Generational Talent

In the eyes of a southeast Wisconsin minister, she’s the one. He feels so strongly about her that he prepared a sermon that got him in hot water with his denomination. Rather than let it go, he summoned the courage of his convictions and resigned on the spot. Went ahead and delivered the sermon, off church grounds.

Pastor Jonathan Barker had planned to stand before his congregation at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha and endorse New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for president, a pulpit play that’s been off limits since a 1954 federal law put churches and charities at risk of losing their tax-exempt status if they endorse candidates for office.

That law remains on the books, but the Internal Revenue Service issued a ruling in May that the law should not apply to preachers speaking to their own congregations. American churches have responded to the IRS’s reinterpretation of the 70-year-old law in widely varying ways. Many conservative evangelicals are chomping at the bit; more mainstream denominations are proceeding with an abundance of caution.

I’ve met Pastor Barker, even shared a stage with him at least once at a social justice rally, but can’t know for sure why he was ready to throw caution to the wind and put his calling on the line to endorse someone for the nation’s highest office who is not an announced candidate and may never be. Current conditions in our society being what they are, I can imagine he’s feeling desperately concerned about the nation’s soul. I can imagine his sermon being less an endorsement and more an urgent plea for leadership rooted in certain qualities that are conspicuously absent in garden-variety politicians.

Pastor Barker clearly sees these qualities in Ocasio-Cortez. In his sermon, he called her the “love-your-neighbor presidential candidate,” a “what-would-Jesus-do candidate.” Lauded her tireless advocacy for climate action and economic justice for the working class.

I see what he sees. AOC is a generational talent. I use that term with hesitation, as it’s been overused in the sports world to the point where it’s well on its way to sharing the same status as “hundred-year flood.” With hundred-year floods now happening on the regular, every other week lately, the term has lost meaning, lost its place in our weather vocabulary. Likewise, a generational talent, by definition, comes along only once in a generation. Yet it seems every team’s fanbase is slapping the label on up-and-coming phenoms, deeming them destined to match or surpass the feats of the game’s all-time greats.

The overabundance of “generational talents” in sports makes a mockery of the designation. But since there’s no habit of applying the label to political figures—no surprise there—maybe it can have actual meaning in this sphere. If there’s a generational talent in the political realm, it’s AOC. I mean, out of 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, how many can you name, how many have you even heard of? Now, how many have risen to such prominence that they instantly come to mind by mere mention of their initials?

AOC is indeed a generational talent, in more ways than one. She has traits and abilities rarely seen, but also represents a changing of the guard, the ascendance of a new generation to political prominence. She was waiting tables and tending bar when she decided to seek a House seat in 2018, challenging a 20-year incumbent who was firmly entrenched in the leadership ranks. After pulling off one of the biggest upsets of those midterm elections, AOC took office at just 29 years of age, making her the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

She’s sharp as a tack and powerfully eloquent to boot, principled, unafraid to take a stand, even on ground where her own party’s leaders fear to tread. Charismatic as hell, charming one moment, fierce the next. Knows her way around social media. Can definitely cut a rug. All eyes were on her at that Met Gala. But her superpower is her ability to connect with people, a relatability she owes to her working-class background.

Born in the Bronx, excelled in school, eventually went off to Boston University, lost her father to lung cancer during her second year there. Returned to the Bronx after graduating cum laude in economics and international relations, taking a job as a bartender and waitress to help her mother—a house cleaner and school bus driver—ward off foreclosure of their home. A job she kept doing right up to when she took her first oath of office.

Nothing she accomplishes surprises me, she’s that gifted. What bewilders me is how afraid of AOC her own party appears to be. Instead of showcasing her prodigious talents, party leaders have worked to keep her off center stage and keep the old guard in charge.

Maybe the pressing need to refresh our nation’s geriatric politics is what made Pastor Barker willing to sacrifice his vocation. If that’s the case, I second his motion.