You used to catch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez predominantly flying American Airlines. She’s a Member of Congress and they operate a majority of the flights at DC’s close-in National airport. Often she’s seen in first class. These days, though, she flies private. And she’s taking a lot of heat for it.

BREAKING: AOC was caught flying in a private plane after claiming that shes never flown in one before and exclusively flies with American Airline only.

Here's a look at and inside the plane.

The biggest irony behind this whole ordeal? She's flying on this plane for the "Fight… pic.twitter.com/8UCuDcwovQ

— aka (@akafaceUS) April 22, 2025

Here's the video catching her in the act.pic.twitter.com/Nx9mVm0sXt

— aka (@akafaceUS) April 22, 2025

AOC lambasted Elon Musk for flying private. The context was she argued his government staff-trimming efforts put commercial passengers at risk while he flew in his own jet (as though commercial and private aviation used different airspace or different controllers).

Make Elon fly 100% commercial if he’s so confident https://t.co/Jmhxw3onre

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 18, 2025

When challenged, she insisted that she eschewed private aviation. Now she’s on her Fighting Oligarchy Tour traveling between stops on a private jet.

I do. I commute to DC on either rail or commercial flight. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to screw over the public for personal profit.

A bizarre idea to many these days.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 18, 2025

Betting markets currently give her roughly the same odds as Gavin Newsom at securing the Democratic nomination for President in 2028, ahead of Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg, and Gretchen Whitmer. She’s already running. That’s what her rallies with Bernie Sanders and her record fundraising are both about.

Sanders is passing the torch of the party’s Left to her, after party primary and convention changes were implemented to block him. Ironically, though, he managed to push the party far enough left that it created the conditions for Trump’s second term. Party primaries select for activist-favored candidates who don’t reflect the broader electorate that comes out in November. If AOC had the principles of Jared Polis or Josh Shapiro she’d be a far more formidable general election candidate (or even, for that matter, Gretchen Whitmer before her Oval Office blue folder and inability to lambast President Trump on tariffs).

When she enters the race to become the next Democratic presidential candidate, she’s going to be flying private a lot. And she should! Nate Silver says that right now she’s the most likely candidate. And once that happens she’ll even get her own campaign plane.

• Socialism in our time doesn’t just happen on its own, it’s hard work, and she needs to maximize her labor value to the extent possible.

• Flying private isn’t inconsistent with her principles. Even North Korea’s Air Koryo has business class, and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping has his own Presidential planes.

  Ironically, he uses Peoples Liberation Army Boeing 737s and an Air China 747 (plus Air China 747 cargo to transport limousines). A Democratic People’s Republic doesn’t, in fact, mean abolishing class. In socialist paradise “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

When Janet Yellen flew coach as Treasury Secretary that was performative and stupid. AOC should fly private. She’s using private donor dollars, not taxpayer funds. She just shouldn’t call out others for flying private, either.