Imagine all the House Democrats watching the clip below this morning, feeling their first-ever twinge of identification with Trump.

It was Ocasio-Cortez (and probably Rashida Tlaib) whom he had in mind when he said the following on Thursday, no?

“I really believe that they don’t care about crime,” Trump said. “I really believe this. The Democrats don’t care about crime.”

“They’ve been taken over by a group of young people who, frankly, in some cases, I’ve been watching, I actually think are crazy,” Trump said Thursday. “But they’ve been taken over by a group that is so far left, I really don’t think they care about crime. Sadly, they are viewing this as the beginning of the 2020 race and that’s okay with me. But they have been taken over by a group of people who don’t care about gangs, human trafficking or drugs. They don’t care about anything. I tell you why, they have gone crazy.”

That was 36 hours after she appeared on MSNBC to wonder why we’re funding ICE. Part of her social-media strategy is to seize on slights from the right and promote them to her audience, responding either as whiny victim to rally her fans to her defense or as a happy warrior eager to brawl with ideological enemies on their behalf. Trump’s “who cares?” dig was too mild for door number one so today we get door number two:

I bartended for *years* in New York City. I understand guys like this like the back of my hand.

We got under his skin 😂⬇️ https://t.co/SUXDVVY5tM

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 14, 2019

Trump doesn’t drink but she’s going for a “loudmouth at the end of the bar” thing there. POTUS’s own Twitter strategy is similar to hers although not identical. He also alternates between victim and brawler — maybe that’s the secret ingredient to building a modern political personality cult — but he rarely comes off as a particularly “happy” warrior. (At his rallies, perhaps.) And he uses social-media for score-settling. There’s no Ocasio-Cortez version of the “embarrassing random potshots at people whom I have a grudge against” genre. Yet.

They’re perfect foils for each other, politically and demographically. I think he’s holding off on engaging with her on Twitter until something really big happens that requires a major distraction. Maybe the Mueller report will do it.

.@realDonaldTrump on @AOC: "Who cares?" pic.twitter.com/EUU2aPDpPM

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 14, 2019