Ocasio-Cortez is a symptom of our times, but not a particularly toxic symptom.
She's young, but she has a lot of talent, or she would less likely have been elected.
I have been making the same point of argument since around the year 2001, when I happened to read a two-page op-ed in the LA Times about the possibility of ships navigating through a northwest passage between the Atlantic and China. I was also aware of melting glaciers in North America, particularly in the national park where I'd been seasonal ranger during 1972, and then after seeing Mt. Baker in the North Cascades during early September, 2001. [Another story there, about three people trying to predict the future as they sat around a campfire on the night of September 10.]
And I had said many times soon thereafter, that time would be running out. There might have been a chance to encourage conversion of automobiles to propane or natural gas fuels. There might have been a more aggressive effort to encourage and promote roof-top solar and other power-generating options.
I was also a child during the 1950s. Life was simpler, people had less "stuff", but a lot of veterans returning home after WWII could afford a modest tract home in a pleasant neighborhood. The economic statistics of the time showed America with greater wealth and income equality than we've had since. My father earned enough to put T-bones on every plate at the table and at least once a week. He could buy a new car every two or three years -- trading in the old one. In California, I was able to get through college and obtain a masters degree for what was essentially free or perfunctory tuition -- my only expenses and needs besides textbooks and thrift-store clothing were rent and fun money.
So failure to address current problems to which the Right has been in steadfast denial has consequences. In order to solve these problems now, government initiatives must be bigger and more profound. The private sector will not solve those problems, and the thought that it can is just sheer ignorance and wishful thinking. It never will, unless the price of solving problems is so much pain and trouble for enough people that they actually become casualties of those problems. And we see now that there are casualties. Just one single anecdotal example would be the Camp Fire in northern California this year.
The buildup of atmospheric carbon has continued unabated all this time, and so doing what we can to salvage our earthbound environment will take commensurately greater effort, at more cost and sacrifice, than what might have been necessary with an early start. And that will mean a sharp Left turn in political direction, because any mere attempt to meet the problem head-on will mean collective -- not individual and discretionary effort. It is an anticipation of this that the Right has maintained its denial for so long, burying its head in the sand and spinning the same old tale of an Invisible Hand that will miraculously save us from consequences of human activity over more than 200 years, burning off substances that had been in the ground for millions of years.
So don't talk to me, the 71-year-old, about this young woman with ideas that are too big. While I agree that social media has its deleterious down-side, amplifying certain defects of the collective human character, she has a lot more on the ball than the GOP chuckleheads who squandered time and money going after a mythical Benghazi scandal, or digging for e-mail evidence to skewer Hillary Clinton.
There may be some truth or useful concept to the article, but at its bottom, the glorification of Self in a culture of individualist narcissism and its encouragement through technology in social media had a lot to do with electing the Toxic Filth infecting the White House at this moment. Ocasio-Cortes is probably more antidote than virus.
When I get some chump-change to donate, I'll send a few ducats to her for her next campaign. Among several others who need campaign resources.