Dems in Disarray As AOC, Bernie Sanders Present Themselves as the Faces and Future of the Party
As the Democrat Party’s identity crisis plays out for America to see, prominent figures on the left like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have stepped up to try and fill the party’s leadership void, with Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) now out of favor with party hardliners and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) not faring much better among the Dem faithful.
Sanders and AOC have been on what they call their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour in recent weeks, where they’ve tried to rev up the Democrat base with warnings of Trump-aligned “billionaires” allegedly wanting to take control of the country while also asserting that Democrats have done nothing for the working class over the years.
“We will not allow [President Trump] to move this country into an oligarchy,” Sanders proclaimed while speaking to an Arizona State University crowd last week. “We’re not going to allow you and your friend Mr. Musk and the other billionaires to wreak havoc on the working families of this country.”
For her part, AOC seems to be subtly trying to mask her image as a far-left socialist radical, telling the same crowd in essence that party labels shouldn’t keep people from coming together to fight for and against the things she says matter:
“No matter who you voted for in the past, no matter if you know all the right words to say, no matter your race, religion, gender identity or status,” Ocasio-Cortez said to thousands in a rally at Arizona State University. “No matter even if you disagree with me on a few things. If you are willing to fight for someone you don’t know, you are welcome here.”[…]
Ocasio-Cortez confronted head-on the perception that she is a radical by being magnanimous toward other Democratic factions. She did not walk away from her progressive views but signaled openness to disagreement, saying her movement “is not about partisan labels or purity tests,” but rather solidarity with the working class.
Sanders, I should note, has also been working at moderating his tone, telling ABC News over the weekend, for instance, that Trump had done a good job so far in strengthening our borders and combating the fentanyl problem, while also criticizing former President Joe Biden for the border crisis that occurred on his watch:
KARL: Is there anything that you think Trump has done right?SANDERS: Yeah. I mean, I think cracking down on fentanyl, making sure our borders are stronger. Look, nobody thinks illegal immigration is appropriate, and I happen to think we need comprehensive immigration reform, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for people to be coming across the border illegally.[…]
KARL: But you know illegal immigration, it exploded under Biden. And it had been high for times under Trump as well. But it exploded under Biden. And nothing was really done until his last year in office when he was –
SANDERS: Yes, should have done much better. No argument.
A deliberate strategy or mere coincidence? Hmm.
While both AOC and Sanders still know how to draw a crowd, their presenting themselves as the faces and the future of the Democrat Party has got others within their ranks who know their respective histories a little nervous:
But it is worrying some moderate Democrats who fear Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez could tug the party to the left at a time when it is rudderless and turn off swing voters in the process.
Matt Bennett, a vice president at the center-left group Third Way, said he is glad that the rallies are “giving people an outlet for that anger” against Trump. But he argued that “crowd size is the worst metric in American politics” and “it is important that they not repeat the mistakes that the far left has made that helped get us into this mess in the first place.”
Sadly for middle-of-the-road Democrats, the AOC 2028 message is gaining momentum:
Interviews with nearly 20 progressive Democrats about the left wing’s future revealed a faction that sees the ideas Mr. Sanders has championed — reducing the power of billionaires, increasing the minimum wage, focusing more on the plight of workers — as core to the next generation of mainstream Democratic politics.
Though there is little agreement about who will emerge to guide progressives into a post-Sanders era, virtually everyone interviewed said there was one clear leader for the job: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Are Democrats setting themselves up to fail by repeating the mistakes of the past? Yes, says independent journalist Matt Taibbi, who is predicting that the “AOC Train Wreck is Coming, and It’s Going to be Spectacular”:
From his article:
An AOC presidential run would obliterate progressive politics for a generation, making George McGovern seem like Kennedy. Every dipshit legacy pundit in the country is cheering the AOC rallies as the beginning of something special, which is how you know it will end in tears; when The New Yorker says the rallies are proof “the left still has a pulse,” you know it’s really on its deathbed. I guess it deserves to be, but man, how do they not see it?
They never do.
-Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter/X.-
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