Part of the crowd at Thursday night’s Trump March 28, 2019 rally in Michigan started chanting "AOC sucks," referencing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), after Donald Trump Jr. criticized her ideas. After all, the president’s son is such an authority on American politics, and his father loves women targets, in particular.

“Think about the fact that every mainstream, leading Democratic contender is taking the advice of a freshman congresswoman who three weeks ago didn’t know the three branches of government,” the president's son told the crowd ahead of his dad’s speech. “I don’t know about you guys, but that’s pretty scary.”

After Junior’s remark — AOC calls him ‘Junior’ — the crowd broke into the "AOC sucks" chant. Read Charlotte Alter’s cover story 'Change Is Closer Than We Think.' Inside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Unlikely Rise’. We hope that AOC will just ignore the chants, because they may be with her all the way to 2020.

The Trump crowd loves to denigrate smart women because females with brains that function on overdrive have a very small place in their universe. Daddy’s girl Ivanka Trump, Trumpsters embrace. Do you see a pattern here? I’m sure that Trump had a proverbial heart attack when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — hardly a member of the Trump family inner sanctum — showed up on the cover of last week’s TIME magazine.

“You guys, you’re not very nice,” Trump Jr. responded to the crowd shouting “AOC sucks”. “And neither is what that policy would do to this country.”

Junior is speaking about the Green New Deal.

The Senate on Tuesday blocked legislation to advance the Green New Deal resolution to the floor on a procedural vote, with most Democrats voting present. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) set up the vote to test Democratic Party’s unity over climate change.

It’s true that many Senate Democrats didn’t want to publicly back the resolution’s ambitious goals. Now, various supporters of the climate change measure, including Ocasio-Cortez herself, are focusing on new, smaller bills in an effort to get back on the offensive on climate change heading into 2020.

AOC is a quick study, in our opinion. The more that she’s made into the devil incarnate by Republicans, the more committed this AOC is to stand behind her. Now only do we share an acronym, but we share common values. Being older — if not wiser — we are more circumspect that the Bronx-Queens Congresswoman about creating change. But we need AOC’s passion, intellect and her voice. The Republicans can try to discredit the young Congresswoman, but we see major streaks of informed, truth-telling brilliance in her latest speech. Here’s a sample from the video below:

"When we talk about the concern for the environment as an elitist concern, one year ago I was waitressing in a taco shop in downtown Manhattan. I just got health insurance for the first time a month ago. This is not an elitist issue. This is a quality of life issue. You want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist? Tell that to the kids in the South Bronx which are suffering from the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country. Tell that to the families in Flint whose kids, their blood is ascending in lead levels, their brains are damaged for the rest of their lives. Call them elitist. You're telling them that those kids are trying to get on a plane to Davos? People are dying!"

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is having her feet held to the fire in a way she probably never anticipated. Unlike ‘Junior’ the young woman has a dedicated relationship with her constituents, and that IS HER JOB! AOC has a voice, and she’s willing to use it. Note that her national poll numbers are under assault, which is why this political rising star needs some steadfast support from established voices that offer her some cover. Anne of Carversville is such an example of blocking and tackling for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

AOC photographed outside the Capitol on January 4, 2019. By Mark Peterson/Redux.

No freshman member of the new House of Representatives has gained more national media attention than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Less than one week after her victory in the November 2018 midterm elections, AOC joined environmental activists in a protest in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Politico published a story that AOC denied, advancing the theory that she was encouraging activists to primary Democratic incumbents in the 2020 elections.

The Republican obsession with Ocasio-Cortez has bordered on full-frontal misogyny, with many Dems reporting that “a cloud” of uncertainty hovered over her. Was she determined to build her own disruptive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brand? Or was she truly interested in passing collaborative legislation with fellow Democfrats.

Writing for Vanity Fair, Abigail Tracy says that AOC has emerged “as an unlikely unifying force for Democrats — and a surprisingly egoless champion of a new, progressive politics.”

One of her biggest supporters is Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who specifically requested that AOC. be tapped to serve on his committee, hoping that she would ask the questions when others remained mute. “A lot of people said that she might not be a team player, and I have found it to be just the opposite,” Cummings told Tracy. “She has been a breath of fresh air.”

Cummings suggested that disagreement within the ranks is a considerable strength. “It is important that you have people like her—not only on my committee, but in the Congress—to remind folks of who we are, who we are as the Democratic Party, and who we have been for many years,” he explained. “And so, sure, when you do that like Ms. Cortez, you may ruffle a few feathers, but I think that, in the end, it will make us a better and stronger party.”

Cummings gave AOC high praise for her participation during last week’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the cost of prescription drugs. She asked the best set of questions of anybody in her five minutes,” Cummings said, noting that the New York congresswoman stayed for the entire hearing, which stretched beyond the five-hour mark. “It was clear that she had done her homework.”

AOC and her fellow progressives have already jumpstarted a national political discourse, floating a 70 percent marginal tax rate on income over $10 million during her ‘60 Minutes’ interview. 2020 Democratic party hopefuls are talking abuot the proposal, with 59 percent of registered American voters support the plan—including 45 percent of Republicans.

While the dynamic representative’s bold yet publicly undefined Green New Deal initially drew criticism while making waves in the Democratic Party, it has quickly emerged as something of a progressive litmus test for the Democratic field. “She is a Democrat and she is a strong, vocal advocate for our agenda,” aides reported to Tracy. “I think while initially fearful—and maybe even right to be fearful because of some of the early things that were going on—she has now come into her own and realized that she has a lot of power.”