The Squad AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution

By: Ryan Grim

Published by Henry Holt and Company, 2025-07-22

Semafor's Best Political Book of 2023

A riveting insider account of the progressive movement in Congress centering A.O.C., Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar—their rise, their efforts to set an ambitious agenda for the country, and their struggle to find their footing within the Democratic party.

The Squad is the definitive, must-read book about the most exciting figures defining our new era. The story is urgent, and the stakes are high—for the country and the world—and Grim, an experienced political reporter who covered the Squad before they were the Squad, is uniquely qualified to tell it.

When Bernie Sanders, an obscure Vermont senator, launched his quixotic 2016 presidential campaign, few could have seen just how radically the Democratic Party would transform in just a few short years—or that such a transformation could be led by a Bronx bartender volunteering for Bernie in her spare time. The world as it was when that campaign began is almost unrecognizable today, and the Squad has both shaped and been shaped by the seismic social, cultural, and political changes underway.

Referred to informally as the Squad, led by the preternaturally politically savvy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the group laid down a marker for an aggressive left-wing agenda. Grim takes you behind the scenes as that new energy makes impact with Washington, and the Squad spends as much time fending off assaults from Donald Trump—who regularly singled them out and led chants of “send them back” at rallies—as they did battling their own party’s sclerotic leadership. As they’ve grown in office, they’ve had to contend with the eternal question that confronts outsiders who power their way into the inside: Are they still radical organizers willing and able to lead a political revolution?