Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Continues To Use Alternative Media To Propel Policy, Including Green New Deal

New York’s freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her signature Green New Deal may be the topic of a new documentary by “Knock Down The House” filmmaker Rachel Lears, who featured Ocasio-Cortez and three other women candidates during the 2018 midterm elections.

Lears and Ocasio-Cortez are discussing another venture after Netflix acquired “Knock Down The House” for $10 million following a premiere in January at the Sundance Film Festival. However, Lears may not work with Netflix on the next film.

The documentary project is yet another example of how Ocasio-Cortez uses alternative media to build political coalitions. The Green New Deal, which has been criticized from both sides of the aisle as unrealistic and too expensive, is more of a white paper. The actual resolution, H.R. 109, does not proscribe the limitations that detractors have asserted. It is a five-point plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create high-paying jobs, and includes a justice and equity element to ensure virtually all Americans benefit from a retooling of the economy.

Like the New Deal proposed and executed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the
1930s, the green proposal is about restoring employment, justice, and rebuilding failing
infrastructure across the country after the 2008 economic collapse many Americans have
not recovered from.

Ocasio-Cortez has been criticized for her “radical socialist” views but an op-ed in The Atlantic by a Harvard professor and fellow at the conservative Hoover Institute argues Ocasio-Cortez holds a middle-of-the-road position among her generation.

That same article argues the American political scene is facing a generation war, where younger generations are at odds with older generations that have benefited from programs and policies that national legislators are seeking to limit for future generations. Predominantly white septuagenarians that increasingly are not representative of the evolving American demographic control most U.S. institutions. Both a “browning” of the nation by 2025 and a majority of Millennials and Gen Xers by 2039 signal a potentially radical change in the political field.

Ocasio-Cortez’s political initiatives, as a member of the evolving vanguard, may be inaccurately characterized. Like FDR’s new deal and John F. Kennedy's moon shot, Ocasio-Cortez's ambitious Green New Deal may be considered a much-needed progressive plan.