Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins the rigged conservative shame game — by refusing to play

She can and did win at the political ground game that propelled her to a primary victory over longtime incumbent Joe Crowley, leading to her decisive election to represent New York’s 14th congressional district, and in January she’ll become the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress. That’s the win that counts, by the way — and the people who are offended by her youth, by her outspoken progressive stances on policy issues, by her refusal to pretend that a run for office in America isn’t still overwhelmingly tilted in favor of the affluent established white male, they know it. Her detractors can’t grant her even begrudgingly the respect that her remarkable victory demands and consider that she represents a new generation of American voter, so they look for other fights to pick. Handily, Ocasio-Cortez is a woman of color in America, so there’s no shortage of grotesque assumptions and biases in the collective psyche to mine.

Over the last week or so, she’s been put through a round of conservative media trolling that boils down to “ladies can’t manage money, amirite?” The right-wing outrage machine lost its mind over the former bartender’s candor about managing her transition period between New York and D.C. without the extra cash it takes to set up a Washington apartment before her congressional salary kicks in. As she told the New York Times, “We’re kind of just dealing with the logistics of it day by day, but I’ve really been just kind of squirreling away and then hoping that gets me to January.”

Cue the dishonest bellowing designed to intimidate her back to her borough: She can’t manage a budget, she’s a deadbeat without a real job, maybe this whole Congress thing is just a scam! They’re not saying she’s a gold digger, of course . . .

Never mind that anyone who’s had to move for a job without a relo package from Fox News recognized this particular struggle as real. Even those who haven’t done that feel the reality of “just dealing with the logistics of it day by day,” every single day. (Forget E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust, that’s the real motto for most Americans.) Meanwhile, anywhere from 40 to 100 members of Congress had been living in their offices rent-free — outgoing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan included — prompting an outcry earlier this year over the ethics of the practice that Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., described as “unhealthy, unsanitary — and some people would say it’s almost nasty.”