AOC Wants Dem Party Purged of Non-Leftists
Get on board with socialism or get out. That’s Ocasio-Cortez’s tolerant message.
“Democrats can be too big of a tent.” That was the message America’s favorite socialist, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, offered in a recent interview with The New Yorker. “They let anybody who the cat dragged in call themselves a progressive,” she complained, adding, “There’s no standard.” Given that she’s a Democrat, she’s apparently correct. Seeking to define “too big,” AOC lamented, “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.”
The old popular buzzwords that Democrats used to throw around as seemingly foundational party principles no longer apply to AOC’s party vision. The party that loves to herald its commitment to “inclusivity” and “diversity” has given way to a demand for complete leftist conformity. Apparently, AOC sees her job as leading Democrats on this leftist purity crusade.
Elizabeth Warren, who’s trying to win as many presidential votes as she can, disagrees. “I think Alexandria was talking about other political systems,” Warren said. “There are a lot of political systems where it’s multiple parties, but we are in a two-party system. In a two-party system, you better believe Democrats need a really big tent. We need to win.”
Indeed, as Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey cogently observes, “Ocasio-Cortez brags about dragging the Democrats to the Left, and in that she may be closer to the truth. What she doesn't realize is that she’s not dragging the rest of the country along with them. Again, her frosh colleagues might enlighten her if she deigned to engage with them, but instead she’s busy scorning them and the voters they represent. Ocasio-Cortez may well succeed in ‘purifying’ the party in that manner, but they’ll be back to a minority without any legislative power when she does, with enclaves on both coasts and in small academic bastions, with the GOP in control of everywhere else by default.”
In truth, if AOC were simply wanting to reform the Democrat Party, she’d be much more amiable to compromise as preservation and restoration would be the goal. But AOC isn’t a reformer; she’s a revolutionary. The Washington Examiner’s Kaylee McGhee concludes, “She’s not here to fix the political system; she’s here to burn it down. It’s clear she has no intention of stopping any time soon.”