AOC's inexperience might be a legitimate mark against her, but I'm effectively over appealing to moderates. I genuinely don't think conventional wisdom applies anymore. The republican party is small and unpopular, which is why they need to resort to gerrymandering, voter suppression and electoral college shenanigans to remain competitive. Eliminate those things and go by sheer numbers and democrats never lose another election.
Meanwhile, as far as leftists policies go? The democratic party saw a surge in voter registration when the BLM protests started over George Floyd's death, every swing state pro-healthcare democrat won their seat, and a Stacy Abram's grassroots movement registered 800,000 voters, flipping fucking Georgia of all states.
Progressive policies are things people want. It's just a matter of how to deliver them.
I don't know if AOC is ready for the presidency at so young an age, but I think we need to stop framing america as inherently anti-progressive. There certainly are a lot of people who are and there's certainly a lot of propoganda around that, but our current way of dealing with it has been to, at best, meet this mentality halfway - somewaht progressive, but not too much. And it's just not a strategy that works out very well because it curtails the effectiveness of any leftist policy, making moderates notice and use it to justify their presumption that progressivism doesn't work.
So what if we fixed the system and framed progressivism as AOC does, with facts and logic and compassion and efficacy to back it all up. I think that's worth trying. That, and I am fucking through playing the game Republicans want to play.