The Bush-Trump model is based on mobilization of natural allies. The Clinton-Obama model is based on a forlorn effort at persuasion of a dwindling group of people attracted by cautious, middle-of-the-road politics. That is why AOC in the New Yorker urged Biden to forget about congressional approval and simply cancel student loan debt by executive order. (She didn’t pause after this passing aside to defend why such an action is “entirely within his power legally” or why this policy is genuinely progressive, since recipients of higher education usually command higher lifetime incomes than the average taxpayer.)

Such details are almost beside the point. The persuasion versus mobilization fault line is likely the most consequential remaining divide in both parties — Republicans no less than Democrats.

As she evangelizes for one side of this argument, AOC is not just confronting moderate adversaries like fellow Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) She’s also confronting Obama. While she poormouths Biden’s win on public works infrastructure as small and disappointing, the former president lectured Democratic lawmakers the other day, according to Punchbowl News, to “take the wins you can get,” and that “it doesn’t help to whine about the stuff you can’t change.”