Sunday is a “clearing the spindle” day, and one of the things on my spindle has been Nate Silver’s prediction last week that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka AOC, is currently the most likely person to be the Democrat party’s 2028 presidential candidate. Frankly, I think he’s right. She’s telegenic, has name recognition, and manages to make the same politics that killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century seem user-friendly. She’s also Bernie Sanders’ anointed heir, and he missed the nomination in 2016 and 2020 only because the Democrat party panicked.

Last week, Nate Silver, while acknowledging that it’s early days yet, said he still thinks that it’s possible to make predictions about the probable 2028 Democrat nominee based on the available information. He and his show co-host concluded that AOC is the most likely person:

Polling guru Nate Silver on Thursday even predicted Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, will be the next Democratic nominee for the White House.

“I thought I was gonna surprise everyone by taking AOC first,” Silver tweeted, referring to the fact that his colleague Galen Druke also placed Ocasio-Cortez on top of his own early 2028 list. “That was going to be my … first pick,” he added.

Silver and Druke agreed Ocasio-Cortez has the charisma and popularity to make a huge splash in the still-embryonic Democratic White House race, citing her impressive polling and fundraising numbers.

“There’s a lot of points in her favor at this very moment,” Druke said on the Silver Bulletin Substack podcast. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has broad appeal across the Democratic Party.”

I think they’re right. AOC really does have a huge appeal to the Democrat base: She’s a very attractive, self-identified female (and biologically female, too) who is nominally Hispanic (although she was just Sandy from the suburbs) and has a cool, and instantly recognizable, moniker.

The fact that she’s never held a real-world job other than working as a bartender is not seen as a strike against her in terms of running for the most demanding executive position in the world. Lack of real-life experience wasn’t a problem for America’s two most recent Democrat presidents, either. The fact that she’s as dumb as a rock is also not a problem, as Joe Biden’s presidency demonstrates. In addition, she’s actually not really that dumb. Instead, she’s also crazy like a fox, saying what needs to be said, no matter how stupid it sounds, to achieve her political goals.

What matters, in addition to her superficial qualities (pretty, female, Hispanic), is the fact that AOC is a hardcore communist who hates America. Indeed, that last quality is part of her charm. It’s why she is Bernie Sanders’ anointed heir, playing to vast stadiums of cheering leftists.

And no, it also doesn’t matter that she and Bernie are flying first class and on private jets on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. The useful idiots understand the rules: People who make money providing valuable products and services are parasitical oligarchs. People who make money by seizing it from the taxpayers are revolutionaries.

What AOC really brings to the table is that she is the perfect fusion of identity politics and Bernie’s old-fashioned economic communism. It’s an added bonus that she’s also wildly anti-Israel, choosing instead to support those people who would torture to death or throw from buildings every one of the LGBTQ+ cohort she professes to love so much.

AOC is the pretty face of the Stalinesque and Maoist approach to governance, and the increasingly radicalized Democrat party loves her, not despite that, but because of that.

I know a lot of conservatives are cheering at the thought of AOC being the 2028 nominee, because they think she’ll be easy to beat. I’d just like to remind them that a lot of Democrats thought the same about Trump in 2015/2016. And please don’t assume that JD Vance will wipe the floor with her during debates. Well, yes, he will, but while AOC may be ignorant to the point of idiocy, she’s verbally facile and Democrat institutions will prop her up.

We live in times that aren’t just interesting, but are far too interesting. In a world in which the lunatics have taken over the asylum, AOC may be the most lunatic of all, making her a winner.

Picture made using AI on public domain images.