A.O.C. and the Self-Important Caucus - Editorial, The Week in Review

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01.01.2020

A.O.C. and the Self-Important Caucus

I heard the representative from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez complaining about former Vice President, Joe Biden the other day.

She offered her insight regarding his candidacy, stating that in another country the two of them wouldn’t even be in the same party. I think that she meant it as some kind of scathing rebuke of Joe Biden, who is running against her preferred candidate Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States.

Of course Bernie Sanders is not a democratic, he is an independent running as a self-styled democratic-socialist. Ocasio-Cortex is a democrat but she styles herself as a democratic-socialist as well.

There is no Democratic-Socialist Party in America, maybe there should be, but there isn’t, there are a few minor political parties, like the Green Party and the Libertarians, they hold a few seats in local governments around the country. The United States remains a two party system, with the Democrats and the Republicans holding sway.

Like it or not that is the way it is.

It is true, what she said, that in another country she and Joe Biden would not be in the same party. The insight her rebuke lacks is this: in those other countries the party she would find herself in would at best be a minor part of a governing coalition.

Her comments also fail to appreciate how she came to represent her constituents. She was elected to office as a Democrat, had she run as a third party candidate or an independent, it is not likely she would have been successful.

She ran as a Democrat in a democratic primary and unseated the incumbent, who was a member of the Democratic Party leadership. Her opponent accepted his defeat, allowing her to use all of the tools the party had to offer to win the seat for real.

That is the way the Party system works, and it worked for her.

Now Ocasio-Cortez wants to campaign for her pal on the notion that the Democratic Party should have a smaller tent. In this election year we have to stay focused on the positive, talk about the ideas, tell me what you stand for.

If your team is spending political capital telling us why they are against the Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg or Michael Bloomberg it only confirms that your preferred candidate will not be able to come into power with a strong enough constituency to accomplish any of your legislative goals.

We do not need ideological puritans holding office with their precious “integrity” intact, while they sit around out of power with their so-called progressivism stuck in reverse, because the other team has won.

Keep your eye on the prize people, in 2020 its not just the white house on the line, its redistricting, and no matter who wins the nomination we all have to work together if we are going to get past this moment in time.