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She worked in a bar, she posts Instagram stories about

everything from White House meetings to her skincare regime, and she proves members of Congress can dance. New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the woman bringing much-needed hope to American politics — and she goes against everything Trump stands for: campaigning to keep immigrant families together, make the country more equal, and battle climate change.

On Tuesday she joined female Democratic colleagues, who were wearing white as a tribute to the suffragettes,in a protest against Trump at his State of the Union address — she refused to stand up and applaud him, sitting still and unsmiling.

At 29, she’s the youngest woman ever to serve in the US Congress; and there’s already been a Saturday Night Live sketch fondly mocking her precocious ascent. Her fresh, frank approach has won her allies on this side of the Atlantic, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spending 45 minutes on the phone to her last Sunday evening. Here’s how the woman known as AOC is making America great again.

Making a statement

AOC picks her friends carefully (so Corbyn should count himself lucky). Her plus-one at the State of the Union, Ana María Archila, was designed to provoke Trump. Archila, co-director of New York’s Center for Popular Democracy, became famous last year for confronting then-senator Jeff Flake in a lift to urge him to oppose the nomination of judge Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of and denied accusations of sexual assault, to the Supreme Court. AOC posted their rendezvous on Instagram, with them both in white and the caption: “Walking into #SOTU like…”

The Congresswoman also wore a badge with an image of Jakelin Caal, a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who died in US custody after crossing into America from Mexico in December.

Trump gave AOC no cause to smile or applaud during his speech. She posted a picture that showed her despairing of him, captioned: “When you have to sit through a meeting that should have been an email.” She said he had touched a nerve by tying socialism to unrest in Venezuela and declaring “America will never be a socialist country”. The President, she added, “has no vision” for the nation. “He has no substantive proposals... he’s scared… Everything is about what he doesn’t want. Everything is about the boogeyman.”

The Corbyn connection

The British Left is keen to capitalise on AOC’s popularity and begin transatlantic collaboration. Jeremy Corbyn made sure everybody knew about his 45-minute phone call with her by sending a tweet about it (a bit like when a kid wants everyone to know they’ve been invited to the popular girl’s birthday party). JC congratulated her on her campaigning work and they discussed working across borders to build a movement that promotes a fair tax system, builds the case for investment in public services, takes action to tackle climate change and ends the hostile environment for migrants. They also discussed the US government shutdown.

AOC has been invited to speak at Momentum events and there is a Bernie Sanders connection. She worked on his 2016 presidential nomination campaign and Corbyn has credited Sanders with some of his campaign ideas. But while AOC makes Corbyn look like he’s engaged with new ideas, and forging new foreign alliances (untainted ones, unlike some of his others), he hasn’t been as good for her. There was a backlash about AOC speaking to someone like the Labour leader, who has been accused of anti-Semitism. She dealt with it, tweeting “we cannot + will not move forward without deep fellowship and leadership with the Jewish community. I’ll have my team reach out.” Chris Mills Rodrigo, a reporter at American political news website The Hill, says: “A lot of Corbyn’s perception in the US is tied to Bernie Sanders. In that sense it seems like AOC is talking to another person who is not part of the mainstream Left in their country. I would imagine that many people will now try to publicise Corbyn’s anti-Semitism associations to make AOC look worse.”

The social media star

As Trump showed, a deft command of social media is now essential in politics. AOC has 2.8 million followers on Twitter and 2.1 million on Instagram. Of course she talks politics — her Twitter bio is “in a modern, moral, + wealthy society, no American should be too poor to live,” and she keeps followers up to date on Insta with the briefings she is reading. But she’s also human. Telling us about cleanser and responding to criticisms of her college dance routines may seem trivial but is actually an integral part of her success. No subject is too trivial, and this makes her relateable.

AOC originally wanted to be a scientist — she has a small asteroid named after her as a prize for a microbiology project. Born in the Bronx to a Puerto-Rican family, her father is an architect and her mother a cleaner and bus driver. She majored in international relations and economics at Boston University, graduating with honours.

President material?

For AOC, being congresswoman is the start of a movement. Her views may be, as Corbyn recognises, “a challenge to the status quo”, but that need not stop her from reaching the top — after all, hardly anyone predicted that Trump would be elected.

AOC has confounded expectations before. She defeated fellow Democrat Joe Crowley, congressman for 10 terms, in a primary to earn the chance to run for her New York district, then beat Republican Anthony Pappas in the election itself. Her victory took hard graft — she tweeted a picture of her worn out & Other Stories campaign shoes, saying: “I knocked doors until rainwater came through my soles. Respect the hustle. We won (because) we out-worked the competition.” The shoes are to be exhibited at the Cornell Costume Collection in an exhibition called Women Empowered: Fashions from the Frontline.

At the moment she is too young to run for President — you have to be at least 35 (note there is no upper age limit) — so she is playing the long game. But already AOC is getting the Right and Centre riled up. Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO who is considering a run for president, criticised her idea to increase taxes on those earning more than $10 million to fund a climate change initiative. Trump set out his stall at his State of the Union address, criticising socialism. Let battle commence.