk about leadership, they talk about being leaderful. And I think that people’s movements, especially in the United States, are leaderful. And we’re getting more people every day. The untold story is actually the momentum of what is happening on the ground. You have Starbucks that just unionized its first shops in Buffalo. I went up there to visit them. Sure, I went over there to support a mayoral election which didn’t ultimately pan out, but also to support a lot of what was going on. I would argue that if it wasn’t for that mayoral election and the amount of intensity and organizing and hope and attention, a lot of these workers who were organizing may have given up.

There is no movement, there is no effort, there is no unionizing, there is no fight for the vote, there is no resistance to draconian abortion laws, if people think that the future is baked in and nothing is possible and that we’re doomed. Even on climate—or especially on climate. And so the day-to-day of my day job is frustrating. So is everyone else’s. 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?

So, yes, 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. I also advance big things that people say are unrealistic and naïve. Work is like that. It is always the great fear when it comes to work or pursuing anything. You want to write something, and, in your head, it’s this big, beautiful Nobel Prize-winning concept. And then you are humbled by the words that you actually put on paper.

E esse é o trabalho do movimento. Esse é o trabalho da organização. Esse é o trabalho das eleições. Esse é o trabalho da legislação. Isso é trabalho de teoria, de conceitos, sabe? E é isso que significa estar na arena.