Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that “where we are” as Americans amounts to “garbage” during an appearance at the South By Southwest Conference & Festivals (SXSW).

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Ocasio-Cortez sat down with The Intercept’s senior politics editor Briahna Gray to talk about the progressive left’s next move.

“What’s really hard for people to sometimes see is that we are on this path of a slow erosion, and a slow slow slow just like — move away from what we’ve always been,” Ocasio-Cortez began by explaining how she feels that America has moved away from what it should be. “You won’t even realize that you’ve drifted a hundred miles.”

She then appeared to suggest that her Democratic Socialist policies represent core American values, arguing that we had just strayed so far from them that we couldn’t recognize them anymore. “So when someone’s talking about ‘our core,’ they’re like, ‘oh, this is radical,’ but it isn’t radical. This is what we’ve always been,” she said.

“I think all of these things sound radical compared to where we are,” she concluded, “but where we are is not a good thing. And this idea of like, ten percent better than garbage, it shouldn’t be what we settle for.” (RELATED: ‘GOP Troll Groups Are Filing A Ton Of Random Claims’ — Ocasio-Cortex Blows Off Allegations)

Ocasio-Cortez was criticized early on for her plans to attend the festival — mainly because she was planning to fly to the event and she had just presented her Green New Deal that called for the elimination of air travel.

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