Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is accusing Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of being stuck in the past.
After the House speaker suggested that AOC and other far-left members of her party don’t have much support behind them, despite their hefty social media followings, Ocasio-Cortez struck back with a tweet slamming Pelosi for wasting time on outdated campaign methods.
Clash in “Twitter world”
The Washington Examiner reported that Ocasio-Cortez’s comments were in response to an interview with The New York Times in which Pelosi explained her decision to capitulate to a Senate version of a humanitarian aid bill for the border. Ocasio-Cortez and others on the far left voted against the bill because they wanted stronger requirements for how migrant children are treated at the border.
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi said of Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN), and Rep. Alanna Pressley (D-MA). “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
When Josh Jamerson decided to tweet out Pelosi’s words, Ocasio-Cortez fired back.
That public “whatever” is called public sentiment.
And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country. https://t.co/u6JtgwwRsk
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 7, 2019
A few minutes later, she tweeted again.
I find it strange when members act as though social media isn’t important.
They set millions of 💵 on 🔥 to run TV ads so people can see their message.
I haven’t dialed for dollars *once* this year, & have more time to do my actual job. Yet we’d rather campaign like it’s 2008.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 7, 2019
Sparring on Capitol Hill
Age and experience clashing with youthful idealism should probably not come as a surprise. Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez have been duking it out since the Democrats put Pelosi back in charge of the House and Ocasio-Cortez took her seat at the table.
Ocasio-Cortez thinks Pelosi isn’t radical enough, while Pelosi recognizes that the larger public doesn’t support legislation like the Green New Deal that proposes to fundamentally change the American way of life and spend trillions of dollars in the process.
This is the second time in just a few months that Pelosi has questioned the power and significance of the far left wing of her party. In April, Pelosi also dismissed them as insignificant to the party while talking to Leslie Stahl of CBS News.
“That’s like five people,” Pelosi reportedly said of the caucus. When pushed to consider that the progressive movement was bigger than that, Pelosi said that she was a progressive herself. Clearly, she considers Ocasio-Cortez to be something different.
The Reasonable Pelosi?
In pushing back against AOC’s Green New Deal, holding off on pursuing President Donald Trump’s impeachment, and embracing bipartisanship to pass the border aid funding bill, Pelosi has shown that her 40 years in politics have taught her a few things.
Namely, Pelosi knows what the public will actually support, and she knows that it’s good to work with the other side when you want 95% of the same things in a bill. Ocasio-Cortez will learn, too, if she stays in office long enough.
But when Ocasio-Cortez can make Pelosi look like she’s reasonable, that’s really saying something about how radical the junior representative from New York is.
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