3 Members Of The Squad Have Deeply Uncertain Political Futures, One May Be A Senator Soon

In the span of time it would normally take a new member of Congress to figure out where their floor’s bathroom is, four freshmen House members have become the hottest political commodities in a generation.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley — the Squad. From the covers of magazines to unprecedented solo town halls on cable television typically reserved for presidential candidates, the junior Jacobins of the Democratic caucus occupy the daily news cycle at a level that rivals one tweeter-in-chief Donald Trump.

But how long can this last?

The mythologizing of the Squad’s ascent as the ushering in of a new era in American politics doesn’t hold up to scrutiny when examined closely. Two of them, Tlaib and Omar were running for open seats, and the two that challenged incumbents, AOC and Pressley were running against fossilized, white politicians in majority-minority districts that hadn’t had a real election in almost a decade.

In reality, all four slipped under the radar due to a combination of media malpractice and their opponents’ hubris in not treating the races seriously. They won’t get away with that a second time, and all but one of them has an existentially threatening time-bomb on their political career that will be very hard to avoid.