Don't just laugh at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Follow her lead

Conservatives are very eager to make Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., the butt of many, many jokes. The temptation is strong because the young far-left progressive keeps giving her mockers ample material. Take the most recent example from the weekend, a video clip of Ocasio-Cortez calling on progressive activists to take back "all three chambers of government."

"Haha, look at the dumb progressive who doesn't understand how government works" is easy content, but conservatives shouldn't write off Ocasio-Cortez as a joke. They shouldn't make fun of her dwindling savings account. They shouldn't reduce her to a caricature of a progressive Millennial for clicks and views. Instead, she should be taken very seriously.

Think about what she's actually doing here. Ocasio-Cortez has an activist leftist base of support, some 1.2 million followers on Twitter alone. She's a rock star on the Left, and she's using that star power to rally her supporters to the cause of helping Democrats take full control of the government. Why? So Democrats can advance a socialist policy agenda of single-payer Medicare for All, create a congressional select committee on climate change to introduce radical government regulations on the economy, create new "free college" tuition entitlements, and pay for it all by cutting military spending, raising taxes, and borrowing more money.

These are the big ideas on the Left. Dangerous and radical ideas, but as she told the Atlantic in a recent interview, she's not going to sit back and let Washington D.C. continue with the status quo.

“I don't have the luxury, nor does any member of Congress have the luxury, of waiting to govern ... Let's just get things done. I'll be really quiet if we get things done. If we pass ‘Medicare for all,’ I'm going to be silent as a lamb.”

Where is the equivalent agenda for conservatives? Which conservative members of Congress are this ambitious? And which members are calling on the activist grassroots of the conservative movement to run for office to change Washington? That's what Ocasio-Cortez is doing on the Left.

Last week when she led a protest in Nancy Pelosi's office, too many conservatives smiled and hoped she'd become a thorn in Nancy Pelosi's side. But how many paid attention to what she told that crowd of activists?

“Long story short, I need you to run for office,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We all need to run at all levels of government, but I really hope that many of you join me here in Congress.”

The group she was speaking to, Justice Democrats, is a leftist organization that recruits progressive candidates to run against incumbent Democrats in primaries. So Ocasio-Cortez is rallying the Left to continue primarying establishment Democrats, make the caucus more progressive, take control of the government, and advance a socialist agenda.

Meanwhile, the conservative movement is making fun of her flubs while the same old RINO Republicans who thrashed conservatives in the 2018 primaries work with Democrats on their agenda instead of advancing a conservative one.

Conservatives shouldn't be making fun of Ocasio-Cortez. We should be following her example, working right now on 2020 congressional primary challenges, and advancing a bold conservative agenda to defeat the radical Left.

Let's mock her after we beat her.

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