Joe Concha
The Messenger, Oct. 29, 2023
“An overwhelming majority of Americans were rightly shocked, horrified, and outraged. But Ocasio-Cortez and Omar instead called for an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation by Israel, while Tlaib called for an end to U.S. funding to Israel, prompting a strong rebuke by the White House.”
The Squad” became part of the political media’s lexicon in November 2018, through an Instagram post by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then a twenty-something political novice who defeated 10-term incumbent Democratic congressman Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th district. The upset blindsided everyone, including the hometown New York Times, which was forced to concede that, in hindsight, it didn’t give the race the attention it warranted.
The Instagram post was a photo of AOC, along with fellow Democrats Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, all of whom won their respective races to join the House of Representatives for the first time that year. AOC captioned it: “Squad.“
The post would generate more than 200,000 likes.
From there, media coverage of the Squad would be as favorable as any female public figure could ever imagine this side of Michelle Obama or Taylor Swift. “The Phenom” cooed a Time magazine cover story with a photo that evoked memories of Argentina’s Eva Peron.
“Wonder Woman of the left, Wicked Witch of the right, Ocasio-Cortez has become the second most talked-about politician in America, after the President of the United States,” wrote Time’s Charlotte Alter just two months after Ocasio-Cortez took office.
“Women Shaping the Future” said a Rolling Stone magazine cover in early 2020. The feature photo included smiling Squad members along with an equally happy Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), then the House Speaker.
“Her [Ocasio-Cortez’s] striking features are almost impossibly symmetrical, her outlook millennial, and her answers pointed and well-constructed,” Rolling Stone’s Alex Morris argued. “Today, she wears a hot-pink pantsuit, which wouldn’t bear mentioning — this being 2019 and all — if it weren’t for the obvious fact that a hot-pink pantsuit intends to announce itself.”
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