When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was elected to Congress in 2018 she was hailed as the leader of a new generation of Democrats, a Latina who grew up middle class and worked as a bartender before her election and could “relate” to the Millennials. Her Green New Deal was zealously promoted by the party as if it would really save the world. She and the “Squad” seemed to be the future of the party and seemed to hold all of the cards.

Fast forward to the 2020 DNC, and it seems the Squad put their weight behind the wrong candidate and are feeling the consequences. The only member to have a prime time slot, as I can tell, is AOC, and she only had two minutes – as the person seconding the nomination of Bernie Sanders.

She said:

Thank you to everyone here today endeavoring towards a better, more just future for our country and our world, in fidelity and gratitude to a mass people’s movement working to establish 21st century social, economic, and human rights, including guaranteed health care, higher education, living wages, and labor rights for all people in the United States. A movement striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past. A movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many, and who organized a historic grassroots campaign to reclaim our democracy.

In a time when millions of people in the US are looking for deep, systemic solutions to our crises…and out of a love for all people, I hereby second the nomination of Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont for President of the United States of America.

It’s a difficult lesson, Alexandria. You can’t back the wrong horse and expect there to be no consequence. Of course, this year there was an additional complicating fact: As nonsensical as AOC speeches are, they make more sense than the nominee’s speeches.