Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a theory about why Republicans love, love, love to hate her

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at SXSW
(Image credit: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images)

The night she defeated 10-term Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley last year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) became an instant celebrity. "At first, it was really, really, really hard," she told Vanity Fair. "I felt like I was being physically ripped apart in those first two to three months." She started out as a star among young progressives, "but now, she's one of the most visible Democrats in the country, along with Nancy Pelosi," Vanity Fair's Abigail Tracy writes, "and she's eclipsing Pelosi, and even Hillary Clinton, as a Republican target."

Ocasio-Cortez considers the right's obsession with her a sign of her strength, she told Tracy in her unassuming Bronx apartment, and she doesn't expect it to abate anytime soon. "The whole goal is to dehumanize," Ocasio-Cortez said. Still, "it can be very empowering to say, 'Make fun of me. Do it. Draw the little insults on my face .... Do what you're gonna do. Act more and more childish. Just do it, because you're not gonna stop, you're just not gonna stop this movement.'"

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.