We’re living in a country where it seems like everything is broken and no one knows how to fix it. Hyperbolic? Yeah, a little bit. But, there’s a sheen of truth in that opening salvo, too.

Donald Trump ran on a slogan of “Make America Great Again.” MAGA speaks to an idea that we’re not what we once were, as a country. While I might disagree with President Trump and his prescriptions for “fixing what’s broken,” I can’t disagree that we’re not where we ought to be, either.

On Friday, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes went to the Bronx, the NYC borough represented by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (she also represents parts of Queens, too). The town hall, taped in the afternoon, ran during Hayes’ usual 8:00 p.m. slot on the left-leaning cable news network popular with “lefties” like me.

As Ocasio-Cortez strode into the auditorium at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she was afforded a “hero’s welcome” by the adoring crowd, before sitting down and taping the hour-long segment on her signature proposal known as, the Green New Deal. I’m glad I tuned in and got to see AOC, the three-letter moniker both her fans and critics tend to use when referencing her and her politics.

Ah, yes. Speaking of things that are broken and not being repaired—our politics would certainly fall within those parameters. And Ocasio-Cortez has become a lightning rod on the left for attracting criticism from opponents in much the same way Mr. Trump galvanizes his opponents’ wrath.

So, what is the Green New Deal? I know that it’s been touted (and condemned) by various factions across the political spectrum. The Green New Deal was a proposed resolution co-sponsored by both Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). A concise summary would say that the Green New Deal sets goals that would drastically cut carbon emissions, focusing on electricity generation, transportation, as well as agriculture. In the process, it aims to create jobs and boost the economy.

But the brokenness of our politics—fueled often by binary constructs of every single issue—attempts to demonize both the legislation and in particular, Ocasio-Cortez. For many on the right, she’s the political and moral equivalent of “Satan” and someone out to take away Americans’ hamburgers. This was a charge made by Sebastian Gorka, former member of the Trump administration, at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, fulminating that wild-eyed Democrats are coming and worse: “They want to take your pickup truck! They want to rebuild your home! They want to take away your hamburgers! This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved!”

AOC is not the Hamburglar.

For one, Gorka’s rant is over-the-top on so many levels. Of course, there’s been a host of other unhinged characterizations of the Green New Deal by Republicans, who fail every single test on the innovation front. I can summarize their criticism of the proposal as a “green socialist manifesto.” But is it?

And to be fair to Republicans, Democrats in the Senate failed to step-up and support the resolution, as it failed to gain the necessary 60 votes for advancement for a final vote. Four members of the Senate’s Democratic caucus in fact voted against it: Coal Country’s Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Doug Jones of Alabama, and Maine’s own “maverick” independent, Angus King. For what it’s worth, King is someone is I think is an environmental fraud on a host of levels, including his support of (and the significant benefits he received) industrial wind, and not deserving of the pass he gets from far too many on the left.

If all you know about Ocasio-Cortez comes courtesy of your deluded (or “psychotic”) right-wing sources of misinformation, then you’ll likely miss how revolutionary Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her cohort of freshmen congressional colleagues really are. Or, maybe they’re not as revolutionary as others are giving them credit for being.

There was a time in America not that long ago (but far enough back) that those in power believed in and supported what NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg calls, “social infrastructure.” Those physical places in our society where bonds between people are forged and developed. As he wrote in a piece for The Atlantic last fall, robust social infrastructure “fosters contact, mutual support, and collaboration among friends and neighbors; when degraded, it inhibits social activity, leaving families and individuals to fend for themselves.”

If you attempt to read the news as a way of ferreting out what’s actually happening to us, rather than as a means of scoring cheap ideological takedowns, then you’ll recognize a pattern: Republicans only care about maintaining the status quo. And their baseline position will only continue resulting in things breaking down without a fix forthcoming.

If there’s a way forward, then it’s time for new ideas. Concepts like Medicare for All, something more affordable than Republicans want you to believe. How about jobs built on a foundation of living wages? And yes, investments in our public (and social) infrastructure: the things Klinenberg says are “precisely what we need.” These were the things we were prioritizing when America was still a functional nation.

If Trumpsters wanted a better America, then that’s what they’d be supporting. Not building a wall around our perimeter and continuing to enhance the wealthiest at the expense of the rest of us. And certainly not demonizing people like Ocasio-Cortez and others who actually offer a path to making America better, and possibly, great again.