[Martina]

I can't tell if she's mean. She's getting a lot of attention, and she has shown consistency and poise. I am shocked she has made as few blunders as she has, given the amount of scrutiny she's getting.

I love it that she calls out all the bullshit that is part of the Washington establishment. And I love that conservatives hate her.

One thing I'd say is that she has to realize she's not an activist now. She's a leader. Pelosi keeps making digs at her re that, and as little as I like to agree with Pelosi, I think she's right.

On the day Barr's summary of the Mueller report came out, an Octavio-Cortez quote was making the rounds. She said it doesn't matter if Trump is defeated or not if we don't take on the big money and the corruption that put Trump in power in the first place. She had said it before the release of Barr's summary, but to see that quote the day the summary came out felt like a gut punch.

It does fucking matter whether Trump is president or not, and it mattered very deeply to most of us that day. I expect Democratic politicians to show up and fight back when bullshit like the Barr summary happens. Octavio-Cortez sounded like an outsider criticizing government, not someone we've put in a position to make a difference. A vow to take on these interests would have sounded better than the fatalistic way she phrased it.

Octavio-Cortez also refused to be on a phone call for Democrats that Pelosi organized. I can't even remember what it was about. But I didn't like that. She is a Democratic congressperson. She doesn't seem to get that.

She's put a lot of energy into legislation, the Green New Deal, that she knew wouldn't make it through Congress in order to get Dems running for President to support it. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing, but it also feels a little like fiddling while Rome burns.