Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has issued a dire warning to her party about the chaos that could ensue if they succeed in pushing President Joe Biden off the ticket. And she criticized Democrats who’ve given off-the-record quotes that suggest the party has resigned itself to a second Trump term.
In an Instagram Live video on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez warned liberals that a brokered convention could lead to chaos, in part because she says some of the Democratic “elites” who want Biden out also don’t want Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee in his place.
“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP be the nominee,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed none of the people she’s spoken with who are calling on Biden to drop out — including lawmakers and legal experts — have articulated a plan to swap out the nominee without minimizing the serious legal and procedural challenges that are likely to ensue.
Ocasio-Cortez also highlighted the racial, ethnic and class divisions that appear to have formed between the majority of those pining to blow up the ticket — led mostly by white Democrats and media pundits — and those elected officials who feel they and their constituents have too much at stake to upend the process at this point and so are willing to do the work to re-elect Biden-Harris. She alluded to this cultural divide in her video when she spoke out against anonymous sources expressing a sense of fatalism on behalf of Democrats about what might happen if Biden remains on the ticket:
What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose. For me, to a certain extent, I don’t care what name is on there. We are not losing. I don’t know about you, but my community does not have the option to lose. My community does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.
Open convention, lively debate, voters get to pick the candidate who is most the engaging, a la JFK.
Or option B, hear me out on this, Kamala Harris. I know right!? I mean she’s already in the White House, she already knows everything going on. She has the money in the fucking bank! Hell, she’s probably already running the show behind the scenes. Wouldn’t be the first time a woman is actually doing all of the work and man is taking all of the credit.
Too late for an open convention unfortunately. I have no problem supporting Harris, but she does have drawbacks as a candidate.
So getting that done is the next step, but it appears Harris as the candidate faces other resistance from within the party. So that would need to be overcome.
In addition, all that keeps the policies of the ticket intact, which makes changing tack midstream easier.
Thank you. We are on the same page. I just hate the “Oh no we ate totally doomed” rhetoric that is thrown around all the time.
Realistic plans are good.
Also, to be clear, when I ask for a strategy I’m often just downvoted with no replies and that’s what I meant.
Of course I’ve seen Harris floated as a strategy and of course I’d be on board with that. Just the doomerism without a plan is really not helpful, and that ain’t you.