Democratic Socialism in the USA. Who'da thought it? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If you haven't heard the name, I predict you eventually will. She is a Democrat Representative for Queens, New York. She displaced the incumbant democrat representative Joe Crowley, who was to become the next Democrat leader, and who'd been the Rep for NYC for the previous 14 years without opposition and who'd never lived there, but resided in Virginia. He'd long been bought off by big business, raking in $3 million dollars per year in handouts. This young lady has been funded by her individual supporters in Queens. She refuses corporate backing. She's been in office for 11 months and in that time has been a revelation, proposing USA's Green New Deal.
Here is an example of what she is exposing in government in her own way, challenging the House Oversight Committee to shed light on the US financial system and political corruption. Note how easily this applies to Donald Trump:
Some of this is just a bit inaccurate.
- Crowley was never "to become" anything. He would've been a possible contender for House leader, but he wouldn't have been the frontrunner, as he wasn't a particularly high profile figure.
- Most representatives, particularly those with families, maintain a residence in the Washington DC area (which Virginia is). Ocasio-Cortez does, as well. This is by necessity; you cannot commute back and forth daily, and if you have a family, leaving them behind means that you'd only see them once every couple weeks.
- The talk of "corporate handouts" completely misunderstands fundraising in the United States. First and foremost, in talking about the $3m he raised, you're looking at his campaign spending as a whole; that's not where the really pernicious corporate money flows in the American system. Receipts by campaigns themselves are strictly limited...it's really hard to buy off a candidate for a few thousand dollars. Additionally, much of that money comes from individuals, as spending is broken down by the industry for which that individual worked; ie., if you check Ocasio-Cortez, you will see that she received $43k+ from the financial securities industry, because some individuals in the financial securities industry liked her. That's not the same as corporate spending.
The real problem in corporate spending comes via what are known as Super PACs, which are vehicles for nearly unlimited, and generally untracked, spending. The differentiation is that they are nominally separate from campaigns, and thus do not have to abide by the same rules. They do not, however, really maintain that separation, opening up a tonne of room for graft and favour-trading. None of that $3m involves Super PACs.
- Despite what this suggests, Crowley was one of the more left-leaning members of the House. You'd have to be; Queens itself is quite left-leaning.
- Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has not been funded primarily by her constituents. Quite the opposite: while she is funded largely by individual donors, most of those donations came from outside of her district, and indeed outside her state. This isn't a slight on her; that's quite normal.
I actually like Ocasio-Cortez, but some of the myth-making has gotten well and truly out of hand.
(If you wish to verify any of this, go to opensecrets.org, which has a great breakdown of the funding sources for anyone who has submitted financial disclosure forms, which is anyone who has run for office).