'Turns Out,' Says Ocasio-Cortez, 'Everyday People Like It When We Fight for Everyday People'

Citing a new poll that revealed 81 percent of people overall support the idea of a bold and ambitious 'Green New Deal,' Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the simple political concept that when you push for policies that are good for a majority of people, a majority of people like it.

"Turns out," the Democrat from New York declared in a Monday night tweet, "everyday people like it when we fight for everyday people!"

The tweet included a link to a story published by Earther earlier in the day highlighting a poll by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University showing that more than 8 out of 10 respondents from "across the political spectrum support the progressive plan to combat climate change by rapidly weaning the U.S. off fossil fuels."

According to Earther:

The findings are stunning but also come with a couple caveats, namely that most people haven’t heard much about the Green New Deal, and they may not know of its connection to incoming representative [Ocasio-Cortez], a bete noire in the right wing fever swamps. Still, the fact that the idea enjoys broad support in a semi-vacuum shows that before Americans descend into their political bunkers, progressive policies are actually quite popular.

The Green New Deal is a set of aspirational goals in line with the best available climate science. Among those goals are switching the U.S. electrical grid to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, improving energy efficiency, and setting up policies for a green jobs guarantee while planning a just transition for fossil fuel workers as they move into new economic sectors. If it sounds good to you, you’re not alone.

That progressive policies are, in fact, very popular is something studiosly ignored by corporate media outlets obsessed with the false idea that the U.S. is a center-right nation, a myth which critics note is peddled by the same "radical centrists" who dominate Capitol Hill, the cable news shows, NPR, and the nation's major newspapers.

As the Huffington Post notes about the Yale survey:

The survey's description of the Green New Deal's tenets did not mention that more than 40 progressive members of Congress are championing the policy. The group includes Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

Study after study shows Americans evaluate policies more negatively when they are told politicians from an opposing party back the ideas, and more positively when they are told politicians from their own party are in support. The findings therefore indicate that although most Republicans favor the Green New Deal in principle, they are not yet aware that the plan is proposed by the political left.

The popularity of the ideas, says Ocasio-Cortez, is exactly why the Republican Party—not to mention many members of the Democratic and media establishment—remain so deeply afraid of those espousing and pushing for them.