Posted on 07/11/2019 4:05:33 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
A growing number of progressive House Democrats, frustrated with an ongoing spat between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D), are taking the freshman New Yorker to task for accusing Pelosi of treating minority women unfairly.
The critics say Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, crossed a line when she accused Pelosi of putting a target on “newly elected women of color” for their far-left policy positions.
The remarks — and the media uproar they’ve created — led exasperated Democrats to sound off Thursday against the freshman social-media sensation, accusing Ocasio-Cortez of harboring unrealistic views about her own influence on Capitol Hill — to the detriment of the Democrats’ ambitious policy agenda.
“What a weak argument,” said Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), a member of both the Black and Progressive caucuses. “Because you can’t get your way and because you’re getting pushback you resort to using the race card? Unbelievable. Unbelievable to me.”
Other liberals, while not so seething, also defended Pelosi, warning of the political dangers of adhering to stringent ideological demands — and airing gripes with other Democrats in public.
“You know how people lose the elections? By not having the ability to see the big picture and not being able to keep their eye on the ball,” said Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), a Black Caucus member.
But Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair who is Indian American, said that she could relate to Ocasio-Cortez feeling targeted as a woman of color.
“I can tell you that it happens all the time. It isn't usually from just one person. The system is geared in that way,” Jayapal said. “It's just a constant thing we deal with as women of color. It's always harder when it's perceived as coming from your own side, whether that was how it was intended or not.”
Jayapal said that she and her fellow Progressive Caucus co-chair, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), are requesting a meeting with Pelosi to “talk about the general relationship of the progressives to the Democratic caucus.”
“I think it's just important that we clear this,” Jayapal said.
The seeds of the recent quarrel were planted before the July 4 recess, when Pelosi reluctantly ditched plans to move a House-crafted border spending package in favor of a more conservative Senate-passed bill.
Liberals like Ocasio-Cortez, furious over reports that migrants have been detained at the border under dismal health and hygienic conditions, had demanded that the legislation include explicit protections for those in federal custody — provisions not contained in the Senate bill.
Some liberals accused the moderate Democrats who’d pressed for the Senate bill of putting child migrants at risk. Pocan, for instance, equated Democrats in the Problem Solvers Caucus to child abusers. Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide, chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, went a long step further, accusing the centrist members of the Blue Dog and New Democratic coalitions of being racist.
“They certainly seem hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s,” Chakrabarti said in a tweet that has since been deleted.
That tweet prompted Pelosi, in an extraordinary closed-door meeting Wednesday, to scold her troops for airing public grievances instead of taking their concerns directly to her — a message she defended Thursday.
“They took offense because I addressed, at the request of my members, an offensive tweet that came out of one of the members' offices that referenced our Blue Dogs and our New Dems essentially as segregationists,” Pelosi said at a Thursday press conference, referring to the tweet from Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide. “Our members took offense at that. I addressed that. How they're interpreting and carrying it to another place is up to them.”
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), a New Democrats vice chair who is African American, issued a statement on Thursday criticizing the comparison to segregationists.
“I personally experienced Dixiecrats’ bigoted policies growing up. So, to even insinuate that I, or any other member of the New Dems, would promote policies that are racist and hateful or ones that would negatively impact communities of color is deeply offensive and couldn’t be further from the truth,” Sewell said. Ocasio-Cortez told The Washington Post on Wednesday that she felt Pelosi was targeting her and three other progressive freshman women of color, known as the “squad”: Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.).
“When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Post. “But the persistent singling out . . . it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful . . . the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”
Ocasio-Cortez maintained in an interview with CNN on Thursday that she thinks the progressive freshmen are being singled out but rejected the notion that Pelosi has racial animus.
The flare-up comes on the heels of Pelosi’s interview last week with The New York Times, when she noted the four freshmen were the only Democrats to oppose the party’s more liberal border bill and therefore had limited clout in the subsequent debate over the Senate version, even despite their considerable social media presence.
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi said. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
Progressive Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), while stressing she is friendly with both Pelosi and the freshmen, echoed the Speaker in arguing the four have limited influence as a bloc.
“I think it's really not accurate to call them the ‘squad,’” Schakowsky said. “It's not like they, you know, they see themselves as a squad and get together and say, ‘Now, what's our next move?’”
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), another progressive, praised both Pelosi — who has a life-long track record fighting for racial justice and women’s rights — and the freshmen rabble-rousers, who have infused the party with a wave of energy and fresh ideas.
“We admire them; they energize us; they're eager,” Moore said. “And of course they have the luxury of — it is a luxury — just to be able to represent [their] district and to be strident.
“Nancy, of course, is the leader, so she has to represent all of us.”
But Moore also said the influence of freshmen like Ocasio-Cortez ultimately rests with how many votes they can actually sway.
“They’ll learn. It’s all about the 218 in this game,” said Moore, who is African American. “You can be a star if you want to be, but it’s all about the 218.”
Yes. News networks and an armada of millennials.
Disagree. AOC isn’t shrewd. She’s just very sure in her ignorance. It’s a symptom of the get an award for showing up generation.
I take it that you no longer live in Queens. Do you also not read local NYC papers anymore? She had a Prominent DEM who will primary her starting in on her now. And though AOC has the old ACORN, now the Family and Workers Party helping her and the stinking Commies in the Cent Uget, or whatever his name is, group, that won’t matter if the DNC and others help the woman intent on primarying AOC!
Stinking illegals!
I'd modify that just slightly:
AOC has powerful backing, and those backers are shrewd.
She's a performance artist, selected to run from a cast of thousands. Sometimes she jumps the script, but I think some of it is written for her.
It’s like watching a barroom fight between two drunks you can’t stand. You still want to see one of them kick the others ass. For my money, I’d really rather see AOC kicked to the curb.
more popcorn please....
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Yes. What we need are really vicious rumors spread to each of the antagonists. Maybe even true leaks (”she can’t stand being with her for five minutes” “who died and made her queen?”).
But all as a build up promotion to the summer’s main event——
a no holds barred street fighting cage match on pay per view. Pelosi or AOC====only one will make it and one will be the boss after that day.
Advice: get the popcorn concession. You’ll make a fortune.
Nobody but progressive activists vote in NY primary elections any more. AOC will have every progressive group in the country rallying around her if there’s a real primary. I do not trust the DNC to get more voters out than the NYC progressive groups.
True...re whom AOC has backing her, as well as who turns out to vote in NYC now; however, there is a BIG DNC network in NYC and IF they back the opponent, then AOC goes down....just as the A OC backed female running for Queen’s DA is now losing to the regular Dem!
At least we can see the future of the DNC and it’s a disaster for America. Pelosi is a relic. The GOP has nothing up and coming and want to be the b*tches of the DNC.
Poll: Many AOC Constituents Have Unfavorable View of Her
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/alexandriaocasio-cortez/2019/03/21/id/908122/
Let the minority takeover of the Democratic party begin.
Let them purge the party of privileged old white folk.
Let them gang-up on whitey and drive them out.
These minorities are becoming impatient and bold. They don't want the white man (and woman) speaking for them.
Biden whimpered when Harris put him in his place.
Nancy won't be so easy for AOC but their fighting will force people to pick sides. The non-white base of the Democratic party isn't going to take kindly to Nancy dissing a courageous Latina.
AOC could be the poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect. (See my tagline.)
She only lost because she had to run in all of Queens and the black parts rejected her. Look at AOC’s parts of Queens. Cabán won every single part by enormous margins. AOC’s district is all gentrified white hipsters and Hispanics.
Absolutely correct.
The dumb bimbo will get no retirement or anything since she is to dumb to realize you have to be in the congress for 6 years to get that.
No Entrance For White People.....Well stated! The British learned that lesson in the past 150 years. They would go into a savage country, build an infrastructure, educate many of them, and then those same people would say: “What the hell right do they think they have to be here telling us what to do!” And proceed to expel the Brits from their colonial holdings......
The dumb bimbo will get no retirement or anything since she is to dumb to realize you have to be in the congress for 6 years to get that.
Praying you are right!!
That comic graphic is perfect. They are overlooking half of their base.
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