Last week, Taylor Swift issued an empassioned statement lifting the lid on an ongoing feud with two of the industry’s leading managers, whom she accused of preventing her from performing her own music.

“The message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you’ll be punished,” she tweeted.

This is a message Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knows all too well. 

So much so that the freshman congresswoman has stepped in to bat for the songstress with her own call to action.

“Private equity groups’ predatory practices actively hurt millions of Americans,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “Their leveraged buyouts have destroyed the lives on retail workers across the country, scrapping 1+ million jobs. Now, they’re holding Taylor Swift’s own music hostage. They need to be reinged [sic] it.”

In June, Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine Records from Scott Borchetta, becoming the owner of all of Swift’s music before Lover. Swift claims she was not consulted on the move, and accused Braun – who played a role in Swift’s brawl with Kanye West – of “incessant, manipulative bullying”.

According to Swift, Braun is now blocking her from playing the biggest hits of her career such as Love Story, Shake it Off, Blank Space at her forthcoming Artist of the Decade honour at the American Music Awards, or using footage of those songs in a reported upcoming Netflix special.

Ocasio-Cortez joins a long list of celebrities who have spoken out in support of Swift, including Gigi Hadid, Selena Gomez, and Lily Allen, who have taken to social media to share messages of support.

What’s more, the hashtag #IStandWithTaylor is going viral, and more than 50,000 people signing a petition that Swift be allowed to perform her catalogue at the AMAs, and include her original masters in the Netflix documentary.

Ocasio-Cortez is usually busy sticking up for the working class with bills like the Loan Shark Prevention Act, which would force credit companies to lower their interest rates on consumer loans. And sure, some might say relating her policies to pop culture like this is a genius move.

However, this is about more than that. AOC is a strong advocate for women’s rights and has experience in feeling dismissed because of her gender and age (she is only a year older than Swift). Like Swift, she is used to sticking up for herself and standing her ground – rather than ‘shutting up’ and ‘being a good girl’. 

At the end of the day, this is about one woman sticking up for another.