It’s time you understand this. Trump isn’t a one-off in today’s Republican Party. One of the most significant things you should learn from this article – aside from the smarts, courage and principled leadership AOC helps provide in one small part of the Democratic Party – is that, more than ever, the Republican Party is under the thumb of sexist, racist, reactionary bigots.

Her Republican colleagues had, up until then, been civil. But one day in late July, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol while Representative Ted Yoho lost his shit. The Florida Republican, incensed by the New York congresswoman’s recent comments linking crime and poverty, jabbed his finger in her face, calling her “crazy” and “disgusting.” She froze. The situation felt dangerous, with Yoho towering over Ocasio-Cortez, who calls herself “five-five on a good day.” Congressman Roger Williams, a Texas Republican, bumbled next to him like a wind puppet at a used-car dealership. She told Yoho he was being rude and went into the Capitol to vote. As Yoho descended the steps, he called her a “fucking bitch.” A reporter nearby witnessed the exchange, and soon the whole world had heard the epithet.

This part hasn’t been reported: The next day Ocasio-Cortez approached Yoho and told him, “You do that to me again, I won’t be so nice next time.” She felt his actions had violated a boundary, stepping “into the zone of harassment, discrimination.” His mocking response, straight out of Veep: “Oh, boo-hoo.” Publicly, Yoho doubled down, issuing a non-apology on the House floor, citing his wife and daughters as character witnesses…

Forty-eight hours later, Ocasio-Cortez delivered one of the most eloquent dunks in political history, a “thank u, next” for the C-SPAN set, taking on not just Yoho but the patriarchy itself. She took care to enter “fucking bitch” into the Congressional Record. “I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women,” she told the House. “It happens every day in this country.” And the line that spawned headlines, T-shirts, hashtags, and memes: “I am someone’s daughter too.”

RTFA. I thank VANITY FAIR for publishing this. I thank APPLE NEWS for reprinting it online. Otherwise I might not have seen it. Yup, one of the problems of so much good content being available on the Web is sifting through the dross to get to the good stuff.

Nothing in this surprises me…except for the size and extent, the number of fascist-minded bigots who now run the Republican Party. Just out of my teens, I was a founding member of the Young Republicans in my second hometown. Mostly because they clearly were less corrupt than the Dems…in that small New England town.

That only lasted six weeks. Aside from one friend from high school who had asked me to help him organize a chapter of young conservatives, I really couldn’t stand hanging out with even a small group of folks who thought the 18th Century was characterized by more good ideas than any other century.

Please read this. Not just to reinforces or change any of your own political ideas; but, to witness the stink and disgust these creeps engender. See what it’s like for this courageous stand-up young woman to confront what passes for the leading legislative body in this sad nation.