Ocasio-Cortez urged her Democrats to turn away from serving an “ever-shrinking group of independent voters” and instead focus on younger, more progressive Democrats who “are not necessarily seen.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (DN.Y.) is warning President Joe Biden and her fellow Democrats they will be “in trouble” Tuesday if their party fails to address their progressive base ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The self-proclaimed Democratic socialist suggested the president is ignoring the very people who got him elected in 2020, and urged Biden to use his executive powers to “govern with determination” in a new interview with New York Magazine.
The left-wing arsonist, whose stunningly disgruntled victory over former House Representative Joe Crowley in 2018 propelled her to national fame, has claimed her political style is that of the future – and that the days of “backslapping” and backroom deals are in the past.
She cited West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin as an example, whose opposition to Biden’s progressively backed Build Back Better plan scuttled the $1.75 trillion spending package despite months of negotiations between Capitol Hill and the White House .
“I feel like our politics has changed fundamentally – whether it’s for better or for worse depends on people’s resolve – but I never had the illusion that we could take Manchin with us,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the House Progressive Caucus had initially held up a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal that moderates in both parties were pushing for, demanding it pass along with Build Back Better.
She was one of six House Democrats who voted against the compromise plan, citing concerns that the larger climate and social spending bill would die in the Senate unless moderates were forced to vote on both together — a fear that came true when Manchin said he voted “no” in December.
“I have the utmost respect and trust for the President, but I just felt like we were calling two different games on this one,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Without naming names, the lawmakers bemoaned the fact that “senior members of Congress who were at different political times” were still trying to negotiate with dissenters.
She brought up President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which was scuttled by opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin after White House and Democrat leaders scrapped it, despite objections from progressives, from a bipartisan infrastructure bill of $1, had separated $2 trillion
“I think there’s a real nostalgia and belief that that time still exists or that we can go back there,” she said, “that we can go back to that time of buddy-buddy and backslapping and we’re going to make a deal and.” Walk into a room with some bourbon and some smoke and you come out and work something out.’
She called on her Democrats to shift their focus from independent voters — who were key to Biden’s 2020 victory — to younger, more liberal voters who feel like they’re not “seen.”
“We have to recognize that this isn’t just the middle of the road, an increasingly narrow group of independent voters,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“This is really about the breakdown of support among young people, among the Democratic base, who feel like they’ve worked overtime to elect this president and aren’t necessarily being seen.”
She also offered some advice to Biden: “If the president rules decisively and starts to rule with executive action and other tools at his disposal, I think we’re in the game.”
“But if we decide to just sit back and not change people’s lives for the rest of the year – yes, I think we’re in trouble.”
Recognizing that many of their political targets had little hope of getting through with the Democrats’ razor-thin margins of power in the House and Senate, progressives have made demands for the President to respond by executive order.
Progressive Democrats outlined eight areas where they would like to see Biden take executive action earlier this month
Earlier this month, the House Progressive Caucus issued several recommendations for executive actions Biden could take, including on police reform, cutting health care costs and eliminating student loan debt.
And recent polls suggest the congresswoman may be right about Americans’ dissatisfaction with the way their government is working.
More than seven in 10 US adults believe the country is on the wrong track, according to an NBC News poll released Sunday.
Only 22 percent said it was going in the right direction.
In the same poll, Biden’s approval rating fell to 40 percent, down three points from January and the lowest score NBC News has yet recorded for his presidency.
A whopping 55 percent are dissatisfied with Biden’s tenure in the White House.
During her NY Mag interview, Ocasio-Cortez opened up about the political environment she grew up in and explained why it’s been difficult to empathize with the “nostalgia” some older lawmakers feel for better times.
“As a younger member of Congress, the first vote I ever cast was for Barack Obama being labeled a socialist and all that stuff. All of this rhetoric that we see today has been political reality my entire life,” she said.
“And so I’ve never felt nostalgia for something that never existed in my lifetime.”