AOC Claims Democrats Are ‘Center-Conservative’ Party, Says Progressive Members Are Trying to Change That
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) knocked the Democratic Party on Monday for being too moderate.
“We don’t have a left party in the United States. The Democratic Party is not a left party,” Ocasio-Cortez told an audience at an event marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day, sparking applause. “The Democratic Party is a center or a center-conservative party.”
“We can’t even get a floor vote on Medicare-for-all, not even a floor vote that gets voted down,” Ocasio-Cortez went on. “We can’t even get a vote on it. So this is not a left party. There are left members inside the Democratic Party that are working to try to make that shift happen.”
During the same event, Ocasio-Cortez compared the peaceful gun rights rally in Richmond, Va. on Monday, during which one person was arrested for covering their face in public, with the 2015 riots in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray in the back of a police van. Those riots were so severe that Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency, and National Guard contingents were called to the city to keep order.
This is not the first time the freshman Representative has bucked the Democratic establishment. In early January Ocasio-Cortez announced she would not pay dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which she charged would not do enough to elect progressive candidates. Meanwhile, half of the funds raised by her new Courage to Change PAC, billed as an alternative to the DCCC, will be earmarked for her reelection campaign.
The Representative raised more funds for reelection in the third quarter of 2019 than any other Democratic congressional candidate, surpassing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
