Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, best known for her drive to move the Democratic Party as far to the left as possible, is currently bemoaning the fact that former Vice President and candidate Joe Biden is also a member of her party.
When recently asked about the type of role she would expect to play should Biden win the presidential election later this year, she groaned and then complained that the Democrat Party is cultivating “too big a tent” by including those who don’t agree with far-left viewpoints. The newbie congresswoman from New York is also calling on the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives to expel those who don’t lean far-left enough for her liking.
It’s no surprise that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and former Vice-President Joe Biden don’t like each other very much. In May 2019, AOC criticized the former vice-president for daring to try to craft a “middle of the road” approach to addressing climate change, claiming that he and others “failed to act” in the past and implying that lives hang in the balance.
Biden hasn’t taken the attacks lying down. He is not nearly as antagonistic as Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, but he has clearly stated that while AOC and other members of “The Squad” are “brilliant”, they aren’t representative of most Democrat voters. It’s not hard to see that his assertion is true.
The only reason the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in 2018 was that they fielded moderate candidates in areas that would be highly unlikely to vote for a progressive. The fact that Biden is the frontrunner for the nomination makes it clear that most voters are wary of moving too far to the left, even on the Democratic side. Remember: Biden has came out against popular leftist proposals including Medicare for All. He has also been critical of the Green New Deal.
The current split in the Democratic Party is reminding many voters of the rise of the Tea Party within the GOP in the early 2010s. In fact, some have even compared Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and other far-left Democrat politicians to the Tea Party, a comparison that the freshman lawmaker completely rejects. Instead, she asserts that her ideology makes her a mainstream Democrat and that it is “conservative” Democrats who are the “Tea Party” within their caucus.
Indeed, there are really only a few far-left politicians at the national level. However, their vociferous comments and the fact that they tend to make news far more often than their moderate colleagues has given everyone the impression that most Democrat voters want far-left policies.
AOC and Joe Biden are in the same party, whether she likes it or not, and her negative comments about the party’s frontrunner and the voters who support his sort-of-centrist platform are sure to backfire in the upcoming election. As it turns out, progressives aren’t nearly as popular as they seem to think that they are. Once again, we need to remind everyone on the left that there are in fact people that don’t live in Los Angeles or New York City.
