Liz Warren’s Sad Attempt to Hitch a Ride on AOC’s Star

Well, you can file this under “No One Asked for This and No One Cares.” In a post on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (whom you may or may not recall is running for president) tried hitching her wagon to the social media superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by writing a three-paragraph mini biography of the New York congresswoman at for the annual Time 100 presentation.  

“The year 2008 was a reckoning. While millions of Americans lost their livelihoods to Wall Street’s greed, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost her dad to lung cancer, and her family fell off a financial cliff. She watched as our government bailed out Wall Street while it ignored families like hers. She learned the hard way that in America today, Washington protects the powerful while leaving hardworking people behind,” Warren wrote.

“Her commitment to putting power in the hands of the people is forged in fire,” the Native American princess continued. “Coming from a family in crisis and graduating from school with a mountain of debt, she fought back against a rigged system and emerged as a fearless leader in a movement committed to demonstrating what an economy, a planet and a government that works for everyone should look like.

“A year ago, she was taking orders across a bar,” Warren concluded. “Today, millions are taking cues from her. She reminds all of us that even while greed and corruption slow our progress, even while armies of lobbyists swarm Washington, in our democracy, true power still rests with the people. And she’s just getting started.

The best we can figure it is that Warren was sitting home comparing the number of recent media stories about Ocasio-Cortez and the number of recent stories about her. Seeing that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of eight million to one, she saw she had two choices. One, she could do something to drum up some attention. Hmm. Well, that hasn’t gone all that well for Warren in recent months, whose last big stories involved her decades-long attempt to convince the world that she was an Indian. Next best thing? The ol’ “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” routine. Why not just write a little article about AOC and hey, maybe some of that stardust will fall my way!

Maybe we’re being a little harsh. Maybe the editors of Time came to Warren and asked her to contribute something to the magazine. She looked around, saw Ocasio-Cortez on the television, and thought, why not? Still, it feels manufactured, cynical, and more than a little desperate. But we’re starting to believe that those are some of Elizabeth Warren’s core traits, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.