Devika Desai NOV 9, 2020
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might quit politics if Democrats continue to be “hostile” towards progressive causes, she has said in an explosive New York Times interview .
© Provided by National Post
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-NY) listens as Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee
On Saturday, the Bronx native offered her congratulations to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, but slammed Democrats for blaming progressives after the party showed poorly in many of the Senate and House races that accompanied the election.
“Externally, there’s been a ton of support, but internally, (the party) been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive,” she said.
She admitted to the New York Times that she wasn’t even sure she was going to run for re-election this year, citing “stress,” “violence” and a “lack of support from her own party” as reasons for her reluctance.
Despite her initial hesitations, Ocasio-Cortez ran for and won second term in the House, handily defeating first-time Republican challenger John Cummings. But the odds of her staying put are still precarious, she asserted.
“I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same. It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy,” she said. “When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you’re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.”
Post-election, several Democrats pointed fingers at their progressive colleagues for the party’s poor performance. Representative Abigal Spanberger, who narrowly won her seat in a conservative-leaning district of Virginia, blamed colleagues for supporting the “defund the police.” Democrats must consider the election results a “failure” and change strategies, or else they will be “crushed” in future elections, she said.
On Saturday, the Bronx native offered her congratulations to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, but slammed Democrats for blaming progressives after the party showed poorly in many of the Senate and House races that accompanied the election.
“Externally, there’s been a ton of support, but internally, (the party) been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive,” she said.
She admitted to the New York Times that she wasn’t even sure she was going to run for re-election this year, citing “stress,” “violence” and a “lack of support from her own party” as reasons for her reluctance.
Despite her initial hesitations, Ocasio-Cortez ran for and won second term in the House, handily defeating first-time Republican challenger John Cummings. But the odds of her staying put are still precarious, she asserted.
“I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same. It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy,” she said. “When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you’re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.”
Post-election, several Democrats pointed fingers at their progressive colleagues for the party’s poor performance. Representative Abigal Spanberger, who narrowly won her seat in a conservative-leaning district of Virginia, blamed colleagues for supporting the “defund the police.” Democrats must consider the election results a “failure” and change strategies, or else they will be “crushed” in future elections, she said.
But Ocasio-Cortez said the failings came from the Democrats’ lack of core campaign abilities — not from any policy goals pursued by those further to the left of the party.“There’s a reason Barack Obama built an entire national campaign apparatus outside of the Democratic National Committee,” she said. “And there’s a reason that when he didn’t activate or continue that, we lost House majorities. Because the party – in and of itself – does not have the core competencies, and no amount of money is going to fix that.”
© Andrew Kelly Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez holds her filled ballot as she votes early at a polling station in The Bronx, New York City, U.S., October 25, 2020.
It’s clear, she said, that progressive politics do not hurt candidates.
“Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat,” she said.
She accused moderate Democrats of being “sitting ducks” and attributed their losses to inadequately-funded campaigns.
“If you’re not door-knocking, if you’re not on the internet, if your main points of reliance are TV and mail, then you’re not running a campaign on all cylinders. I just don’t see how anyone could be making ideological claims when they didn’t run a full-fledged campaign,” she said.
The support for Donald Trump, she said, is an indicator of the unrest within the U.S., and Democrats need to commit to “anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country” to prevent more white voters from shifting to the other side. “There’s no amount of people of color and young people that you can turn out to offset that,” she said.
“Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help,” she said. “And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.”
Why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Bernie Sanders for president at the Democratic convention
It’s time for the party to stop viewing her and her progressive-minded colleagues as the enemy, she said.
“This isn’t even just about winning an argument. It’s that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they’re just setting up their own obsolescence,” she said.
She’s One Of Politics’ Rising Stars, But Here’s Why AOC Wasn’t Sure She Would Run For A Second Term
Danielle Campoamor NOV 9, 2020
Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, both Democrats vying for congressional seats and voters preparing to cast their ballots turned to the same source for input: the rising likes of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And this was for good reason. Apart from holding her actual job and running for reelection herself, AOC campaigned for now president-elect Joe Biden as the co-chair of his Climate Change task force; She played ‘Among Us’ on Twitch, which over 400,000 people watched in real-time as she discussed health care policy and the need to vote along progressive lines and focus on down ballot races; And, she went on CNN and told their millions of viewers that electing Kamala Harris to the vice presidency is “really incredible” and “amazing that so many little girls are growing up with this being the norm for them.”
© Provided by Refinery29
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-NY) listens as Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors” in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC on October 23, 2019.
(Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
In so many ways, Ocasio-Cortez’s influence over this election was astronomical. The freshman congresswoman already has a strong allegiance of young voters behind her — but it’s one that she doesn’t take lightly or for granted. So it’s ironic that the progressive Democratic socialist who won reelection handedly this term would continue to find herself on the receiving end of her party’s harshest criticism, both inside and out.
In an interview with the New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that for the first six months of her term she didn’t know whether or not she was going to run for reelection — the byproduct of being vilified by both Republicans and middle-of-the-road Democrats alike. “It’s the lack of support from your own party,” she said. “It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy. When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you’re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.”
In 2019, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi attacked AOC and the “squad” — Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib — telling the Times, “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.” In the same year, an article was published in Politico in which close to a dozen Democrats denigrated AOC for her “political style.”
She’s been labeled simply a “Twitter star” who doesn’t “understand how [the House] works yet” and who needs to learn the “difference between being an activist and a lawmaker in Congress” — and that’s just the vitriol she’s endured from establishment Democrats. Republicans, for the most part, have been even worse, with Ocasio-Cortez regularly fighting off the likes of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, while being made Fox News punchline.
There’s undoubtedly a slew of reasons why Democratic leadership is threatened and therefore attacking AOC — changing of the old guard, a more progressive platform that would hold wealthy Democrats as well as Republicans accountable, a more inclusive and diverse political landscape that would usurp old white Democratic leadership, to name a few — but one reason is abundantly clear: AOC is right.
Her political ideology is not only popular, but an accurate representation of a Democratic party that has failed the very people that most recently propelled Biden and Harris towards the presidency. Over 90% of Black women voted for Biden. And it was Black women leading grassroots organizations and community activist networks that made it possible for Black, brown, and Indigenous people to overcome voter suppression to vote in key states like Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.
“The leadership and elements of the party — frankly, people in some of the most important decision-making positions in the party — are becoming so blinded to this anti-activist sentiment that they are blinding themselves to the very assets that they offer,” AOC said.
A reported 56% of Americans believe providing accessible, affordable health care should be the responsibility of the government — i.e. Medicare for All. And nearly two-thirds of all Americans want the government to do more to combat climate change — i.e. the Green New Deal. The idea that the Democratic party should do more to appeal to white working class voters and to the possible detriment of their base is to knowingly harm the people who fended off the very real threat of fascism in the year 2020.
And by proxy, it should come as no surprise that Ocasio-Cortez — who has carried the weight and burden of all-encompassing criticism of the progressive movement since her first election — considered leaving the institution that has repeatedly failed her. Perhaps, instead, the party should channel their energy in propping up the women who helped get Biden elected in the first place, rather than tear her down for considering leaving the toxic workplace they created.
AOC Gives Marco Rubio A Lesson In Socialism
AOC's Outfits Aren't Against Democratic Socialism
AOC’s White Suit Sends A Message
In so many ways, Ocasio-Cortez’s influence over this election was astronomical. The freshman congresswoman already has a strong allegiance of young voters behind her — but it’s one that she doesn’t take lightly or for granted. So it’s ironic that the progressive Democratic socialist who won reelection handedly this term would continue to find herself on the receiving end of her party’s harshest criticism, both inside and out.
In an interview with the New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that for the first six months of her term she didn’t know whether or not she was going to run for reelection — the byproduct of being vilified by both Republicans and middle-of-the-road Democrats alike. “It’s the lack of support from your own party,” she said. “It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy. When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you’re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.”
In 2019, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi attacked AOC and the “squad” — Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib — telling the Times, “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.” In the same year, an article was published in Politico in which close to a dozen Democrats denigrated AOC for her “political style.”
She’s been labeled simply a “Twitter star” who doesn’t “understand how [the House] works yet” and who needs to learn the “difference between being an activist and a lawmaker in Congress” — and that’s just the vitriol she’s endured from establishment Democrats. Republicans, for the most part, have been even worse, with Ocasio-Cortez regularly fighting off the likes of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, while being made Fox News punchline.
There’s undoubtedly a slew of reasons why Democratic leadership is threatened and therefore attacking AOC — changing of the old guard, a more progressive platform that would hold wealthy Democrats as well as Republicans accountable, a more inclusive and diverse political landscape that would usurp old white Democratic leadership, to name a few — but one reason is abundantly clear: AOC is right.
Her political ideology is not only popular, but an accurate representation of a Democratic party that has failed the very people that most recently propelled Biden and Harris towards the presidency. Over 90% of Black women voted for Biden. And it was Black women leading grassroots organizations and community activist networks that made it possible for Black, brown, and Indigenous people to overcome voter suppression to vote in key states like Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.
“The leadership and elements of the party — frankly, people in some of the most important decision-making positions in the party — are becoming so blinded to this anti-activist sentiment that they are blinding themselves to the very assets that they offer,” AOC said.
A reported 56% of Americans believe providing accessible, affordable health care should be the responsibility of the government — i.e. Medicare for All. And nearly two-thirds of all Americans want the government to do more to combat climate change — i.e. the Green New Deal. The idea that the Democratic party should do more to appeal to white working class voters and to the possible detriment of their base is to knowingly harm the people who fended off the very real threat of fascism in the year 2020.
And by proxy, it should come as no surprise that Ocasio-Cortez — who has carried the weight and burden of all-encompassing criticism of the progressive movement since her first election — considered leaving the institution that has repeatedly failed her. Perhaps, instead, the party should channel their energy in propping up the women who helped get Biden elected in the first place, rather than tear her down for considering leaving the toxic workplace they created.
AOC Gives Marco Rubio A Lesson In Socialism
AOC's Outfits Aren't Against Democratic Socialism
AOC’s White Suit Sends A Message
