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The 2007 Yorktown High School graduate drew a larger crowd than the presidential hopefuls, as she discussed her Green New Deal and other talking points to a capacity crowd of thousands.
During her one-hour talk, she touched on topics that include social and economic policy, reform ideas and what her first few whirlwind months in Congress. She also took former president Ronald Reagan to task for his treatment of minorities.
The congresswoman stated that Reagan "pitted white working-class Americans against brown and black working-class Americans to basically screw over all working-class Americans is Reaganism in the 80s when he started talking about welfare queens.”
Ocasio-Cortez went on to criticize “moderates,” saying that they “are more naive than the visionaries. They think tinkering around the edges will solve systematic problems in our democracy and economy. It’s time to rewrite the social contract, not manage decline.
“We've become so cynical that we view cynicism as an intellectual superiority. Moderate isn't a stance, it's an attitude towards life.”
Others to speak at the South by Southwest conference included Democratic presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, though Ocasio-Cortez was the only politician with a line snaking out the door.
Ocasio-Cortez also touched on other topics that included young women getting into politics, big business and capitalism, which she claims is “unsustainable.”
“We seek and prioritize profit and the accumulation of money above all else,” she said. “Above any human an environmental cost. To me, that ideology is unsustainable and it cannot be redeemed.”
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