“There are a lot of folks that I think sometimes want to brand me as a flamethrower, but really, I think the truth of what I am is a consensus builder,” she said. “I like to think that I’m persuasive. And so I think a lot of that work is going to be on building relationships and trying to persuade and talk to my colleagues about building a progressive agenda for the party.”

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But as Cooper pointed out, Washington politics are full of roadblocks, hence why ambitious campaign promises are so often turn into watered-down policies like the Affordable Care Act. Is Ocasio-Cortez worried her platform will get steamrolled on the House floor?

Not a fucking chance.

“I don’t worry about it,” she said, acknowledging that she knows “change doesn’t happen overnight.” But just because it’s hard to make radical change, doesn’t mean radical change isn’t something worth fighting for.

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“I know that when the sun sets on my life, I want to be able to tell my grandchildren that we established a single-payer system, tuition for universities, and that we saved the climate for their future, because we decided to be courageous in the moment and make it happen,” she said.