You're conflating the public with her place of work. She may be a rock star on social media and with her followers but as a politician she's a freshman with very few allies. How will she win? Why wouldnt the leadership just pick someone else who's less of a pain to deal with? AOC, like any politician, can't simply choose to become a leader in the party she needs to master congress to do so. This has nothing to do with doing the party leftward, it's how she does it. I don't think her influence will get to their peak when she's frozen out of committees and her bills aren't voted for by the majority of House Dems.
Voting for Pelosi was good, that's the type of thing she needs to do more of, this behaviour is not that. Pelosi isn't going to hand her over leadership positions just because she votes for her occasionally. She needs to gain that trust, like you do with any boss.
edit: When you're in a work place or a political organisation or a charity, do you normally ignore the rules of that space? AOC is doing that right now, as I explained upthread. You may not care for how she tweets or primaries rivals, but her work colleagues do. I don't like how they're so stodgy, either, but this is what she signed up for. Did you honestly think the Dems don't have any rules or customs for how they run their organisations?