New York (AFP)

More than 3 million views for her account on Instagram of the assault on the Capitol, her fear of dying, and her evocation of a trauma close to a sexual assault: the young congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez confirmed on Monday evening its popularity on social networks, but also the very concrete dangers to which its very left positions expose it.

For a little over an hour Monday evening, "AOC", as everyone calls it, told Live, on the platform where more than 8 million subscribers follow it, how it hid itself in toilet on Jan.6, convinced that pro-Trump activists banging on her office door were going to kill her.

She linked the trauma to that of a sexual assault, confiding publicly for the first time that she had personally experienced it.

"I am a survivor of a sexual assault and I haven't told many people in my life," she said, without giving further details.

His intervention was followed, at the time, by some 150,000 people, before snowballing.

Four days earlier, she had already made the "buzz" by organizing a debate on the rebellion of stock marketers against the large hedge funds of Wall Street appeared during the GameStop saga, which has since collected more than 1.5 million views.

Her mastery of social networks, which had already helped her a lot to get elected to Congress at the expense of a Democratic baron in 2018, is undoubtedly one of her strengths.

"She's an incredibly effective communicator," said Kelly Dittmar of the Center for Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

"She uses Instagram to explain what's going on in Congress, her personal work and her emotions."

By evoking the sexual assault that she herself suffered, "she allows people who were not on Capitol Hill, especially women, to better imagine" what happened, said this analyst.

His very poignant account Monday night can only "strengthen the support" of his fans, who "perceive this attack on him as so many threats to their own security," also said Costas Panagopoulos of Northeastern University in Boston.

- Daily threats -

But her story also highlights the target that this 31-year-old New Yorker has become, born to a Puerto Rican mother who, after two years in Congress, has established herself as the leading figure on the left wing of the Democrats. in Congress.

For Kelly Dittmar, the fear she testified to on Monday testifies to the "almost daily threats" she has faced since arriving in Congress, along with the other elected members of the Democratic left that Donald Trump and the Republicans have dubbed "The Squad" ( the band), Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.

"AOC" is a particularly easy target for the conservatives, assures the analyst: not only by its positions close to those of Bernie Sanders - for a state social security, a heavy taxation of the rich, a green "New Deal" - but also because "racism and sexism make it easier to portray a woman of color as dangerous."

So much so that in the November 2020 election - which saw AOC re-elected with 71% of the vote in the House of Representatives, in her constituency of Queens and the Bronx - "many Republican candidates (across the United States) were talking about 'her rather than their adversary, "recalls this analyst.

“She poses a threat to traditionally white and patriarchal power structures, and refuses to remain silent about her political views as well as her identity, using social networks and traditional media to talk about her experiences and ideas. This combination of factors makes her 'She's a magnet for conservative animosity, "says Julia Payson of New York University.

Can the young woman elected hope to reach one day, if not the White House - as her fans readily imagine - at least a powerful chair of senator or even governor of New York State?

For Costas Panagopoulos, "she has locked herself in extreme positions" which make "any position requiring to seduce broad categories of the electorate difficult to reach".

"She's so demonized that people see her as too hot," says Kelly Ditmar.

"This is what the Conservatives want: to make sure it does not go any further."

© 2021 AFP