If Republicans want to win more elections in 2020, they should watch “Knock Down the House.”
Since Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., won a seat in the House of Representatives last fall, the GOP has criticized her for her radically leftist views, from her Green New Deal to her affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America. But whatever Republicans or centrists believe about her policies, they can’t deny that her campaign worked. They should take notes. The Right likes to claim that “facts don’t care about your feelings,” as Ben Shapiro puts it, but voters don’t care about facts. They care about stories. And Ocasio-Cortez has a great one.
It’s hard not to cheer for her while watching Netflix’s “Knock Down the House.” You watch as Ocasio-Cortez goes from scooping out ice at the bar where she works, to canvassing homes in the Bronx, to winning a primary against an incumbent who’s held his seat for 20 years.
She’s “one of the people,” a hard-working, anti-establishment fighter who carved out an image as a champion of the working class. “We need to have the courage to stand up for working people,” she tells a roomful of potential supporters. Ocasio-Cortez argues that she may not yet have incumbent Joe Crowley’s influence, but his complacency isn’t doing anything for his constituents.
As much as Ocasio-Cortez and President Trump are opposites, they both rode a populist wave to victory by promising to stand up for the little guy (and girl, Ocasio-Cortez would add). But Ocasio-Cortez’s win, unlike the presidency that split the GOP, is framed as a success for her entire party.
“Knock Down the House” also follows the campaigns of three other women who primaried incumbent Democrats: Amy Vilela, Cori Bush, and Paula Jean Swearengin. None of them won their contests in the 2018 midterm elections, but the documentary implies that they all had to join a crusade for one of them to succeed.
“It’s not about any one of us individually. It’s about the whole movement,” says Vilela, on a phone call with Ocasio-Cortez after she lost her primary.
“It’s just the reality that in order for one of us to make it through,” Ocasio-Cortez says, “100 of us have to try.”
In “Knock Down the House,” Ocasio-Cortez is the kind of person you’d like to have over for dinner, but she’s also the kind of leader who can galvanize her own party. She’s an individual and collective success, winning her district with her presence (in one memorable scene, Crowley sends a proxy to debate her) and changing her party through her message of progress.
If more Republicans want to win or maintain seats in Congress in 2020, they should consider Ocasio-Cortez’s success. AOC promises to fight for the underdog, and voters believe her because she is one. The GOP needs more leaders like her: young, creative types with diverse backgrounds and fresh voices.
It doesn’t matter how much “better” the GOP platform is if it has the face of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., or the charisma of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. AOC has 4.15 million followers on Twitter, almost as many as the two GOP leaders combined.
It’s not powerful women who have a “likeability” problem. It’s the Republican Party. If more of its members campaigned like Ocasio-Cortez, though, the Republican Party would win big in 2020.
