AOC took a brief break from speaking to congress and dropping home truths on social media – and innovatively opted to wear the message instead.
While the outfit choice ruffled up some feathers – with critics saying that the American politician and activist’s subversive message was hypocritical, given that the Met is exclusively for the rich at $30,000 a ticket, others found the bold statement genius and fitting to the evening.
The 31-year-old from the Bronx has served as the US Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district since 2019. She inspires, empowers, and advocates for the LGTBQ+ community, working-class people, and POC – and she certainly isn’t afraid to voice her progressive views.
Here are some of our favorite AOC quotes over the years.
- “We are all capable of awakening and commitment. And because of that, we can all be great.”
- “Change takes courage.”
- “Give people the respect of your honest opinion, and always meet them where they’re at.”
- “You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be 100% committed.”
- “There is no such thing as talking about class without there being implications of the racial history of the United States. You just can’t do it.”
- “The best thing we could do is work as hard as we can for what is right and what is good.”
- “Our democracy is designed to speak truth to power.”
- “Women like me aren’t supposed to run for office — I wasn’t born to a wealthy or powerful family. But we have to ask ourselves, who has New York been changing for?”
- “They’ll tell you you’re too loud, that you need to wait your turn and ask the right people for permission. Do it anyway.”
- “In my opinion, if women and gender-expanding people want to run for office, we can’t knock on anybody’s doors; we have to build our own house.”
- “We don’t have time to sit on our hands as our planet burns. For young people, climate change is bigger than election or re-election. It’s life or death.”
- “I am experienced enough to do this. I am knowledgeable enough to do this. I am prepared enough to do this. I am mature enough to do this. I am brave enough to do this.”
- “We have to have the courage to say. We can do better.”
- “I was born in a place where your ZIP code determines your destiny.”
- “I just hope that more people will ignore the fatalism of the argument that we are beyond repair. We are not beyond repair. We are never beyond repair.”
- “Give people the respect of your honest opinion, and always meet them where they’re at.”
- “I understand the pain of working-class Americans because I have experienced the pain.”
- “We must lean on others to strive on our own.”
- “It’s disingenuous to… pretend the sources of our money don’t impact the policy we write – you just can’t serve two masters.”
- “We have to stick to the message: What are we proposing to the American people? Not, ‘What are we fighting against?’”
- “I’m very hands-on about social media. That’s my voice.”