What led to AOC’s popularity

Maneh Davityan
3 min readAug 21, 2020

AOC’s argument against her opponent in 2019 was a crucial, yet unoriginal message-so why did it resonate with voters?

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Prioritizing the needs of Americans over special interests, bringing our manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., and stopping bailouts for the wealthy elitists.

These are all genuine political issues that have been transformed into talking points on the campaign trail. Interestingly, these are the very same talking points used in the 1992 election where Bill Clinton emphasized the struggles of the working class Americans, while the elites continued getting bailed out by the government. This also happens to be the same message used in Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign where he explained in his speech that, “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” And finally this message was central to Trump’s election in 2016 when he highlighted the importance of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

While all of these candidates ended up winning their elections, one thing that was left on the campaign trail is this very message that ultimately helped win them the election. Theoretically, if you relied on a…

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Maneh Davityan
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Maneh Davityan is a freelance writer and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Davityan Review. She can be reached at manehdavityan@gmail.com