Former Vice President Joe Biden is going to have to make some “uncomfortable” concessions to win over the party’s left flank in 2020, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in an interview published Monday.
Hopefully Biden rips a page from Trump’s playbook and nominates AOC to whatever post will make wingnuts angrier, as an “Acting Secretary” if needed. And nominate Ilhan Omar as Ambassador for International Religious Freedom while we’re at it…
I can predict all the “get out of here, we won, you lost” responses.
After you calm down, look at it from this perspective. People like Sanders and AOC are giving Biden the information he needs to unify with the party’s left flank. He already has the middle.
Think of it as valuable information.
So let me get this straight, AOC wants Biden to adopt her platform, after voters soundly rejected it. Maybe she should’ve thought about how great Clinton was WHEN SHE WAS THE NOMINEE, instead we got Sanders surrogates like Susan Sarandon, Nina Turner, and current/former spokeswoman Briahna Gray urging people to vote 3rd party and saying that Trump would be better than Clinton.
Biden is under no obligation to move further left, and shouldn’t be taking advice from people who obviously didn’t understand the American electorate. In 2016 Clinton tried to make concessions to win these voters over and they threw a hissy fit and didn’t vote or voted 3rd party.
That route was tried in 2016, and it was not accepted. Biden did win. Sanders lost. Get on board or get out of the way.
Honestly, I’m with her regarding Medicare… lowering the eligibility age to 60 gasp is pretty weak. His proposal has to be at least as strong as Hillary Clinton’s was in 2016.
There is no tent big enough to comfortably accommodate all the 57% of voters who are not insane. AOC is correct, some people are going to need to be uncomfortable.
I’m somewhere between “go pound sand” and “when does Bernie rein in his hard-core herd and actually vigorously endorse Joe Biden”?
Still waiting on the Biden endorsement from Liz, as well.
Then we’ll talk…
Like I said, I could easily predict the responses.
AOC is spot-on and it right to put Biden under pressure.
The big open question, re Biden, is whether he’s the ideal Democrat from the Republican perspective–the naif who cleans up the GOP’s mess the better to lay the ground for more Republican gains in the near future–or whether he’s actually going to claw back some ground: hold the GOP accountable, go after the corporations that fund it, do something about the US’s descent into Latin American levels of inequality.
As much as I like and admire AOC, her threat seems patently silly. What is the ‘left wing progressive’ arm of the party going to do absent his capitulation? Sit out the election? Vote for Trump? Reasonable expectations stated in ridiculous terms. I fully expect Biden to include many progressive elements in his platform but not because of this threat.
That’s a good way to look at it. But I also think that AOC has far less political power than she thinks she has. Now if she could promise phalanxes of 18-25 year old voters who she could influence to vote in a certain way. then she’d have something. But, alas…
Memo to AOC: Are you willing to accept responsibility for 4 more years of Trump, with all of the war, pestilence and famine that will bring? Really?
Somehow, I doubt it.
It’s really very, very, very simple: WE ALL NEED TO PULL TOGETHER TO GET RID OF TRUMP AND HIS CO-CONSPIRATORS. Everything else is far, far, far behind.
{Bemused blink}
No Tanks?
Yes. But what she misses is that SHE is one of the people who need to be uncomfortable, and live with it.
Yes, we all need to pull together. That includes not disenfranchising Sanders supporters. They still have a voice.
That’s a great way to ensure a trump re-election.
“I’m not trying to be divisive,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Then you’re failing.
Bye Felicia.
After all I’d read about her becoming politically astute she does this. The message is completely wrong headed.
Yes. But where does not disenfranchising Sander’s supporters end and their holding the Democratic Party hostage begin?
