AOC Worries About Marrying a White Man, Fears Trump Supporters Could Kill Her Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks on banning stock trades for members of Congress at a news conference. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
By Nicole Wells | Wednesday, 07 September 2022 07:33 PM EDT
In a wide-ranging conversation with GQ magazine, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., confessed to feeling shunned by her own party and said she worries about marrying a white man and being killed by Trump supporters.
The democratic socialist and "Squad" member is featured on the cover of the magazine's most recent edition in a navy-blue suit and black turtleneck with a bold red lip. The cover advertises a discussion on "masculinity, power, and politics in a post-Roe America," while a photo spread inside shows the congresswoman posing on the Capitol steps in a black dress.
"I hold two contradictory things at the same time," Ocasio-Cortez told GQ. "One is just the relentless belief that anything is possible. But at the same time, my experience here has given me a front-row seat to how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women. And they hate women of color."
Speaking about her short commute to work, which she walked prior to the Jan. 6 Capitol building breach, AOC said she is afraid she may be killed within the month because so many people hate women.
"People ask me questions about the future," she said. "And realistically, I can't even tell you if I'm going to be alive in September. And that weighs very heavily on me. And it's not just the right wing. Misogyny transcends political ideology: left, right, center."
Running for a third term in the House in November, the former bartender was called "the political voice of a generation" by GQ writer Wesley Lowery — "a cultural star whose power transcends politics."
In the profile, Ocasio-Cortez, who got engaged to Riley Roberts in April, shared her concerns about marrying a white man, namely that she wasn't sure an intercultural, interracial relationship would work for her.
"It is the presence of good men that has shown me what kind of men are possible in this world," she told GQ.
For all her fears of misogynists and Trump supporters, AOC said it was the Democrats' treatment of her that has been the most discouraging.
After her election to Congress in 2018, the New York Democrat said she was disregarded by her own party.
"It was open hostility, open hostility to my presence, my existence," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Since I got here, literally day one, even before day one, I've experienced a lot of targeting diminishment from my party. And the pervasiveness of that diminishment, it was all-encompassing at times. I feel a little more steady on my own two feet now."
In general, the Empire State representative said her experience in Washington is very different than what people may think.
"Others may see a person who is admired, but my everyday lived experience here is as a person who is despised," she told GQ. "Imagine working a job and your bosses don't like you and folks on your team are suspicious of you. And then the competing company is trying to kill you."