Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) handed her party a problem it spent Sunday morning refusing to answer when she laughed off a slate of far-left policy positions as the excesses of &#8220;Woke 1.&#8221;
Two of the biggest Sunday shows put Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s remark to Democratic guests as a loyalty test, and both guests gave a near-identical non-answer. NBC&#8217;s Kristen Welker and CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper each raised it on &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EukfmKkYwS4">Meet the Press</a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCBVnEyVdwQ">State of the Union</a>,&#8221; respectively.
Welker put the question to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) directly, quoting Ocasio-Cortez and asking whether he agreed.
&#8220;She said &#8216;Woke 1 was crazy,&#8217; effectively suggesting some progressive views just went too far in the 2020s,&#8221; Welker said. &#8220;Do you agree with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that Woke 1 was crazy?&#8221;
&#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t know what these labels mean,&#8221; Khanna replied, immediately pivoting to a recitation of his own record: &#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you what I&#8217;ve always stood for. I have never been for defunding police.&#8221; He went on to volunteer that he has &#8220;called for abolishing ICE.&#8221;
Welker followed up by asking about Francesca Hong — the Madison democratic socialist who narrowly lost Wisconsin&#8217;s Democratic gubernatorial primary on Tuesday — and the resurfaced post in which she called for getting rid of Thanksgiving. &#8220;Did that kind of rhetoric hurt the progressive cause?&#8221; she asked.
Khanna refused to give an inch. &#8220;I really feel bad for what happened to Francesca. And I know it&#8217;s fashionable to distance yourself. I am not,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I was proud to endorse her and she&#8217;s far more than the caricature that was presented.&#8221;
Notably, Ocasio-Cortez herself never endorsed Hong. Asked in the same ABC News <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwAnMLBSOw">interview</a> that produced the &#8220;Woke 1&#8221; line whether she would, she said her focus was &#8220;winning back the Congress&#8221; — putting her in line with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the national Democratic Socialists of America, all of whom stayed out. Khanna did not.
On &#8220;State of the Union,&#8221; Tapper raised an almost identical line of questioning with Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD), referencing Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s comments and pressing Moore for his view.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Democrat Governor of Maryland Wes Moore plays dumb when asked if Democrats went too far by calling to defund the police:
“I said I don’t know what woke 1 is, but frankly I don&#8217;t know what woke 2 or woke 3 is either.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/PFVN265qYw">pic.twitter.com/PFVN265qYw</a>
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://x.com/RNCResearch/status/2088985603874463944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 16, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems to have acknowledged the overreach of the 2020 era of progressivism last week. She said, quote, &#8216;Woke 1 was crazy,'&#8221; Tapper said. &#8220;You were asked about that. You said you didn&#8217;t know what Woke 1 was. So I&#8217;ve been trying to figure out how to ask this question. There&#8217;s no official definition. I think Woke 1 generally refers to what are now viewed as excesses of the progressive movement — defund the police, a far-left view of the world that views the world in terms of only oppressor and oppressee, language policing, holiday policing, cancel culture positions that turned off a lot of middle-of-the-road voters. What is your take on that era, even if that wasn&#8217;t part of how you ran or thought or governed — and what does the Democratic Party need to do if they hope to win outside of blue states and congressional districts?&#8221;
Moore took a position almost identical to Khanna&#8217;s, replying, &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s funny, it&#8217;s true — I said I don&#8217;t know what Woke 1 is, but frankly, I don&#8217;t know what Woke 2 or Woke 3 is either.&#8221; Moore then pivoted to gas prices, recounting a conversation with a woman at a Delmarva Shorebirds game who told him she can&#8217;t afford to drive to her doctor&#8217;s appointments. Tapper did not follow up.
Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aoc-has-an-excuse-for-the-lefts-most-radical-woke-1-era">further popularized the phrase</a> during an August 9 appearance on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week,&#8221; where she too was attempting to put some distance between herself and the less popular policies of the far left. Anchor Jonathan Karl had asked her about Hong&#8217;s record. The line wasn&#8217;t hers: she borrowed it from New York City Councilman Chi Ossé, a fellow socialist who deployed it in May while explaining away his own 2021 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/09/nyregion/nyc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-freezing-eggs.html">declaration</a> that &#8220;a cis white man should not be the next speaker of the Council.&#8221;
“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy,&#8217;” Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwAnMLBSOw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Karl</a> during an interview. “What’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.”
She went on to blame the pandemic for the era&#8217;s excesses while insisting the debates it produced were worthwhile.
&#8220;I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful,&#8221; she said.

Maryland Gov. Moore And Utah Gov. Cox Speak At National Press Club On Bipartisanship

Democrats Suddenly Can’t Define ‘Woke’ After AOC Says It Was ‘Crazy’

Dems Scramble To Break Free Of AOC's 'Woke 1' Label

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Jake Tapper

Kristen Welker

Media

Politics

Ro Khanna

Wes Moore

Woke Culture

Over the weekend, AOC announced to the world that she is freezing her eggs. She claims the message “educates” and “empowers” women. It does not. Her unsolicited declaration perpetuates a myth that women can have the ideal life whenever they want without consequence. It also makes it likely that even more children will grow up in fatherless homes.
The democratic socialist congresswoman’s decision was surprising to many people given her 11-year relationship and four-year engagement to fiancé Riley Roberts. Freezing your eggs at 36 when you already have a partner you claim to love seems unnecessary and raised suspicions. The media later reported that the couple quietly <a href="https://x.com/TMZ/status/2087294265843908813?s=20">ended their relationship two years ago.</a>
If true, AOC’s motives are even more transparent. In addition to clicks and attention, she wants insurance for the moment when she does decide to have a family that she’ll have viable eggs to do so — even if there is no man in the picture.
With their “pro-family at any age” argument, some <a href="https://x.com/LydiaMoynihan/status/2086821381044305933?s=20">conservatives are condemning those who criticize AOC’s choices</a>. Conservatives cannot be the pro-family party without supporting egg freezing, they say.
What they fail to acknowledge is that encouraging women to freeze their eggs opens the door to an influx of fatherless children. Nothing could be less “pro-family” or worse for society than that. <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/do-two-parents-matter-more-than-ever">Research</a> shows that children raised in a two-parent household — specifically with a mother and a father — find more success in life, whether that be educational, financial, health, or emotional.
Feminism succeeded in convincing women that financial gain, upward mobility, and independence were admirable goals — more admirable than finding a partner and starting a family. Thus, America is now filled with so many successful, independent, and single women that it’s often called the “<a href="https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/womens-impact-on-the-economy">Sheconomy</a>.” Women comprise nearly half the U.S. labor force, and single women, almost a quarter.
Many women wear this status as a badge of honor. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lPQZni7I18">Songs are written</a> to glamorize it. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJfhrLoQl5w">Movies are produced</a> to sell it. However, it has also made finding a worthy partner more challenging for these women.
They no longer choose a partner for financial stability or a man’s ability to be a good father. They choose based on credentials that are often difficult to meet, adopting a romanticized version of love sold by Hollywood.
Women still tend to want to “<a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/krCGqdc9BYk?si=TCkuFo6JW8jI3_Iw">marry up</a>,” but when they already have successful careers, a house, and multiple degrees, the bar is very high for most men to clear. Many women say they can’t find a mate that meets their standards.
Feminism has taught women that, in fact, they don’t need a man and then, through policy and cultural shifts, concocted a society to make that possible, even without large paychecks.
Yet, biology is real, and women can’t outrun Father Time or Mother Nature. That clock will start ticking. Why not have a child without a father? they ask. A woman like AOC can now afford it on her own (or with likely <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/10/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-announces-actions-to-lower-costs-and-expand-access-to-in-vitro-fertilization-ivf-and-high-quality-fertility-care/">increasing government subsidies</a>), culture has told her it’s “bad ass” and “empowering” to freeze her eggs, and science has figured out how to impregnate her without a husband, calling it “reproductive care.”
This puts the desires of adults before the needs of children, as <a href="https://x.com/Katy_Faust/status/2086847676000485652?s=20">Katy Faust</a>, founder of <a href="https://thembeforeus.com/">Them Before Us</a>, often points out. The purpose of a marriage is the “establishment of an environment that’s beneficial to children,” <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/gP79Xb0kznA?si=AXgjaRU2T1ZImtyV">Jordan Peterson says</a>, not the happiness of the husband and wife.
Society has delayed and then medicalized the most natural part of a woman’s life cycle — getting married and having children. It seems the harder we try to optimize women’s lives, the <a href="https://theworlddata.com/womens-mental-health-statistics-in-us/">more miserable they are</a>.
Rather than manufacturing unnatural solutions to today’s <a href="https://ifstudies.org/report-brief/the-demographic-dead-end-2026-state-of-fertility-report">declining replacement rates</a>, health agencies and researchers should focus on uncovering the <a href="https://www.factsaboutfertility.org/">root causes</a> of delayed marriage and inability to conceive, and <a href="https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/report/saving-america-saving-the-family-foundation-the-next-250-years">restore the proper purpose of marriage</a>.
Science has done many wonderful things, but redefining family and re-engineering the natural order and goodness of family is not one of them.
The <a href="https://a.co/d/0jc0UaZZ">first and most crucial bond</a> for a healthy society is marriage and the natural family. Disrupting it places primacy on the state, which is why our country has found itself increasingly engulfed by federal policy and bureaucratic solutions.
Maybe this is why AOC is encouraging women to freeze eggs, even with the potential financial and health risks involved. More women having babies without fathers means more opportunities for the state to step in.
A home with a mother and a father in a loving relationship is the best scenario to raise a healthy child. While that is not always possible, freezing eggs will not get us closer to that ideal situation — it will push us further away. AOC’s choices are not a model to uphold.
***
Jennifer Galardi is a Senior Policy Analyst for Restoring American Wellness at the Heritage Foundation.

Egg storage for IVF

Freezing Eggs Is One Step Toward A Fatherless Dystopia

DW Opinion

Traditional family

Traditional Marriage

After backlash to her egg-freezing stunt this week, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went after conservative men.
In a rambling video following her social media post in which she showed herself freezing her eggs, the 36-year-old unmarried leftist pivoted from personal fertility updates to an all-out assault on Right-wing men, accusing them of creating a culture that devalues women and pressures them into dynamic-skewed relationships.
Instead of sticking to biological facts or policy solutions, Ocasio-Cortez spent most of her post cooking up a sweeping, evidence-free indictment of conservative dating dynamics and male behavior.
Ocasio-Cortez invented a bizarre conspiracy, claiming conservative culture doesn&#8217;t just encourage early marriage, but secretly pressures young women to marry men much older than them because Right-wingers &#8220;aren&#8217;t pressuring men to be ready&#8221; at young ages.
&#8220;I do think there&#8217;s a certain amount of anxiety or stress that can come with feeling like you are in a race against biology that men simply don&#8217;t have to engage in,&#8221; she said. &#8220;In straight relationships, who are women supposed to be having babies with? So naturally, they want you to then not only have kids young but implicit in that have kids young with someone much older than you. Because the piece that they aren&#8217;t talking about, they aren&#8217;t pressuring men to be ready to have a baby as young as the way that they are pressuring women to have a baby when they&#8217;re young.&#8221;
The congresswoman flatly declared that Right-wing culture does &#8220;nothing to make sure that men &#8230; respect and value women,&#8221; ascribing uniform, toxic behavior to tens of millions of American men without a single shred of proof.
&#8220;For all of these Right-wing people, who are harping about women having to and needing to have families at a young age — and again, if that&#8217;s your choice, that&#8217;s amazing — but they are doing nothing to make sure that men in their culture respect and value women,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez added. &#8220;In fact, many of their biggest examples are of men who treat women horribly.&#8221;
Of course, Ocasio-Cortez conveniently refused to name a single figure, leaving her accusations vague, unsubstantiated, and impossible to refute.
She insisted that how male conservative politicians speak about women translates directly into broader societal harm and toxic dating conditions, declaring that women are taking notice because &#8220;that stuff doesn&#8217;t stay there.&#8221;
Capping off her tirade against conservative men, Ocasio-Cortez skipped any real evidence and opted for a dramatic moral warning: &#8220;God don&#8217;t like ugly.&#8221;
Rather than addressing genuine discussions around family formation or fertility timelines, she chose to reduce a deeply personal medical choice into a partisan culture-war attack against conservative men. All she left behind was hot takes, strawmen, and zero actual evidence.

House Backs Trump Iran War Budget Despite Midterm Election Fears

AOC Cooks Up Right-Wing Dating Conspiracy After Egg-Freezing Backlash

babies

Children

Conservative Men

Dating

Relationships

Women

Francesca Hong’s stunning defeat in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary has triggered a bitter debate on the Left, with some prominent Democrats and activists arguing that the socialist candidate’s loss may ultimately be good for their movement.
Hong, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, entered Tuesday’s primary as the heavy favorite after surging to the top of the field. But Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who reentered the race just weeks before the election with the backing of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/david-crowley-stuns-socialist-frontrunner-in-wisconsin-dem-governor-primary?author=Daily+Wire+News&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Socialist+Frontrunner%E2%80%99s+Stunning+Collapse+Hands+Wisconsin+Dems+A+November+Lifeline">pulled off the upset</a> by roughly 3,000 votes.
The razor-thin loss has exposed a divide within the Left over whether Hong’s campaign represented a missed opportunity for the burgeoning socialist movement or a warning about the limits of its appeal in a battleground state. 
“There’s a reason the institutional left mostly stayed away,” one Democratic operative who works with left-wing campaigns told <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/12/dsa-progressive-francesca-hong-wisconsin-01035101">Politico</a>. “The people who made those calls are relieved.”
A donor adviser who works with left-wing candidates similarly described Hong’s loss as “a good thing for the movement,” arguing that the results showed voters may be receptive to left-wing policies, but that candidate quality still matters. 
“This is a far better outcome,” the adviser said, arguing that a candidate who avoided some of Hong’s more controversial statements could have won.
The reluctance of the Democratic Party’s most prominent socialist figures to back Hong has become a major source of anger among her supporters. 
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dsas-anti-thanksgiving-governor-candidate-is-even-too-far-for-bernie?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=DSA%E2%80%99s+Anti-Thanksgiving+Governor+Candidate+Is+Even+Too+Far+For+Bernie">declined</a> to endorse Hong despite her commanding poll position, while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also declined to get involved.
Their absence stood in sharp contrast to the national support given to other left-wing candidates this year, including Sanders-backed Minnesota Senate candidate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/candidate-known-for-pro-trans-knife-shirt-defeats-dem-establishment-pick-in-senate-race">Peggy Flanagan</a> and Michigan Senate candidate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/abdul-el-sayed-secures-far-lefts-biggest-victory-yet-over-dem-establishment">Abdul El-Sayed</a>— both won their primaries.
“This movement will fail if we see more letdowns at the critical moment, like we saw in this race,” said Nathan J. Robinson, editor of the leftist magazine Current Affairs. “Especially if AOC wants to be taken seriously as a national leader of the left movement, she needs to actually support the candidates out there who have a chance to notch victories.”
DSA political operative Deep Singh Badhesha similarly argued that the race could have ended differently if Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez had intervened. 
“Wisconsin being this close is very frustrating because folks like AOC and Bernie Sanders stayed out,” Badhesha said. “If they just did one rally in Wisconsin for Hong, that would have probably wrapped it up for her.”
But Hong’s defeat was not merely a consequence of a lack of national support. Her campaign was dogged by a series of controversial past statements that gave Democrats concerned about the November general election ample reason to keep their distance.
Hong previously called for Thanksgiving to be canceled, wrote that police “exist to uphold white supremacy” and should be “defund[ed] then abolish[ed],” and made controversial comments about race and American culture. The controversy became particularly damaging in the final weeks of the campaign, as Crowley successfully framed himself as the more electable Democrat in a state where Republicans are eager to reclaim the governor’s mansion.
Even Evers, who ultimately backed Crowley, warned that Hong was putting too much emphasis on controversies surrounding her social media posts. 
“I think she’s in a tough place,” Evers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/from-piker-to-bernie-nobody-wants-to-be-seen-with-francesca-hong?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=From+Piker+To+Bernie%2C+Nobody+Wants+To+Be+Seen+With+Francesca+Hong">said</a> before the election. “She has spent her entire campaign dealing not with the issues, but what’s on the Twitter.”
Hong’s loss also comes amid a broader debate over whether a string of recent Democratic primary victories represents a genuine socialist insurgency or simply a series of candidate-specific successes. 
Still, not everyone on the Left views the result as a setback. Hasan Piker, the left-wing streamer who campaigned heavily for Hong, <a href="https://x.com/DSA_Watch/status/2087610635026886950">argued</a> Wednesday that the campaign’s ability to generate significant turnout without support from Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez or major establishment Democrats was itself an accomplishment. 
“The fact that she was able to, alongside the local DSA chapters, the fact that this campaign was able to bring this much turnout is incredible,” Piker said. “Do not let anybody discourage you.”
For Hong’s most committed supporters, however, the frustration is increasingly directed toward the national leaders who they believe abandoned a candidate who had a genuine chance to win.
For other Democrats on the Left, the lesson is almost the opposite: Hong’s defeat may have prevented a potentially damaging general election campaign and demonstrated that the party’s most radical candidates still face significant limits when they move beyond deep-blue districts and into statewide battlegrounds.
Crowley will now face Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany in November, with both parties fighting for control of Wisconsin’s governor’s mansion after Evers announced he would not seek another term.

Gubernatorial Candidate Francesca Hong Holds A Campaign Rally In Milwaukee

Hong’s Stunning Loss Has The Left Breathing A Sigh Of Relief

2026 midterm

2026 Midterms

2026 primaries

Abdul El-Sayed

Anti-capitalist

Bernie Sanders

Democrat civil war

Democratic Party

Democratic Socialism

Democratic Socialists Of America

Democrats

Francesca Hong

Hasan Piker

Peggy Flanagan

Socialism

Wisconsin

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is demanding that the nation’s leading artificial intelligence companies immediately pause development, warning that Congress will intervene if they refuse to slow down.
Sanders sent a <a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/AI-Pause-Letter-FINAL.pdf">letter</a> Monday to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, arguing that recent incidents in which companies lost control of AI models, along with researchers&#8217; use of AI to create new viruses, show that the technology has reached a dangerous threshold. 
“Mr. Altman, Mr. Amodei and Mr. Zuckerberg: In the interest of humanity, stand by your words. Pause AI development,” Sanders wrote. “It is not too late to avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control.”
“Let me be very clear: If you do not take appropriate action now, my colleagues and I in the U.S. Senate will,” he concluded.
Sanders pointed to recent disclosures involving OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta in which AI models acted outside their intended parameters, including instances in which models hacked into other companies’ computer systems. 
He also cited a recent study in which researchers used AI to create <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ai-just-created-viruses-never-before-seen-on-earth">new viruses</a>, warning that the technology in the wrong hands could be used to develop bioweapons capable of killing “tens of millions of people.”
“These technology leaders recently called for the international community to create a safety mechanism — a pause button — to avoid catastrophe,” Sanders wrote. “And yet, at a moment when we have seen human loss of control and the creation of potentially dangerous viruses, your companies are still racing ahead.”
Sanders argued that the companies are violating their own previous commitments to halt or slow development if their systems become too dangerous to control. 
Anthropic previously said it would “commit to pause the scaling and/or delay the deployment of new models” if its ability to scale AI outpaced its ability to comply with its safety procedures — a statement it withdrew in February. Meta said in 2025 that it would stop development if a frontier AI system reached a critical risk threshold that could not be mitigated.
OpenAI similarly pledged to halt further development if AI capabilities reached a “critical” threshold until adequate safeguards were implemented. 
“That moment is here,” Sanders argued. “AI capabilities HAVE reached a critical threshold.”
His demand comes as some of the people developing the world&#8217;s most advanced AI systems are themselves calling for mechanisms to slow the technology if its development begins moving too quickly.
More than 1,100 employees at companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google signed a statement last month urging the United States to back an international effort to build the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace frontier AI development.
OpenAI also <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/08/07/openai-astra-model-delay-cybersecurity-risks">announced</a> last week that it was slowing the release of its new Astra model after concerns about its cybersecurity capabilities.
Sanders has previously pushed for a moratorium on AI data center construction, arguing that the government needs time to establish stronger safeguards around the technology. He <a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-ocasio-cortez-announce-ai-data-center-moratorium-act/">introduced legislation</a> with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) earlier this year that would pause construction of new AI data centers until federal safeguards were established.
 His latest demand would go substantially further, targeting the development of the AI models themselves.
The push also puts Sanders at odds with the Trump administration&#8217;s broader approach to AI, which has emphasized maintaining American technology leadership and competing with China.
Sanders did not specify what congressional action he and other senators would pursue if the companies refuse to pause development.
For now, Sanders is putting the industry on notice: He wants the companies to stop developing increasingly powerful AI systems — or he says Congress will do it for them.

New York Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Holds Election Rally With Bernie Sanders And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Bernie Sanders Demands Companies ‘Pause AI Development’ ‘In The Interest Of Humanity’

Anthropic

Artificial Intelligence

Mark Zuckerberg

Open AI

OpenAI

Sam altman

“This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” said Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) about her decision to freeze her eggs, a process she recently chose to livestream on her Instagram account. She went so far as to post a video of herself injecting fertility medications in a green room before going on ABC News’ “This Week” and formally announcing her decision on the show.
The idea that egg freezing allows women to gain more control over their lives is popular, and it&#8217;s certainly a comfort to many women who feel they aren&#8217;t ready for motherhood but don&#8217;t want to forgo that potential. However, for many women that sense of control is at least in part an illusion.
The process for freezing eggs is invasive — involving not only the injections that AOC showed herself taking (which are also often taken by women who are trying to conceive naturally), but an additional surgery for the egg retrieval itself, which can cause <a href="https://jfredrickson.com/how-much-money-did-my-unborn-child-make-you/">severe side effects</a> in extreme cases. <a href="https://www.fertstert.org/action/showPdf?pii=S0015-0282%2824%2900593-4">Only around 11% of patients</a> use their eggs within seven years, implying that most women who freeze their eggs either conceive naturally or choose not to have children at all. Of those who do use their frozen eggs, only around 29% report a live birth from egg freezing across all patients (although patients who are younger in age or have more frozen eggs have much higher success rates). That’s not even taking into consideration the financial cost of the procedure and the additional cost of the storage on top of that — <a href="https://www.fertilityiq.com/fertilityiq/articles/the-costs-of-egg-freezing">usually around</a> $15,000-20,000 upfront for the initial storage, and then $500-1000 annually after that so long as a woman chooses to keep her eggs frozen.
Is that physical and financial toll worth it for the cancer patient who wants to preserve her fertility? Or the woman who has lifelong medical issues that make natural conception difficult anyway? Without a doubt. But when it comes to the average, otherwise healthy woman who thinks this is a way to kick the can down the road indefinitely — maybe because she’s still waiting for the right man, maybe because she isn’t sure if she wants kids now but thinks she might at some point in the future — the calculus shifts: Egg freezing might still be the right individual decision for her (ultimately, only each individual woman can make that decision for herself), but it’s less of an obvious answer. That’s why it’s so important for those who have platforms to be honest about what egg freezing is — and what it isn’t.
This is what AOC claimed she was doing, <a href="https://abcnews.com/Politics/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-opens-decision-freeze-eggs/story?id=135496654">telling</a> ABC News, “In this political environment where this administration is denying reproductive care to women across the country, from abortion rights to the ability to carry out a healthy pregnancy, I think it&#8217;s important for us as leaders to have these conversations and share these processes, especially for working women across the country and normalize them.”
Well, maybe egg freezing is truly a political decision for her. That shouldn’t be surprising in her case: She’s one of the 535 most powerful people in the country, and even among them is one of the handful of congresspeople who’s a household name. Whether you love her or can’t stand her, you have to admit she’s great at social media and getting her name everywhere. There’s a good chance she might want to run for her party’s nomination in 2028, seeing that she is, for the first time, old enough to run, at 36 today and 39 by Inauguration Day 2029.
That is clearly a unique position to be in, and one that likely no other person in American political history has occupied: to be a woman who’s young enough to have children but old enough to be president, and politically accomplished enough that it wouldn’t be that out of the blue if she managed to pull off a win. Crazier things have happened.
Beyond that, she’s been in a relationship with her college sweetheart for around 15 years and engaged to him for over four years. It would be impolite to speculate as to why they haven’t gotten married yet or had children yet, but, hey, we can shrug and say: Elites, they’re not like the rest of us.
And yet that&#8217;s exactly the issue here. AOC claimed to be speaking to &#8220;working women&#8221; by posting her egg-freezing journey online, but she&#8217;s too far removed from their day-to-day concerns to grasp how unique her situation is, despite feigning &#8220;relatability.” The truth is, the average 36-year-old with a fiancé she&#8217;s dated for nearly half her life and been engaged to for four years is not a famous congresswoman eyeing a presidential bid, but is very likely a woman in a dead-end relationship who might be feeling more immediate desperation to start a family. Maybe she&#8217;d benefit from freezing her eggs, maybe not, but independent of that choice, the biggest question facing her is whether or not her fiancé will marry her and have kids with her now, or whether she’ll cut him loose and find someone who will.
In other words, AOC is pushing a luxury belief: the lifestyle she’s promoting of endless, timeless choice — even as pregnancy statistically becomes more and more difficult for the average woman with age, especially for those who are financially constrained and can only afford so many cycles of IVF — is not going to work for most normal women, whose preferences are necessarily shaped by the fact that they, unlike AOC, are not rich and famous and powerful. 
Here’s one place where AOC could use her position in society to help ordinary women who are desperately seeking IVF: The Trump administration has championed IVF accessibility, with a particular focus on lowering costs of commonly prescribed fertility medications through TrumpRx. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services even <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/profile/after-two-ectopic-pregnancies-ivf-gave-this-oklahoma-woman-the-family-she-thought-she-had-lost/">estimate</a> savings of up to $2,200 per cycle on medication, which is a huge amount in savings for hardworking couples trying to expand their families. Rather than pretending that the Trump administration has been uniquely against IVF and other fertility treatments, AOC could reach out across the aisle and help the women she claims to champion.
Let’s hope she puts aside partisan politics and gets to work instead of posting stories on Instagram so more Americans can have the babies they want. And let’s also hope things work out for her and she can have the babies she wants, too.
***
Neeraja Deshpande is a policy analyst at <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/">Independent Women</a>.
<div class="css-1kja2d9">
<div id="post-body-text" class="css-1tho4p7">
<div class="eu6cqno0 css-jpqt6g" data-narration-container="true">
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
</div>
</div>
</div>

Gemini_Generated_Image_d3yt0fd3yt0fd3yt

AOC Is Selling Women A Dream That Comes With A Brutal Reality

Fertility

freezing eggs

Pregnancy

Upstream

The protean and openly conservative actor James Woods, whose award-winning career has included multiple memorable performances, unloaded a brutal salvo at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) after the radical Squad leader tried to laugh off her &#8220;crazy&#8221; woke past like a bad fashion trend.
The fiery Hollywood veteran ripped the socialist congresswoman on X after she skipped onto ABC’s &#8220;This Week&#8221; and attempted to scrub her radical record. Cornered over extreme Left-wing proposals such as abolishing prisons and axing Thanksgiving, Ocasio-Cortez giggled away her <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/09/aoc-defund-the-police-slogan-should-not-be-repackaged-to-make-it-palatable-for-affluent-white-people/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">past support</a> for issues such as defunding the police, brushing off the outrage, saying, “I have a local city councilman that has this saying, &#8216;Woke 1 was crazy,&#8217; and I think that what’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.&#8221;
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) immediately torched AOC’s sudden pivot, warning the Bronx Democrat that she can&#8217;t just shove radical leftism down voters&#8217; throats and laugh it off when the politics get tough.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I wonder why <a href="https://x.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> suddenly wants to walk back her calls to defund the police.
You don’t get to shove radical leftism down Americans’ throats, then laugh it off when it no longer serves your political interests. She can’t hide from her socialist record.<a href="https://t.co/G98FckYC8I">https://t.co/G98FckYC8I</a>
&mdash; Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) <a href="https://x.com/MarshaBlackburn/status/2086798794386264417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Then came Woods, dropping a bunker-buster on AOC&#8217;s die-hard supporters:
&nbsp;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-1154847 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074439.639-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074439.639-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074439.639-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074439.639-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074439.639.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></div>
&nbsp;
It’s far from the first time Woods has taken an axe to Ocasio-Cortez’s ego. Back in 2019, she gleefully tweeted that she and her compatriots were &#8220;in charge.&#8221; Woods fired back with a fusillade reducing Ocasio-Cortez’s claim to rubble, pointing out some basic facts of what it means to be an American, and even more specifically, a political representative in Congress. Just for good measure, he gave her a brief history lesson, quipping, “If you ever learn to read, look it up.”
&nbsp;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-1154849 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074614.908-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074614.908-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074614.908-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074614.908-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Untitled-design-2026-08-11T074614.908.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></div>
&nbsp;
Ocasio-Cortez set herself up by tweeting, “Yup. If you don’t like the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GreenNewDeal?src=hash">#GreenNewDeal</a>, then come up with your own ambitious, on-scale proposal to address the global climate crisis. Until then, we’re in charge — and you’re just shouting from the cheap seats.”
Woods shot back, “So, you may have missed this, but the way it works in America is YOU work for US. The last time somebody told Americans to sit down and shut up was 1776. If you ever learn to read, look it up. You are not only [an] idiot, you’re an arrogant idiot, and there is nothing more dangerous.”
Woods&#8217; career has included his mesmerizing Emmy-award performances in &#8220;Promise&#8221; and &#8220;My Name Is Bill W.&#8221; — along with his Oscar-nominated performances in &#8220;Salvador&#8221; and &#8220;Ghosts of Mississippi.&#8221; Other standout performances include &#8220;The Onion Field,&#8221; &#8220;Holocaust,&#8221; &#8220;Once Upon A Time In America,&#8221; &#8220;Citizen Cohn,&#8221; and &#8220;Nixon.&#8221;

James Woods

James Woods Unleashes Ferocious Mockery Of AOC’s ‘Useful Idiots’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) plans to freeze her eggs reignited questions over the weekend as to why she has yet to tie the knot with her longtime boyfriend despite being engaged since 2022.
The New York socialist and potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate previously <a href="https://www.congress.gov/119/crpt/hrpt219/CRPT-119hrpt219.pdf">faced criticism</a> from the House Ethics Committee for describing partner Riley Roberts as her “spouse” while not being married. As Washington Free Beacon investigative reporter Andrew Kerr <a href="https://x.com/AndrewKerrNC/status/2086616392715964815?s=46&amp;t=o-U3qwC25WnWaylJ0oeG7Q">noted</a> Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez does not have to disclose Roberts&#8217; financial interests as long as they are not legally married.
“Roberts is immune from AOC’s own bills that would ban the spouses of members of Congress from trading stocks … so long as they remain unmarried,” Kerr wrote on X. “No mystery why she’ll never tie the knot with this guy while she serves in Congress.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“Why isnt AOC married after being engaged to Riley Roberts after 4+ years?”
She’s hiding his finances from the public. That’s why.
So long as they remain legally unmarried, Roberts’ stock trades remain secret.<a href="https://t.co/msI60HK7XT">https://t.co/msI60HK7XT</a>
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) <a href="https://x.com/AndrewKerrNC/status/2086616392715964815?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
AOC, who has positioned herself as an ethics-minded congressional crusader, introduced a bill in January 2025 that would ban individual stock trading for members of Congress and their spouses or dependents. The proposal does not mention partners or longtime romantic interests.
Still, the Bronx-based socialist has faced her own ethics problems in recent years. The House Ethics Committee found that she improperly accepted a free ticket for Roberts to the 2021 Met Gala, and that she did not pay fair market value to rent the “Tax the Rich” dress she wore to the event.
The committee “found that she failed to fully comply with the Gift Rule by impermissibly accepting a gift of free admission to the 2021 Met Gala for her partner and by failing to pay full fair market value for some of the items worn to the event.”
At the same time, investigators noted that she inconsistently referred to Roberts as her spouse depending on the situation, a footnote <a href="https://freebeacon.com/democrats/house-ethics-committee-aoc-is-manipulating-rules-to-shield-her-spouses-financial-affairs-from-the-public/">first flagged</a> by the Washington Free Beacon. AOC listed Roberts as her spouse for multiple overseas trips — despite the fact that they have not yet married — but did not list him as her spouse when disclosing her financial information.
“The committee also found evidence that Representative Ocasio-Cortez listed Mr. Roberts as her ‘spouse’ on paperwork filed with the House relating to privately sponsored travel, although the two were not legally married at the time of the gifted travel,” lawmakers found.
“The committee further notes that at the same time Representative Ocasio-Cortez was seeking to take advantage of exceptions to the Gift Rule only applicable to spouses and/or certain relatives, she was not disclosing Mr. Roberts’ financial interests as is required of Members who are legally married,” they added.
These questions about her personal life again swirled over the weekend after she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aoc-freezes-her-eggs-after-telling-others-to-question-having-kids?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=8&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=AOC+Freezes+Her+Eggs+After+Telling+Others+To+Question+Having+Kids">released</a> a series of Instagram videos on Sunday showing her taking the first steps to freeze her eggs.
“Normally, I keep my private life quite private. But I have made the decision to freeze my eggs. And I want to share this because I was weighing it for a very long time, and there isn’t a ton out there, and it can feel very daunting,” she said. “I am aware there is, very strangely, a political ‘risk’ or ‘tax’ that could come with sharing this information.”
AOC’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Holds Rally In Detroit With Sen. Bernie Sanders And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Is AOC Skipping Marriage To Hide Cash While She’s In Congress?

Congress

ethics committee

Met Gala

New York

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joked that her and other socialist politicians&#8217; calls to ‘defund the police’ were just a “crazy, Woke 1” era.
&#8220;I have a local city councilman that has this saying, &#8216;Woke 1 was crazy,'&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwAnMLBSOw">said</a> in an interview with ABC. “What’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.&#8221;
ABC News host Jon Karl had asked the congresswoman about the latest socialist backtrack, involving Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong and her comments that called for prisons to be abolished and for Thanksgiving to be canceled.
The radical statements from the Left’s self-proclaimed “Woke 1” era ranged from calls to &#8220;defund the police&#8221; to declarations like &#8220;no one is illegal on stolen land,&#8221; &#8220;homeownership is a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyc-landlords-blast-mamdani-official-who-calls-property-ownership-weapon-of-white-supremacy">weapon</a> of white supremacy,&#8221; and “all <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Vox/videos/i-still-believe-that-all-deportations-are-wrongnew-york-congressional-candidate-/4441164026124427/">deportations</a> are wrong.”
Ocasio-Cortez explained that those statements led to &#8220;fruitful&#8221; conversations. “I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful,&#8221; she said.
She tried to put some distance on that line of thinking, however, claiming that rhetoric is not the rhetoric used today. “I think that when we talk about crime today, it’s fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down, right? And I think that we all share the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.”
So far, past radical comments have not stopped self-described democratic socialists — many of whom do still embrace the rhetoric Ocasio-Cortez appears ready to abandon — from winning primaries and advancing to the general election. In New York City, democratic socialists Darializa Chevalier and Claire Valdez swept their primaries and defeated incumbent establishment Democrats, Melat Kiros won in Colorado, and Abdul El-Sayed won in Michigan.
Their success may not stop at the primaries. Prediction market Kalshi currently forecasts a Chevalier win in the general election at <a href="https://kalshi.com/tag/new-york-elections">98%</a>, a Valdez victory at 76%, a Kiros win at 97%, and an El-Sayed win at 55%. Increasingly, more and more Americans hold a positive view of socialism — with nearly <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/694835/image-capitalism-slips.aspx">40%</a> reporting they have a positive view of socialism.
Democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani proved in his 2025 election that radical statements can be successfully walked back before a general election. Mamdani had previously <a href="https://apnews.com/article/59f6a66cd40d4c2b750fdfd06a4f5da1?utm_source=chatgpt.com">advocated</a> for seizing the means of production, refused to condemn globalizing the intifada, and had described the New York City Police Department as a &#8220;racist, anti-queer, and a major threat to public safety.&#8221;
The thirty-four-year-old mayor <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/zohran-mamdani-fox-news-interview/6405385/">chalked</a> up his comments to his own emotional reaction to &#8220;the year George Floyd was killed,&#8221; saying that at the time &#8220;it felt like safety and justice had never been further apart.&#8221;
Mamdani&#8217;s win proved socialism could win a major election in the United States. And while socialism’s popularity is on the rise, capitalism’s popularity has declined, dropping 6% since 2021 to just over half — <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/694835/image-capitalism-slips.aspx">54%</a> — of Americans viewing capitalism in a favorable light.

AOC Has An Excuse For The Left’s Most Radical ‘Woke 1’ Era

Abolish the police

Defund The Police

Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced Saturday that she is freezing her eggs and filmed herself injecting hormones into her stomach, describing the decision as a “privileged” opportunity to gain more control over how she balances her personal and political life.
&#8220;Normally, I keep my private life quite private. But I have made the decision to freeze my eggs. And I want to share this because I was weighing it for a very long time, and there isn&#8217;t a ton out there, and it can feel very daunting,&#8221; the <a href="https://x.com/ABCPolitics/status/2086456076501938580?s=20">potential 2028 presidential contender</a> said. &#8220;I am aware there is, very strangely, a political &#8216;risk&#8217; or &#8216;tax&#8217; that could come with sharing this information.” 
In a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/stories/aoc/">series of Instagram posts</a>, the 36-year-old, who is childless, described to her millions of followers the “reflective mood” she has been in recently and the pressures that ultimately led to her decision.
“There&#8217;s also this flip side where you have to then grow up in the public eye, in a time that most people usually get to grow more privately,” she lamented. “And when you get elected later in life, you&#8217;ve made all of your mistakes in private. You&#8217;ve learned. You&#8217;ve grown in private. But when you get elected in public, and when you&#8217;re young, you have to do all of that in public.”
In one video, the self-described Democratic socialist is seen unboxing the medication, lifting her shirt, and injecting herself in the stomach as she begins the egg retrieval process. “Don’t be weird about this, even though I know all of you will be,” she told the camera before administering the shot. 
AOC, who was first elected to Congress at age 29, said she is documenting her fertility journey to help educate women about what she described as a lack of awareness surrounding women’s health, including puberty, pregnancy, and menopause.
On the fertility front, it’s a notable shift in tone for the Bronx leftist, who has long championed feminist causes, including abortion-on-demand, while previously telling young people to reconsider having children because of climate change.
“Our planet is going to hit disaster if we don’t turn this ship around, and so it’s basically like, there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ocasio-cortez-people-maybe-shouldnt-reproduce-due-ryan-saavedra">February 2019 Instagram live video</a>. “And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question, you know, ‘Is it okay to still have children?&#8217;”
A woman’s fertility is closely tied to the number and quality of eggs in her ovaries, with age playing a major role in egg quality. Research has found that fertility declines significantly with age, with women in their mid-30s generally having lower chances of conceiving than women in their 20s, according to <a href="https://www.trianglen.dk/en/about-fertility/female-infertility/egg-quality-and-female-age">Trianglen Fertility Clinic</a>. By the late 30s, fertility declines further, and after 41 years, the egg quality declines rapidly.
For AOC, the biological clock is ticking — and she knows it.
“I feel empowered to make this choice. I think it&#8217;s a very privileged position that I&#8217;ve been able to make, and it&#8217;s also a result of, I think, changes in technology that have also made it more financially accessible,” she said. “This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life.”

Bicameral Democrats Call For Civilian Climate Corps To Be Included In Reconciliation Process

AOC Freezes Her Eggs After Telling Others To Question Having Kids

Climate Change

News

Socialists

Moderate Democrats are bracing for &#8220;the next war&#8221; inside the party.
Jonathan Cowan, president of the group Third Way, said his organization is launching a $15 million effort running through 2028 to discredit democratic socialism, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/us/politics/democratic-party-socialists-moderates.html">reported</a> on Thursday. 
“We are preparing for the next war that is coming,” Cowan said. 
The money will fund opposition research on the Democratic Socialists of America, polling, social media programs, and work to educate Democratic activists and leaders. 
The push gained urgency after Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow win in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday. Polls before the election had pointed to a blowout. Instead, the leftist barely edged out the establishment&#8217;s pick, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), in a swing state that will also host an early presidential primary in 2028. 
Democrats had hoped to keep such wins limited to more liberal areas. El-Sayed’s nomination raised concerns that a progressive could take the party’s presidential nomination and then lose the general election.
“It is deeply troubling to see radical, far-Left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states,” Cowan told the Times.
Party leaders including Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and former Vice President Kamala Harris quickly backed El-Sayed after his primary victory.
Cowan criticized candidates who court Democratic Socialists of America organizers and energy while staying distant enough to avoid the formal label, a move he called the “DSA dodge.”
The next test for the Democratic Party comes next week. In Wisconsin, democratic socialist state Assemblywoman Francesca Hong has emerged as the party&#8217;s frontrunner for governor in another battleground state. The primary is August 11.
Moderate Democrats say the goal of their anti-socialist effort is to pinpoint radical parts of the official DSA platform, including defunding the Department of War, abolishing the police and prison system, reparations, and a 32-hour workweek. 
Liam Kerr, co-founder of the Welcome PAC, argued the far-Left has, so far, gained outsider energy and attention without the full weight of those positions.
Not every leftist won this week. Former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) lost badly in her bid to reclaim her seat. But socialist wins have stacked up, including in primaries in New York, Colorado, and now, Michigan. In Detroit, State Rep. Donavan McKinney’s primary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/first-u-s-city-on-track-for-all-dsa-house-delegation?author=Leona+Salinas&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=First+U.S.+City+On+Track+For+All-DSA+House+Delegation&amp;trueLinkId=4d2V2zBlcQS1zDhX%2BwNpOBGRnqtp4hQ7WnYsK1Zu5oBepBe6k7mV0DR2RcVplB7zmG8llYrWfwJOk5%2BeUFsWPg%3D%3D&amp;trueLinkTs=1782495158&amp;trueLinkExpiry=43200">victory</a> over incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar puts the city on track to have both House seats held by democratic socialists if he wins in November, joining Rep. Rashida Tlaib. 
El-Sayed campaigned with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and made opposition to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) central to his race. 
Maurice Mitchell of the leftist Working Families Party, who campaigned in Michigan, rejected moderate Democrats&#8217; response to the rise of socialist candidates. 
“They’re missing the plot,” he said of the moderate Democrats, adding, “There is a populist insurgency taking place in this country.”

How Some Dems Are ‘Preparing For The Next War’ Against Socialists

2026 elections

Democrat

Democratic socialists

Michigan Primary

Innovation is a good thing, so naturally, the Left is very much against it.
The Left wishes to freeze the economy, shrink the economy, and redistribute everything. Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to make the case that we should oppose data centers because they&#8217;re making people sick.
Making people sick? Based on what?
“There&#8217;s no control over the radiation that&#8217;s happening here. But what we see is that these plants produce that ash, and then they have to do something,” she bloviated. “All they&#8217;re trying to do is dump it places. Where do they dump it in places? Rural areas, poor areas, disenfranchised areas, black and brown areas.”
“Meanwhile, all these folks are getting sick,” she continued. “Guarantee you we&#8217;ve got a high Medicaid population over here. And so now they they&#8217;re profiting off of all of this, and they don&#8217;t have to pitch into the cost at all for the health care burdens that they&#8217;re —&#8221;
Does she have a single bit of evidence that data centers are making people sick? Does she have one iota of evidence about this?
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-2471?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Of course not.
The idea that they are disproportionately dumping data centers in black and brown areas is nuts. They&#8217;re putting data centers in proximity to areas where people can work on the AI, and you think they&#8217;re just going to build the data center in the middle of midtown Manhattan or something similar?
Let us look at a map on how we use our land, because we&#8217;re being told that all of our precious farmland is being eaten by the data centers. A map of the United States where each square represents roughly one million acres shows nearly the entire map is either pasture and range, cropland, or forest. There are a few special use areas and diminishingly small urban areas. The vast majority of America is population-empty. Based on the <a href="https://blog.andymasley.com/p/data-center-land-use-issues-are-fake">analysis</a> of data analyst Andy Masley, by 2028, data centers will take up exactly how many squares of the map?
3.5 squares.
According to Masley, by 2030, data center buildings will take up 1/15 of the land we use to grow Christmas trees in America. That’s roughly 0.3% of the land that we use for prime farmland.
This is just silly. The catastrophism is designed to kill the innovation. The point is not to save our precious farmland. The point is to destroy the innovation. That&#8217;s what this is all about.
Elon Musk was pointing this out. He was speaking with Zanny Beddoes of The Economist about a wide variety of issues, and he pointed out that the socialistic redistribution scheme is nonsense, and so is the envy that suggests that he isn&#8217;t paying his taxes.
“For my stock options, I pay 40% income tax on a national basis,” he revealed. “And then because I spend about 30% of my time in California, I pay another sort of roughly a third of the California state taxes, which is now around 15%. So I pay about 45% in taxes, just so people know this &#8230; it&#8217;s quite roughly half. And then when I die, there&#8217;ll be another sort of 45%, roughly half, that will be taxed. So at the end of the day, I&#8217;ll have a quarter of what I have.”
She then went after him and said people really, really hate him, clucking, “But do you see why this makes people think that this man who has all this power, he&#8217;s the world&#8217;s richest man, he thinks he has a right to influence our politics. We started this conversation saying superlatives. It&#8217;s why people loathe you. I mean, some people do loathe you.”
“Yes, some people do,” he responded.
“But do you understand why?” she continued. “Do you think what you&#8217;re doing is helpful for Western democracies?”
“Maybe some people do loathe me,” he answered. “That&#8217;s probably true. I don&#8217;t care. But the fact that, as you pointed out, a quarter billion people follow me is that I think a lot more people actually like me than don&#8217;t. And I think a lot more people hate you and the media more than you realize.”
He is not wrong.
This is one of the points that is worth making. It turns out that normie, rational Americans like things like free markets and American strength. We do.
That&#8217;s why the DSA program and those who subscribe to it, like Ocasio-Cortez, are too online.
Innovation is a hallmark of America.
We cannot let them hinder it.

Menu