You may have heard that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently endorsed Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. That’s not exactly a surprise since he’s running as an incumbent with no serious opposition. In other words, Bernie isn’t in the race this time around. Still, Freddie deBoer argues it’s not just the endorsement it’s how she did it that felt like a concession to the moderate party she—the revolutionary outsider— has bucked many times in the past.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent appearance on the Pod Save America podcast had, for me, the feeling of a final disappointment, the kind that’s a little sad but brings a set of quixotic hopes to a close. AOC appeared on the popular Crooked Media show to announce her endorsement of Joe Biden for president in the 2024 election. To deliver that particular endorsement while appearing on that particular podcast — where former Obama-administration staffers define the limits of acceptable left-of-center opinion — was to send a very deliberate message. It was AOC’s last kiss-off to the radicals who had supported her, voted for her, donated to her campaign, and made her unusually famous in American politics, the beneficiary of a wholly unique cult of personality that is now starting to come undone.

From there deBoer is off, making a whole bunch of comparisons between the Democratic Socialist AOC and the much more muted and careful politician she is today. For instance, remember these images? This was AOC in 2018 when she was a leftist unknown.

Before @AOC hit the national stage & was just a fairly unknown House candidate frm NYC,she took time awy frm her campaign & came dwn to #Tornillo to protest the #tentcity housing migrant children.I made these previously unpublished fotos a yr ago today. #elpaso #aoc #onassignment pic.twitter.com/SWyyI1XVt9

— Ivan Pierre Aguirre : 🥑 (@i_p_a_1) June 25, 2019

Jump forward a few years and the white outfit has morphed into this:

AOC's Met Gala appearance sparks new 'GALA' law https://t.co/JYtyznRTa0 pic.twitter.com/nq6hQObFJB

— New York Post (@nypost) September 17, 2021

Here’s how deBoer frames it:

…it was a bit depressing, but not at all surprising, to see this champion of the working class at an event in which celebrities wandered around unmasked while their many servants dutifully wore masks to prevent the spread of COVID. Politicians, even lefty politicians, go to fancy events and hobnob with the ruling class; it’s a fact of life. But Ocasio-Cortez tried to have it both ways: she wore white again, this time a dress emblazoned with the words “Tax the Rich” in bright red. And this made her opportunity to rub shoulders with the one percent a matter of direct hypocrisy. It’s one thing to go to the party; it’s another to blare out a message that you disapprove of the party while you’re there.

She hasn’t completely given up on saying no to the party but her decisions about when to do so seem almost random. She voted for the American Rescue Plan even though it didn’t have the increased minimum wage she wanted. And when it came to her opposition to the Iron Dome funding bill, she voted present rather than opposing it (it won by an overwhelming margin so it didn’t matter either way).

Ocasio-Cortez once said, “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party,” an assertion of her distaste for the Democratic Party. Now she seems increasingly comfortable with leaving her past radical branding behind. If she wants to be a docile Democratic senator one day, she should. Just drop the wince-inducing efforts to have it both ways.

Typically, when I criticize Ocasio-Cortez, the response is not to argue that she has actually acted deftly as a politician, much less that she’s demonstrated any consistency between her statements and her actions. Instead, I’m constantly told that the problem lies in expecting anything from her at all. Hey, she’s just one congresswoman! She’s hemmed in by her party and an undemocratic system! She’s constrained by capitalism! Again and again, I’ve been told that asking Ocasio-Cortez for minimal ideological consistency or, even worse, results, is simply to ask too much.

But this defense immediately suggests a rather damning question: If AOC never had a chance to do anything … what have we been celebrating her for? Why has she been subject to such immense, embarrassing hagiography?

As deBoer goes on to say, if there are no results to show for all of this then it’s fair to ask where all the money has gone and why the left keep sending more. His theory is that the disinclination to question AOC’s usefulness in the scheme of things is really backstopped by a greater unwillingness to question Bernie’s role. If you start asking what she’s accomplished you might next have to ask what he’s accomplished and in both cases the answer is not much.

DeBoer notes that Bernie’s “favorability among American leftists exceeds that of Santa Claus.” It’s an apt comparison since they’re both popular for the same reason, i.e. they both cheerfully distribute gifts from a bottomless magic bag. Santa says the toys come from the elves at the North Pole and Bernie says everything comes from the billionaires. Neither story withstands much scrutiny for those over the age of nine.

In any case, deBoer concludes that despite years of big talk, elected socialists haven’t accomplished much because they are so few. Socialism’s appeal just hasn’t spread to the heartland the way it was supposed to. Maybe that will change one day but in the meantime, AOC seems to have realized her radical appeal is somewhat limited. If she wants to be in the Senate one day she needs to bring it down a notch.