AOC says she might quit politics as Dems blame progressives for losses, top Black lawmaker slams 'defunding police'
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden might have won the presidency against incumbent Donald Trump but the Democratic Party has found itself disappointed overall in this election, particularly with its show in the House of Representatives where it lost a number of seats. The show has also brought out in the open the infighting in the blue party and now, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has come up with some bombshell revelations. She said she might even quit politics.
The 31-year-old, who won her first term from the 14th district in 2018, has been re-elected this year after an expensive bid but over the weekend, she said she considered not running for the re-election because of the tussle between the Democratic Party’s progressives and establishment wings.
The New York Times reported on Saturday, November 7, that when AOC was asked whether she would consider joining the Senate if the upcoming Biden presidency becomes too "hostile" towards the progressives, she said she "genuinely doesn’t know". "I don’t even know if I want to be in politics," she said.
'Didn't know if I was going for re-election'
"You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn't even know if I was going to run for re-election this year," AOC, who defeated Republican John Cummings, added. AOC’s winning percentage, however, came down from over 78 percent in 2018 to a little below 69 percent this year.
The loss of seats in the House that saw the GOP emerging stronger pushed many established faces in the Democratic Party to blame its progressive lawmakers for the loss, mainly AOC and her ‘Squad’ that includes the likes of Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib from Michigan. All the three other members of the Squad have also won their re-election bids.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn, an influential Democrat who played a key role behind Biden’s rise this year, was particularly upset with the progressives. He said tags like "socialist" and calls from the lawmakers to "defund the police" could turn off most Americans.
"I don't get hung up on labels," the 80-year-old leader of color from South Carolina told NBC News on Sunday, November 8. “I’m an American, a very proud American. And I’m a Democrat, a very proud Democrat. So I just want us to be Democrats in a big tent, and these labels, I reject.”
When ‘Meet the Press’ host Chuck Todd asked Clyburn whether movements for defunding the police and the socialism tag cost his caucus seats this election, the latter said: “Well, I don't know about all the seats. I really believe that that's what cost Joe Cunningham his seat”. He referred to the defeat of the Democratic incumbent from SC who lost to GOP’s Nancy Mace.
“And I can also tell you about the Senate here in South Carolina. Jaime Harrison started to plateau when 'defund the police' showed up with a caption on TV, ran across his head. That stuff hurt Jaime. And that's why I spoke out against it a long time ago,” the veteran leader added. Harrison lost to Lindsey Graham in the race for Senate in South Carolina despite many hoping that he could be a giant killer this year.
“I've always said that these headlines can kill a political effort. We are all about making headway. And I just hope that going forward we will think about each one of these Congressional districts and let people represent their districts. You know, Joe Cunningham could not get elected in my district and I can't get elected in his. So let's recognize that the people should reflect that diversity in our country,” Clyburn, who won her own re-election bid, said.
Clyburn also said that when he spoke with two incumbent Democrats who lost their seats in Miami-area districts to GOP opponents, they said calls to defund police and the classification of their party as ‘Socialist’ hurt them.
'Not a single Congress member campaigned on socialism or defunding police'
AOC, who spoke to CNN’s Jake Tapper on ‘State of the Union’ on Sunday morning, had her take on Clyburn’s position. “Not a single member of Congress that I'm aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding the police in this general election. And these were largely slogans or where they were demands from activist groups that we saw in the largest uprising in American history around police brutality,” AOC, who backed progressive Bernie Sanders in the primary run, said.
The firebrand socialist leader, who accused the Republicans of levying “very effective rhetorical attacks” against the Democratic Party, added that the question now is how the Democrats can build a more effective operation now which is stronger and resilient to the GOP attacks. “And I believe that there are many areas that we can point at in centralized Democratic operations that are extraordinarily weak. For example, our digital campaigning is very weak. And this is an area where Republicans are actually quite strong,” she added.
In August, the Democratic Party saw a controversy over allotment of less time to AOC to make her speech in the party’s national convention that officially endorsed Biden as the presidential candidate. Even AOC herself had reacted against it even as the party remained decided over giving the progressive a bigger platform.
“I only have a minute.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 12, 2020
Sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, I did not choose it,
But I know that I must use it.
Give account if I abuse it.
Suffer, if I lose it.
Only a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.”
- Dr. Benjamin E. Mays
(and recited by Elijah Cummings) 💜 https://t.co/ul9CE7NriV
The ‘defund police’ movement gained traction across the US this summer following the brutal death of George Floyd at the hands of the police in Minneapolis. Progressive voices called for a complete defunding of the police departments, calling the system systematically racist. AOC said there are other things apart from the ‘defund police’ sloganeering that the progressives have been focusing on and they include, for example, Medicare for all.
“We can help,” she said in the interview.
“It's not saying that every member has to campaign as a progressive, in a traditional progressive way. But it's to say that we have assets to offer the Party that the Party has not yet, you know, fully leaned into or exploited. And I believe that we can take some of these seats,” AOC told Tapper.