New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hustling to win over left-wing critics who say the progressive leader cares too much about mainstream approval and is too cozy with senior Democrats.
Between the lines: If Ocasio-Cortez’s diplomacy is successful, it could be more difficult for any potential 2028 presidential candidate to run to her left — but moderate Democrats argue it also could make it tougher for her to win a general election.
Despite her recent efforts, some loud voices on the left — including people who have worked closely with her — have gotten under her skin by continuing to question her progressive bona fides.
Zoom in: In recent weeks, Ocasio-Cortez has tried to repair her relationship with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Many members of the group opposed her support for giving Israel defensive weapons, including the Iron Dome missile system, during the war in Gaza — which she has called a “genocide.”
In July 2024, national DSA leaders withdrew their endorsement of her for the elections that year, arguing that she’d conflated “anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions,” which the group considered a “deep betrayal.”
The intrigue: AOC also has had a fraught relationship with some progressives who helped launch her political career.
Her first chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, co-founded Justice Democrats, a group that helped Ocasio-Cortez with her insurgent House campaign in 2018. Chakrabarti is running for Congress in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco, but Ocasio-Cortez pointedly hasn’t endorsed him in the June 2 primary.
She’s indicated she believes that some of her early allies on the left have taken too much credit for her upset House victory eight years ago, and she’s distanced herself from them over the years, people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.
JFC. I would love it if you would please, just look up some of the things you think are true before you make everyone else reading this stupider, in the process. You are just so confidently incorrect about your entire worldview. smh.
You ignored my entire comment and posted abuse.
And I’m starting to think you’re just a troll. You’ve ignored all of my comments and insulted me repeatedly. My patience with you is done.
Admit that biden supports genocide or you’re a pro-genocide liar. And nothing else ever.
Buddy, I already have. And I told you I’m not a fucking Biden supporter. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Depression. A firm conviction that everything is fucked. A complete unwillingness to tolerate any excuse for the behavior of the genocidal assholes who got us here.
An abiding sense of loss for the world that could have been if we had a party in this country that was willing to even pretend to attempt to make anything better.
Yeah, well…those genocidal assholes are literally the same people feeding you the talking points you seem so stuck on. Are you even aware that Steve Bannon is the guy that came up with the narrative that Liberals were actually worse than fascists? They literally paid influencers on the left to convince people of this, in order to divided any opposition to MAGA and discourage young leftists from voting. And guess what? It fucking worked.
That means that people like you are either getting paid to spread this bullshit, or they’re stupid enough to be spreading it for free. Wake the fuck up. You’re undermining all of us with this doom-and-gloom approach to politics. Instead of motivating people to get more involved in the process…you’re sucking all the fucking oxygen out of the room and guaranteeing that people walk away. That bullshit is exactly what got Trump elected again. And they’re counting on it in order to keep him in power indefinitely. Stop helping them.
I’ve never said that, but centrists sure love to imagine that even the slightest criticism of genocide is instead some position that their interlocutors haven’t taken.
Lol! You may not have said those words, specifically…but you’ve certainly used a ton of Steve Bannon’s other talking points during this discussion. Whether you’re getting your information directly from him, or from some of his subsidiaries (like Jimmy Dore for example), isn’t the point. The point is you’re still spreading his propaganda, whether you know it or not.
And even with this last comment, you are strawmaanning my position again. I am not criticizing your position on Israel’s genocide. Stop making that your only argument here. It isn’t valid. I agree with you. Genocide is bad. But how does it help having Trump in the office instead of Harris? Israel is even more aggressive now…and Trump is exactly the kind of stupid to go along with it.
Harris wouldn’t speak up against Biden during her campaign…but given how public opinion is shifting within her base…do you honestly believe that she would be worse than Trump right now? Clutching your pearls because of how close she was to Biden, while holding the door open for a literal fascist to walk past you, is social and political negligence. If you’re not voting to the left in every election…the right will keep winning.
You need to be able to recognize who the real enemy is and how to stop them, if you want any hope of turning this shit around. Or, you can throw your hands in the air and give up. Which is exactly what folks like Steve Bannon are counting on.