Not Like We Needed Another Example, but AOC Just Had Her Worst Case of Historical Stupidity Yet

This article originally appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation and was republished with permission. Guest post by Natalie Sandoval Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez revealed her bizarre perspective on history during a podcast hosted by comedian Ilana Glazer released Thursday. “There are very few, like, real archetypes of, in my opinion, truly, what America is all about. I think about the Civil Rights and voting rights movement, and how black Americans really created democracy in this country,” Ocasio-Cortez told Glazer. “That’s right, that’s exactly right,” Glazer interjected. I struggle to understand what Ocasio-Cortez means. Does she believe democracy was the invention of black activists in 1965? Surely, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights deserve some credit in shaping American governance. One might give some credit to pre-Revolutionary War figures like William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania and signer of the colony’s “Charter of Privileges,” which carved out protections for civil liberties. “How they [black Americans] literally made something from nothing. It is just beyond me. I think about how, like, native people have survived and preserved and, and, treasured their culture. I think about, and, I think many of us think about immigrants. Which, if you aren’t from one of those first two populations, you are certainly from, largely, the third.” “And, so many of us, like, have our story of our parents, our grandparents, our great-great-grandparents, and so on and so forth … who, like, come and make something from nothing. And I think that’s a big part of also the most inspiring elements of what America is all about.” The United States has a native white people — European (mostly British) settlers and their descendants. Other European groups were absorbed into the American fabric, with varying degrees of ease, after America’s founding. Ocasio-Cortez prefers to exclude white people with generational ties to America from her narrative of American history. I’m not sure if we should chalk this up to ignorance or malice. I’m certain Ocasio-Cortez is aware of, at the very least, the Founding Fathers. She seems not to regard them, or their contributions, or their descendants as mattering at all. Copyright 2026 Daily Caller News Foundation