Netflix
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, center, finding out she won her long-shot bid in the primary.
Many of us have come to believe the future of these not-so-United States lies in bold, changemakers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC), the Bronx bartender turned firebrand congresswoman who seemed to appear out of nowhere to challenge longtime liberal machine Democrat Joe Crowley in the 2018 midterm elections. She then defeated Republican Anthony Pappas and became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at age 29.
Now it’s hard to miss her. She is fearless, smart and determined, and has a ubiquitous media and social media presence. On Twitter, she speaks out on a regular basis against President Donald Trump, kowtowing Republicans, and any of the wishy-wash Dems who fail to take the president to task.
But the AOC phenomenon didn’t come out of nowhere. Like all successful people’s movements, it began at the grassroots, with organizers strategizing, sitting around tables, doing grunt work, and knocking on doors. The inspiring documentary Knock Down the House (now available on Netflix) shows the rise of AOC and three other progressive women who emerged after the 2016 elections.
I first saw Knock Down the House with about 1,200 people at this spring’s Wisconsin Film Festival. The line into Wisconsin Union Theater’s Shannon Hall snaked through the union’s hallways, onto several floors and spilled out onto the Terrace along the lakefront. The energy in the line and in the hall was palpable, with people cheering and crying for joy at seeing this underdog succeed in taking on the establishment. I wished right then that organizers would harness that energy, collect signatures, or money or commitments to tackle some of the issues AOC champions.
Watching a documentary this inspiring can serve a purpose in renewing our screwed-up democracy. Many people feel discouraged, defeated, cynical or hopeless right now. They see daily headlines of Trumpian madness, children detained at the border, out-of-control climate crises and nuclear brinkmanship. But watching AOC and the committed people who helped get her elected provides hope.
“I’m running because everyday Americans deserve to be represented by everyday Americans,” AOC says. When Rachel Lears started filming the documentary, AOC’s candidacy was a longshot. There are shots of the future Congresswoman wiping down the bar and filling an ice bucket, wearing plastic gloves. (The metaphoric possibilities are ripe. She is leaving one kind of dirty work for another.) “My experience in hospitality has prepared me. I’m used to being on my feet for 18 hours, I’m used to receiving a lot of heat,” she says. “I’m used to people trying to make me feel bad.”
It’s easy to describe Knock Down the House as a film about AOC because she makes such a compelling subject. Who’s not in love with her right now? But Lears’ film doesn’t engage in hero worship. It also shows why it’s important to pay attention to the other progressive female candidates who did not succeed in their races: Paula Jean Swearengin, the coal miner’s daughter who ran an anti-mining, pro-environment Senate campaign in West Virginia; Amy Vilela, a health care activist who ran in Nevada; and Cori Bush, a Black Lives Matter activist in Missouri. All of these women took on establishment figures, and they all relied on the wisdom and energy of activists, young and old, to get as far as they did.
The film follows members of Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, who took on the nuts and bolts of recruiting and canvassing for progressives. And it also shows AOC and Bush meeting with longtime civil rights activists, tapping into their rich knowledge of how to make change happen.
I dare you to watch Knock Down the House and still feel cynical. As Swearengin says at a Brand New Congress gathering: “It’s time for ordinary Americans to do extraordinary things. Let’s raise hell, and take our lives back.”
