The Legendary AOC

Last weekend, I attended the AIPAC (American Isreal Public Affairs Committee) conference in Washington, DC with 18,000 people. I attended this conference, which is pretty controversial in the political realm, for a few different reasons.

1) I support the US-Israel relationship.
2) I was fully funded by AIPAC's Geller Scholarship due to my position as SGA President.
3) I wanted to meet more people who study this topic of Israel and learn about their perspective on this issue no matter what side of the political spectrum they are on.

The US-Israel relationship is truly a bipartisan issue, which is quite astounding in a society that has become so disgustingly polarized. The conference featured speakers who would never in a million years agree on anything else except this one topic of Israel. It was absolutely incredible to hear from speakers like Vice President Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the Prime Minister of Israel, and so many other influential figures. The connections I made while on this trip are connections that I will carry with me throughout my lifetime, and perhaps connections that may be useful in the future.

I do not want to use this blog as a platform to discuss why I support the US-Israel relationship, so instead, I want to talk about something else today: powerful women in politics.

I would never go to DC and not visit the House offices. That would be absurd of me, you all know that. I have yet to go to these offices since the freshmen members were elected, though, so as soon as I stepped into the first building, I bee-lined to the woman who I was dying to meet: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Of course, as the busy woman she is, she was not in her office. Although saddened, I walked out and thought "well, maybe next time." Not more than 5 minutes later as I am trying to find another office, I see the back of the legendary AOC's head. Her all-black outfit, glasses, and staple red lipstick automatically gave her away, and I stopped dead in my tracks. There she was.

I walked right up to her as she was ending her committee meeting and shakingly asked if I could take a picture with her. After she complimented my outfit (AH!) we took this picture, and off I went on my merry little way.

I don't care who you are. I don't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat, or anything in between. The fact that this now-29 year old WOMAN has made such a roar in our US Congress is mind-blowing and gives me hope that the future of politics will have more involvement from the younger generation and especially more women.

That's all for now.