The crowd loved her. They ate it all up.

"I support the rights of trans women because I'm a girl's girl," she squealed.

Boom. Vibes filled the State Theatre in Portland, Thursday for the "Students vs. Billionaires" town hall put on by More Perfect University.

It was woke 2.0 hitting its stride. The room was full of young progressives, socialists, communists, anarchists or whatever identifier the young ideologues in the crowd wrapped themselves with.

And they loved just about everything they heard from the telegenic, cheerful, likely 2028 presidential candidate.

When a young man asked AOC what could be done in rural places like Maine to improve public transportation, she lit up and grand ideas exploded out of her.

“Things like bike infrastructure, making it easy to get around with micro-mobility to trains,” she said, after suggesting that the New York City/Long Island template could be duplicated in Maine.

To the layman, it would seem that a plan like that would need to be workshopped a little more, noting the not-so-subtle differences in the two states. But not in that crowd.

Up went the spirit fingers.

“The more ways we have to get around, the more places we can live.”

The crowd nodded in wondrous agreement. They were learning things.

When she made note that buying a car was a hassle, some in the crowd hissed at the thought of the auto industry or commerce or a free market economy or all of the above.

They were spiritual comrades-in-arms and they were here for AOC.

When a black woman in a keffiyeh asked AOC a question about immigration, the congresswoman was happy to add a little flourish:

It was code-switching clinic.

“I’ma be all up in your grill.”

Preach.

The crowd was here for it.

She wasn’t done yet. Her closing remarks brought down the house and the Washington DC establishment was put on notice.

“They’re afraid of a waitress in the House, and a logger in the Senate.”

And then things took a bizarre twist when Ocasio-Cortez began damning Troy Jackson (yes, he was there) with faint praise.

“They want to critique how he talks, how he looks…the way he says things.”

Ouch.

If Troy Jackson even detected the burn, we don’t know but the worst thing in Portland for the Troy Jackson campaign was that he was there at all.

The contrast was remarkable. She was winsome and engaging. She sat on her stool with perfect posture, effortlessly projecting the appearance of a prized arthouse muse.

Then there’s Troy Jackson, slumped over his chair. Not enjoying the moment. Indifferent to the stimuli provided by the festive and ecstatic crowd or the dazzling progressive tour-de-force next to him.

Jackson had all the body language and energy of a hungover operator of the carnival Tilt-A-Whirl. He’s impervious to, if not resentful of all the joy around him.