New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hustling to win over left-wing critics who say the progressive leader cares too much about mainstream approval and is too cozy with senior Democrats.
Between the lines: If Ocasio-Cortez’s diplomacy is successful, it could be more difficult for any potential 2028 presidential candidate to run to her left — but moderate Democrats argue it also could make it tougher for her to win a general election.
Despite her recent efforts, some loud voices on the left — including people who have worked closely with her — have gotten under her skin by continuing to question her progressive bona fides.
Zoom in: In recent weeks, Ocasio-Cortez has tried to repair her relationship with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Many members of the group opposed her support for giving Israel defensive weapons, including the Iron Dome missile system, during the war in Gaza — which she has called a “genocide.”
In July 2024, national DSA leaders withdrew their endorsement of her for the elections that year, arguing that she’d conflated “anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions,” which the group considered a “deep betrayal.”
The intrigue: AOC also has had a fraught relationship with some progressives who helped launch her political career.
Her first chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, co-founded Justice Democrats, a group that helped Ocasio-Cortez with her insurgent House campaign in 2018. Chakrabarti is running for Congress in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco, but Ocasio-Cortez pointedly hasn’t endorsed him in the June 2 primary.
She’s indicated she believes that some of her early allies on the left have taken too much credit for her upset House victory eight years ago, and she’s distanced herself from them over the years, people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.
Mainstream approval is kinda important to win elections. It would be great to have a more progressive dem in power, but if it means they lose the election it doesn’t help. That said, as much as I hate it, a white old man is what’s needed to win. One with a face of compromise, but a desire to root out corruption, play hardball with the previous administration cronies. One that can frame progressive ideology within economic prosperity. And one that will pushback hard on Isreal without calling for its destruction. It’s a tough balance. And the progressive left would still probably fuck it up and give power to the right,
What a convenient excuse from the wing of the party that never wants to represent anyone to the left of Joe Manchin.
Mainstream approval is indeed important to win elections. That is why the Democrats lost the election. They ran a right wing hack and instead of pushing back and demanding a better candidate AOC and tried to force the left to vote for genocide. “Kamala is working tirelessly for a ceasefire” by the way.
“Progressives” like AOC are supposed to push the Democratic Party left, but all she has been doing the past few years is trying to push progressives right.
And now AOC is complaining that the left is leaving her behind.