AOC Just Debuted on a New International Stage. How Did She Do? |
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Two American politicians drew top billing at this past weekend’s Munich Security Conference, where U.S. and European political leaders gather each year to mull the state of the trans-Atlantic alliance—a topic that is now teeming with suspense and peril.
The headliners were Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Europeans hoped Rubio would mollify their concerns about President Donald Trump’s commitment to the continent’s defense—or at least erase the memory of last year’s main speaker, J.D. Vance, whose unabashed hostility toward the Western alliance and firm embrace of Germany’s neo-Nazi party set off the crisis between the two continents today.
In this context, they viewed AOC as a possible harbinger of the U.S. leadership’s next generation and wondered—some with excitement, some with dread, almost everyone with curiosity, because she had never appeared at the conference before—just what her ascension might bode.
As it turned out, Rubio proved disappointing, while AOC was too vague to leave behind an outline of the alliance’s future or her chances of rising to its helm—though she expressed reassuring sentiments with (for the most part) encouraging eloquence.
Rubio received a standing ovation at the end of his keynote address on Saturday, mainly because he spoke softly and uttered a few welcome lines that the likes of Vance or, worse still, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (who did not attend the conference) would never utter—for instance, “the United States and Europe … belong together,” “We are part of one civilization,” and “Our destiny is, and will always be, intertwined with yours.”
These lines inspired his interlocutor, at the start of a Q&A period, to note “the collective sigh of relief throughout this hall” during the secretary’s “message of reassurance and partnership.”
But those listening with more jaded ears, and nearly everyone who read the transcript afterward, saw it as what might be called Vance-and-Hegseth lite—warm and friendly in tone but pure MAGA in substance, or as Politico paraphrased his message: “Join Donald Trump’s campaign to reshape the world for Washington’s benefit, or get out of the way.”
The traditions that Rubio invoked, in recalling the alliance’s past, were those of nationalism (a subtle rebuke to the European Union, an open rejection of free trade, and a dismissal of international law), Western civilization as Christian civilization (ignoring not just Judeo-Christian heritage but the roughly 25 million Muslims who live in Europe), and the “unapologetic” mission “to build a vast empire out across the globe.”
His call for alliance unity was an invitation for “you” (Europeans) to “join us” (Trump’s America) on our path.........