To me, it's stupid.
She shouldn't even be answering questions about prisons or Castro. She should be answering any culture war question the way Zohran did, because every DSA candidate is going to have whatever dumb shit they said in 2014 dragged up and examined, as the billionaires who own the media outlets don't want anyone talking about affordability.
DSA's have the playbook. They just need to run the play. Republicans have made it laughably easy to win in November.
Have my upvote though, for at least giving a genuine opinion. You and I at least agree that a candidate letting themselves be forced into discussing culture war nonsense is stupid.