I don't know about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but in Bernie's campaign 2020 you could easily see he was "just acting" as in playing a role. And all the campaign workers were not interested in him, any issues, or any of the local people who were appearing at rallies (including ones who had a lot of knowledge about environmental devastation at one rally I attended). They were obviously just employees of the Democratic Party, there to take people's money and party amongst themselves.