There is still some confusion about who is going to be the next President of the US: Joe Biden is narrowly ahead, while current President Donald Trump is angrily threatening legal action against the election results, while continuously posting on Twitter about alleged vote frauds (and continuously getting his posts flagged as "disputed" and "misleading"...).
The election saga may not be over yet, but some people are starting to wonder already what may happen in 2024. Will the future be brighter? Will there be, for example, a younger Democratic candidate capable of acting as a catalyst for Latino voter mobilization? Well, the December 2020 issue of Vanity Fair attempts to make a fashionably political guess with a special cover star, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, photographed by Tyler Mitchell.
Inside the magazine there is a long feature dedicated to her with a photoshoot by Mitchell (the first African-American photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue, in September 2018).
The images show Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - who, at 31, is the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress - smiling and posing in a variety of designer clothes by Wales Bonner, Loewe, Carolina Herrera and Christopher John Rogers (shoes by Christian Louboutin and earrings by Bulgari, among the others). Yet, this perfectly styled wardrobe is not a way to distract us and bring back the discourse on a more superficial and merely fashionable level, but aims at empowering her. Indeed, as proved by her humble, comfy and tattered shoes Ocasio-Cortez wore during the 2018 campaign (that ended up in an exhibition organised by the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection at Cornell University in New York View this photo), Ocasio-Cortez doesn't need grand clothes to speak for her or about her political commitment.
The New York congresswoman, better known as AOC, has represented a much needed force of change since she won the Democratic Party's primary election for New York's 14th congressional district in 2018 (defeating Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley) and then defeating Republican opponent Anthony Pappas in the November 2018 general election. Ocasio-Cortez has also just been re-elected, defeating John Cummings.
AOC didn't win the devotion of her electorate for being a fashion icon, but thanks to her humbleness, oratorial and communication skills (in one pictures by Tyler she is pictured hula hooping with women from her neighbourhood, but playing popular videogames such as "Among Us" with supporters online while more than 400,000 people watched the livestream on her Twitch channel, or visiting people's islands on Animal Crossing also helped her reaching out to voters), to the fact that she believes in the dignity of working, having worked for a living herself and having lived on the edge of poverty.
Ocasio-Cortez has also shown her courage in bravely standing up against harassment. In July Florida Republican Ted Yoho attacked her calling her a "fucking bitch" on the steps of the US Capitol. Her response to the ugly incident delivered on the floor of the House of Representatives, dressed in a flaming red jacket with matching red lipstick (her signature Stila's Stay All Day Liquid, Beso shade turned her into a bit of a beauty icon, but her beauty routine video on Vogue was more an uplifting message encouraging women to feel beautiful and find the power rather than just a mere video about beauty products) attacked the patriarchy and sexism in Congress.
Conservative may hate her (and in the interview in Vanity Fair she also speaks about the multiple death threats she has received since she was elected) and cast the Puerto Rican Democratic Socialist as a devilish woman, but go on Etsy and you will easily find T-shirts, sweats, stickers and votive candles dedicated to her, next to gadgets with Frida Kahlo and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Will there be a 2024 primary between Kamala Harris and AOC? Still too early to say, but thanks to women like her, more young, progressive, working-class women of colour are also being inspired to run for office and The Squad is growing: Cori Bush, a nurse and single parent from Missouri, has just been elected to Missouri's 1st Congressional District. A Democrat, she is also the first Black Congresswoman in the history of Missouri, showing that, while we may not know the results of the US Presidential elections yet, the forces of changes are luckily, slowly yet relentlessly, growing in numbers.
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