Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused establishment Democrats of treating her “like shit” as progressive activists urged her to run for president in 2028.
In a 100-minute long video posted on Instagram, the 37-year-old congresswoman from New York said that the party had a “remarkable opportunity” to pass left-wing policies after the midterm elections. She also accused the party’s leadership of starving funds from left-wing candidates during the campaign.
“There’s this huge conversation about candidates that were under invested in,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She cited Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who came within 240,000 votes of flipping Florida from red to blue, but ultimately lost to the Republican candidate Ashley Moody.
“If Angie Nixon had just had a little bit of that support, that outcome could have changed. But that money has to come from somewhere and it comes from these people,” Ocasio-Cortez said in reference to the party’s Senate leadership.
Reflecting on the period after she was first elected to Congress in 2018 at the age of 29, Ocasio-Cortez accused senior Democrats of being “horrifically cruel” to her. “I mean I was treated like shit,” she said. “Everybody took a swing at me.”
The Bronx congresswoman is seen as the likeliest progressive candidate to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
Agreed, but it (a) doesn’t stop our pursuit of idealism or perfection, and (b) it doesn’t stop concurrent pursuits. We can both advocate for a two-state solution (whatever framework that looks like where both predominant ethnic groups cohabit peacefully and with share of power), and simultaneously mitigate loss of civilian life overall wherever we can.
Of course the chief offender is Israel, no dispute there. But in theory providing only defensive weapons mitigates future offensive capacities of Israel and thus harm to civilians in Gaza, while also protecting children in Israel just the same. (There is more nuance to this in retrospect, I merit).
Clearly we all also want a permanent ceasefire as another step further, putting an end to the deaths everywhere. But you try every avenue you can in damage mitigation.