AOC's Old-Fashioned Machine Politics

Some constituents of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually got something out of politics this year beside a barrage of campaign advertisements: With a sliver of the almost $19 million that she raised on her glide to re-election, AOC bought and gave away 200 Thanksgiving turkeys.

Turkeys are reminiscent of New York’s Tammany Hall, which used to deliver birds, along with coal and other useful things, to Democratic constituents. Much of AOC’s New York City district is poor. If government is hobbled, and mediating institutions like political parties and unions (another traditional source of holiday turkeys) are diminished, constituent needs go unmet. That’s both challenge and opportunity.

“The Congresswoman believes that when a larger federal response fails, as it has with Covid-19, we have a responsibility to think creatively about what we can do with others in our community to meet the needs of our constituents,” said Ocasio-Cortez campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt in an email. Hitt said AOC campaign volunteers and donors made 200,000 community check-in calls, delivered 80,000 meals, distributed 100,000 masks and recruited more than 11,000 tutors for students in remote learning.