What should your politician do for you and what should your politician be to you: those are two entirely separate questions.
I’ve been working on a piece about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC) recent revelation about her sexual assault, a bombshell folded into a very long Instagram live video that sought to explain the events of January 6 but was really a strikeback against critics of her first live Instagram and also very long video on the events.
If that seems odd and exhausting, it is (each video is an hour and a half long). I thought my piece, titled “AOC and the Weaponisation of Trauma,” would be short and quick. I’ve been writing about how trauma gets used and re-used by and for women of colour and other minorities in particular, compelling them to constantly vomit out their stories of tragedy and woe in order to gain even the most minimal resources, for a really long time (see below for only a partial list of my pieces).
As I looked further into the AOC matter and watched the two endless and wearying videos, and as I saw the varied responses to the second one in particular, it became clear that the piece would have to be much more than a quick set of thoughts. It’s finally on the way to being done, and I have two editors waiting to look it over before I finally publish it here.
But I thought it worthwhile to publish a quick and initial rumination on a central question few seem to be willing to ask when it comes to their real or imagined relationship with AOC: What does she mean to them? And related to that: What does a politician mean to anyone? AOC is the U.S. representative for New York’s 14th congressional district. Strictly speaking, no one outside that area should be giving a damn about her. Yet, AOC operates in the public sphere as some kind of demigod to many, particularly socialists, self-styled or otherwise, who seem to think she is The Only Hope for A Socialist Future, or something, and who bristle at the very thought that someone might be even remotely critical of her. That explains the fact that, despite not having actually finished and posted the piece, I’m already getting hate mail in my inbox and trolls on my Facebook wall venting their thoughts about whatever they imagine I’m writing about AOC. Granted, I’m the one who’s been posting many thoughts about AOC as I watch the videos, over and over, and write the piece: frankly, much of this is because I find both texts unbearably manipulative and troublesome and I need a public outlet to express my deep annoyance so that it doesn’t spill into the piece itself (if I didn’t, this shit is garbage would be the extent of my critique; the videos are that irritating). But while it’s fair to, as one reader passive-aggressively put it, “engage” with my ongoing work, it’s also clear that much of the anger (and it is real, this vitriol) comes from an attempt to shut down any criticism of AOC because, damn it, they all say: she’s a woman, she went through trauma, and we ought to be more understanding.
But, and here is a simple but: AOC is all that and a politician, and an extremely media-savvy one at that (she is apparently a go-to person for her congressional colleagues who, with an average age of nearly 60, are understandably often lost with social media, as is most of the planet that is not under the age of, oh, 35). And when a politician makes a statement that folds in a private trauma into a nationalist one (AOC’s videos are primarily, ostensibly, about January 6 as some kind of traumatic event for the entire nation), we have to read that politically and not as some journal entry to be left untouched and in her own private realm.
That’s just the least of it, and I’ll have more in the finished piece. But I have to ask again: what is a politician to you? More to the point, what is your politician to you? None of those who have so far come after me for views I’ve yet to fully express (hello, writer’s dystopia!) are even anywhere near her congressional district. Literally the only people who should be concerned about criticism of her are the people she represents—it’s a testimonial (and not an entirely flattering one) to her ability to garner attention that AOC has become a figure in need of protection even to people who don’t directly benefit from her. But even those who are represented by her might want to consider why they so often respond to AOC in ways that they don’t to other politicians, as if she’s not their representative but their neighbour or best friend from high school.
What should your politician do for you and what should your politician be to you: those are two entirely separate questions. Only in the U.S are we so completely obsessed with the latter as we forget the former.
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See also:
“AOC and the Weaponisation of Trauma.”
“Your Trauma Is Your Passport: Hannah Gadsby, Nanette, and Global Citizenship.”
“A Monica for Our Time: Reinventing Sex and Trauma in the Age of #MeToo.“
“Confession, Neoliberalism, and the Big Reveal.”
For more, just search for terms like “trauma” and “confession” on this website.
Don’t plagiarise any of this, in any way. Read and memorise “On Plagiarism.” There’s more forthcoming, as I point out in “The Plagiarism Papers.” I have used legal resources to punish and prevent plagiarism, and I am ruthless and persistent. If you’d like to support me, please donate and/or subscribe, or get me something from my wish list. Thank you.
Image: Guillamume Seignac, Diana The Huntress, 1870