I know, I know, it’s “karma-chameleon” but “chama” works better for this article (or does it?). A sort of syllogism perhaps. How??? Well, … “if this and this, then that” seems to fit. And I wrote “sort of”. We’ll need to let it play out.
Anyway ….
We just saw a major league electoral blowout as the United States electorate everywhere turned on Mr. Trump’s betrayal of his 2024 electoral promises and evidently seems to want to prove that he and his family are much better at corruption than was Mr. Biden. Not an easy task but no one can say that Mr. Trump and family are not giving it their all. Still, it’s amazing watching the current Democratic Party leadership destroy that political party’s chances for the presidency in 2028 even before their newly elected majorities take control of Congress in January. Obviously their betrayal of the voters will assure most of the Democratic Party’s Congressional delegation of a huge haul from AIPAC (or whatever its nominee entity is or will be), well, … at least their fair share. They don’t want it all going to the GOP. But the new group of democratic socialists in the Democratic Party are opposed to AIPAC and to genocide and to funding Israeli socialism (socialism is best enjoyed at home they seem to think, with things like universal healthcare, subsidized education, decent housing, a social safety net, etc.), and they despise their party’s current Congressional leadership: Hakeem Jeffries who hopes to become Speaker in the House of Representatives in 2027 and Chuck Schumer who hopes to again become the majority leader in the Senate. They insist on change, but ….
They have a plant among them, a spy, a quisling, a cleverly disguised traditionalist who walks, talks and smells like a progressive, at least until it’s time to irrevocably place her bets. Then, … Well, let’s look at a bit of history. I am, of course, referring to the “AOC”, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Hispanic five term Congresswoman from Queens and the Bronx, New York[1]:
- On January 3, 2021 she voted for Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker despite intense pressure from progressives to withhold her vote in a “Force the Vote” campaign designed to extract a floor vote on Medicare for All. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued that party unity was necessary at that moment and that withholding votes without a viable alternative would not achieve the policy goal;
- On September 23, 2021 she voted “Present” on Israel’s Iron Dome Funding breaking with fellow “Squad” members (including Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Cori Bush) who voted “no.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez changed her vote at the last minute from “no” to “present” on a standalone bill providing $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. The move drew sharp criticism from progressive activists, and she later apologized to constituents for the confusion and pain caused by the shift;
- On November 30, 2022 she voted to impose a labor contract on freight rail workers to prevent a nationwide strike, even though the main bill lacked the guaranteed paid sick leave that rail unions and progressive groups demanded. While she also voted for a separate companion bill to add seven days of sick leave (which later failed in the Senate), her vote on the primary enforcement bill drew a formal rebuke from the Democratic Socialists of America and contrasted with fellow Squad member Rashida Tlaib, who voted “no”;
- On April 12, 2023 she joined the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as a dues paying member after previously having joined progressive Democrats in boycotting it over its policies against primary challengers to incumbents. Membership in that club cost her $260,000 in party dues which she gladly paid, framing the contribution as a way to help protect Democratic seats and build influence within party institutions, though some socialist groups criticized the move as funding the party establishment; and
- On July 6, 2023, she formally endorsed President Joe Biden’s re-election bid well ahead of the primary season, bypassing progressive primary challengers like Marianne Williamson and drawing pushback from progressive elements who felt she was aligning too closely with a corrupt, war mongering administration.
Thus, as a purported progressive, she’s been a bad, bad girl.
And now?
Now she’s endorsed reviled AIPAC toady Hakeem Jeffries despite intense opposition from the voters who just handed the Democratic Party a huge midterm electoral victory and from the new coterie of democratic socialist who insist on a party free of ties to AIPAC and Israel. Insist on a party that places the progressive agenda and United States’ residents (legal or otherwise) first, you know, things Israelis enjoy at the expense of United States tax payers, things like universal healthcare, subsidized education, decent housing, a social safety net, etc.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not, as Republicans like to portray, a dummy whose background prior to her election was focused solely on the hospitality industry. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in international relations and economics, cum laude, from the Pardee School of Global Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University in 2011 where she was also a John F. Lopez Fellow (an experience-based learning program sponsored by the National Hispanic Institute). During her time in college she also interned in the Boston office of Senator Ted Kennedy where she worked on foreign affairs and, as the only Spanish speaking member of that staff, on immigration issues. She did work for a time as a bartender and waitress after the death of her father to help pay off student loans and to prevent her family’s home from going into foreclosure but that has no relevance to her credentials other than perhaps, having helped her understand the issues faced by her constituents somewhat better. The family bought their house in Yorktown Heights, New York (a suburb in Westchester County, about 30 miles north of New York City) in the early 1990s for $150,000 and sold it in 2016 for $355,000 (it’s currently valued at $500,000). But after that, during the 2016 presidential election she worked as a volunteer community organizer in the South Bronx for Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign and following the 2016 campaign, she traveled to North Dakota to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an experience she credits with inspiring her to run for office.
So, no dummy there. But while far from a dummy, she is also far from being a progressive, and far from being genuine. Some examples:
- During her first term in Congress complaints were filed with the Federal Election Commission alleging that her 2018 campaign and an affiliated political action committee (Brand New Congress) improperly routed funds through a limited liability company controlled by her then-chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti. Sophisticated and clever, but not very honest or honorable. However, as is frequently the case in peccadillos (Spanish for little sins) involving elected officials, no formal enforcement penalties were issued against her regarding those filings.
- Critics have periodically questioned her credibility over public statements such as a 2019 controversy regarding staged photos taken near a fence at a migrant detention facility in Tornillo, Texas and her 2021 account of her experience inside the Capitol complex during the January 6 attack, which opponents argued was exaggerated. She was just play acting perhaps, her public demands it of her.
- Following her attendance at the September 2021 Met Gala (where she wore a custom gown emblazoned with “Tax the Rich”), watchdog groups filed complaints alleging she accepted impermissible gifts, including free admission for her partner and unpaid luxury services. Furthermore, a March 2023 report by the Office of Congressional Ethics revealed that she did not pay several vendors (including her hairstylist, makeup artist, and dress designer) until months after the event and only after the Office of Congressional Ethics began its inquiry. After a three-and-a-half-year investigation, the House Committee on Ethics concluded in July 2025 that Ocasio-Cortez violated House gift rules. Specifically, the panel found she impermissibly accepted free admission for her fiancé, Riley Roberts, and underpaid the fair market value for her rented dress and accessories. Rather than issuing a formal sanction or censure, the panel ordered her to pay approximately $3,000 in additional personal funds ($2,733.28 for apparel rentals, $36.71 for a custom hairpiece, and $250 for her fiancé’s meal) to close the matter, which she agreed to pay. Peccadilloes one more time.
- In March of 2026, the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint with federal election officials and the Office of Congressional Conduct alleging that the Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign improperly spent nearly $19,000 on a psychiatrist listed under “leadership training and consulting,” arguing that the payments were not legitimate campaign expenses. One more time; just a peccadillo.
Well, to be honest, in many ways that sounds quite a bit like another purported progressive democratic socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s initial mentor, Bernie Sanders. The man with great eloquence but a white flag in his pocket, one he always seems ready to waive when victory seems probable. Think of the 2016 presidential campaign and his betrayal of the “Sanderistas” at that year’s presidential campaign. Perhaps that’s the image that most impacted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political formation.
Still, she’s certainly a show-woman and talented in manipulation of social media. She dubbed herself with the sigils “AOC” thinking it would be cool and now, like traditional Democratic Party legislators (think, e.g., Nancy Pelosi), she seems to be slavering at the trough[2], trying to make believe she’s a social democrat when she’s really, as she’s always been, a same-old-same-old power hungry chameleon: “chama-chama-chama-chameleon, she comes and goes, she comes and goes”. Real progressives pray she’d just “stay away”. Not that she’s not entitled to her opinions, to vote however she feels, etc., just that “a progressive democratic socialist” she’s not. She is extremely ambitious and not just cunning but also a talented tactician, one who hopes to be president, if not in 2028, when she may run for the Senate to avoid the headaches associated with a two rather than six year electoral cycle, at least soon, perhaps 2032 or 2036. And if she does, she wants as many powerful people on her side as she can get, and that may then apparently include the AIPAC group.
She’s been very successful in evading the consequences of her misconduct and of her duplicitous allegiance to the powers that be in her party but perhaps her endorsement of Hakeem Jeffries at this moment will prove her undoing, at least with progressives.
Soooo, …
Why does the word syllogism sound as though it ought to refer to something “silly”? What ever happened to onomatopoeia? I hate the way it (onomatopoeia) is spelled! And if Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer lead the next Congress, and if as would then probably be the case, the next Congress again betrays the electorate, perhaps it won’t matter who the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate will be in 2028, or 2032, or 2036.
My apologies to chameleons everywhere, “chama”, karma or otherwise.
_____
© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, geopolitical commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
[1] Her district, the 14th, covers sections of Astoria, College Point, Corona, North Corona, East Elmhurst, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Woodside in Queens and City Island, Country Club, Pelham Bay, Parkchester, Throggs Neck, Hunts Point, and Mott Haven in the Bronx.
[2] Although, to be fair, apparently not the AIPAC trough, at least not yet.
