Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the aging leaders of the Democratic Party need to recognize that the days when Congress members can put aside their differences and get along are gone.
The New York Democrat, who is a member of the far-left “Squad,” said pretending that her ideology can’t be reconciled with that of moderate members of the party is delusional, despite President Biden’s push for unity.
“There is a sense among more senior members of Congress, who have been around in different political times, that we can get back to this time of buddy-buddy and backslapping and we’ll cut a deal and go into a room with some bourbon and some smoke and you’ll come out and work something out. I think there’s a real nostalgia and belief that that time still exists or that we can get back to that,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told New York Magazine.
The 32-year-old lawmaker said West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s resistance to back the president’s $2 trillion social welfare and climate bill, dubbed the Build Back Better Act, was an example of today’s broken politics.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she and Mr. Biden had two different understandings of where they could get Mr. Manchin on the bill, which she and other far-left members of Congress see as necessary for Democratic victories in November.
“I have the utmost respect and confidence in the president, but I just felt like we called two different plays on this one,” she said.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez also warned that shoring up support from young voters should be a high priority for her party, rather than focusing on independent voters who won’t be reliable Democratic voters.
The lawmaker, who described herself as a Democratic socialist, added that labeling her a big-government advocate doesn’t phase her or other younger members of Congress who grew up in a different political and cultural era.
“The first vote I ever cast was for Barack Obama, who was called a socialist and all of this stuff. All of this rhetoric that we see today has been the political reality my entire life,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “I never felt nostalgia for something that never existed in my lifetime. I feel like our politics has fundamentally changed — whether it’s for better or for worse is for people’s determination — but I was never under the illusion that we can bring Manchin along.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and others have been urging their colleagues to press forward with bills to expand the social safety net or the midterms will backfire on them.
House Republicans need a net gain of just five seats in November to overtake the Democrats’ narrow majority.
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