WASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) says congressional Democrats’ public complaints about President Joe Biden’s age have become a bigger problem for the party than the age itself.
“I think that the way that our party conducts itself in public contributes just as much to our political challenges as any facts on the ground,” Ocasio-Cortez told Raw Story on her way to vote at the Capitol Thursday. “And so, to me, that is something that I encourage my colleagues to think about, because these things don't happen out of thin air.”
Instead, Ocasio-Cortez said, the party needs to focus on recent sweeping Supreme Court decisions, especially former President Donald Trump’s immunity case.
“The Supreme Court just issued rulings recently that have transformed the legal landscape in this country, and set the stage to, basically, crown Donald Trump the king,” Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive phenom who’s amassed a larger social media following than her party’s congressional leaders, said.
On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. While that move is expected to go nowhere in the GOP-controlled lower chamber, Ocasio-Cortez argues it should be the focus of the Democratic Party right now.
“That has created — it is a horrific and destabilizing development — that has also created a window for us, and instead that is being used and that window is being forfeited in a disorganized public response,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
The third-term progressive says Biden and his administration continue failing the far left, but added any issue she has with Biden's demerits have nothing on Trump’s desire for unfettered power.
“I think it is completely legitimate for a progressive person, a young person, etc. to have objections, reservations, concerns about President Biden,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “What I'm focused on, truly — and ... I also think a lot of progressive and young people are — is that many of us are prepared to join a Popular Front strategy in order to defeat the fascist threat that is Donald Trump.”
Ocasio-Cortez argues now is no time for party — or progressive — purity.
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“It doesn't mean that we approve of the president's policy in Gaza. It doesn't mean that we've approved of any number or any one of the decisions, even if we find them completely and morally objectionable,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “What we also see is putting that choice in the context of the larger threat that Donald Trump is to American democracy.”
While Ocasio-Cortez prides herself in pushing the party, including President Biden, further to the left on measures like the Green New Deal, she says November’s election needs to stay focused on the presidency, not perfection.
“So I think, really, it's a question of scale. I think as a progressive, there are moments we’re on the offense and there are moments where we have to mitigate challenging times,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And I think my strategy has always been being as honest with people as possible. I'm not here to delude anyone or anything like that. What I am here to say is we got to work with what we're working with.”
That’s why Ocasio-Cortez is cautioning calm in her party’s ranks in the wake of Biden’s disastrous first presidential debate this cycle.
“It's not to delegitimize anyone’s stances on this current situation or moment,” Ocasio-Cortez told Raw Story. “But how we express that and how we conduct ourselves in turbulent times is a big part of what determines our strength.”
