Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quickly emerged as a favorite of progressive activists, but within the halls of Congress she became a “pariah” among her fellow Democrats, a new book claims.
Even before Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), widely known by her initials AOC, ascended to the House of Representatives in 2019, she irritated party leadership and progressive luminaries in the House, according to “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a political revolution,” which will be published on Tuesday.
“While someone like Obama wants to be seen as someone who is everything to everyone, Ocasio Cortez actually believes he can be everything to everyone while leading a political revolution,” wrote author Ryan Grim, in a preview of the tome published by the Daily mail on Sunday.
Grim recounts how the progressive firebrand, who unseated 10-term incumbent and Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley, upset senior party members early in her career.
In July 2018, a month after AOC defeated Crowley in the Democratic primary, she met with then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who urged the 28-year-old leftist to abandon the slogan “Abolish ICE.”
Pelosi believed the phrase, directed at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had been “injected into political discourse by the Russians,” according to Grim, The Intercept’s Washington DC bureau chief.
AOC and Nancy Pelosi reportedly had a frosty relationship in the early days. REUTERS
He writes that: “AOC wondered. “This is how the party leader thinks.”
Not long after Ocasio-Cortez won the November general election, she upset Democrats with some of her antics, including joining 150 climate activists in a sit-in at Pelosi’s office.
“She believed she could fill the president’s office and be appreciated by Pelosi,” Grim said of the episode.
Although Pelosi treated Ocasio-Cortez carefully in public, behind the scenes she made life miserable for the political neophyte, according to Grim.
“The number of times he told me that… ‘I have protest signs older than you in my basement.’ Like yes, but mine doesn’t collect dust,” Ocasio-Cortez once told Grim in a text message, according to HuffPost.
Ocasio-Cortez has more than 13.2 million followers on X and has a penchant for going viral with her popular far-left takes.
But Pelosi was not impressed.
“All of these people have their audience and their Twitter world,” Pelosi told the New York Times in 2019.
“But they didn’t have any followers. “There are four people and that is the number of votes they got.”
Ocasio-Cortez, whose district covers parts of the Bronx and Queens, later called the snub “absolutely disrespectful.”
Pelosi wasn’t the only one upset by Ocasio-Cortez, according to Grim.
Pramila Jayapal became upset with some of AOC’s staff, according to the book. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) was “firmly usurped” by the up-and-coming Empire State and this was “not something (she) would quickly forgive,” she writes, according to the Mail.
At one point, Ocasio-Cortez and her then-chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, were summoned to a meeting with Jayapal, who demanded that she “keep her staff in line,” Grim writes.
Chakrabarti described the meeting as similar to Ocasio-Cortez’s call to “the principal’s office.”
Shortly after being sworn in on Jan. 3, 2019, Ocasio-Cortez, then 29, bucked her own party by voting against a rule requiring new tax cuts or entitlement spending to be paid for.
He called the move a “dark political maneuver” and “bad economics,” which upset many rank-and-file Democrats, according to Grim.
“The gap between AOC’s power outside the Capitol and her display on the first day inside could hardly have been wider,” Grim wrote.
AOC wore a dress that said “Tax the Rich” to the Met Gala. Getty Images for the Met/Vogue Museum
“To reshape that landscape, she was quickly sacrificing her relationships with her colleagues.”
Grim, former HuffPost Washington DC bureau chief and progressive co-host of the weekly Counterpoints show on YouTube, posited that Ocasio-Cortez arrogantly sought to “remake the system and be thanked for doing it.”
“Ocasio-Cortez’s curse was her desire to achieve consensus that she was there to help, along with her radical politics,” he wrote.
Even when he tried to show “personal warmth” to his congressional colleagues, it only made them “more suspicious” of his motives, Grim writes, according to the Mail.
They could not “accept and even have a working relationship with someone from a different faction of the party,” the book states.
AOC is a member of the so-called “Squad” of progressive representatives. AFP via Getty Images
“Grim writes: ‘”They just didn’t believe Ocasio-Cortex wasn’t planning to expel them.”
Early on, one of his signature issues quickly became the so-called Green New Deal, a vague speech in favor of deep reforms to reduce the threat of climate change that has given Republicans much material.
Evan Weber, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, had been an ally of the congresswoman in her quest for political reform on climate change.
“I think we had done such a good job up to that point of improving the language that there was a kind of arrogance of, ‘Can we really appease everyone here’ instead of standing firm and making a real decision about charting a different direction,” he told her. he told Grim in the book, according to the Mail.
But Weber then focused on a “frequently asked questions” sheet that Ocasio-Cortez’s team compiled that he described as a “shit show mess” that gave his critics a “silver platter.”
Former Ocasio-Cortez spokesperson Corbin Trent surmised that they had attempted “half a revolution” and that their staff became “too big for (their) britches,” Grim writes.
“If we weren’t going to move fast and break things, if you’re not trying to screw people, why are you screwing people?” he said.
At 34, AOC will technically be old enough to run for president in 2024, but she declined to do so. AP
Ocasio-Cortez also angered establishment Democrats by endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary, although she ultimately endorsed the candidate and eventual winner, President Biden, according to Grim.
The darling of the Democratic Socialists of America made even more waves in September 2021 when she showed up at the Met Gala in a white dress that said “Tax the Rich” in red letters on the back.
His appearance “infuriated all the organizations that had been told he couldn’t attend their event or, more commonly, had simply been ignored by his office,” Grim writes.
Since her early days, which garnered much fanfare, Ocasio-Cortez has slowly begun to climb the ladder of Democratic power in Congress.
Jamie Raskin has been complementary to AOC in public. AP
She is now the ranking deputy member of the House Oversight Committee, widely considered one of the most powerful panels in the House.
Ocasio-Cortez declined to challenge Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in a primary.
Still, Grim concluded that Ocasio-Cortez, though outspoken in public, was hamstrung by being too “conflict-averse.”
Ryan Grim has deep connections in progressive circles. Henry Holt and company.
“This constant feeling that you’ve failed at something. And she lets it into his head. “She really takes that s**t seriously,” the book states.
The Post has contacted Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment.
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn