By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News -
Jay Jacobs, Chair of the New York State Democratic Committee, slammed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) for exacerbating party tensions and the loss of so-called “purple” (battleground) districts.
AOC, an outspoken progressive, implied moderate Democrats lost House seats during last week’s election due to their failure to embrace a far-left agenda.
Jacobs made blistering comments to the New York Post, saying Ocasio-Cortez does not understand how to win over moderate Democrats and unaffiliated voters.
“AOC has no standing on how to run a general election in the suburbs and upstate. AOC is in a district that’s 6-1 Democrat and she couldn’t find a Republican in her district with binoculars,” Jacobs told the New York Post on Wednesday.
He explained that Democrats wouldn’t have been able to gain a majority in the NY state Senate in 2018 without winning purple upstate and suburban districts, where voters are unlikely to embrace far-left policies.
“I invite AOC to come to Long Island and stand for election in one of our districts. You’ll see different results.”
While many media outlets predicted a “Blue Wave” after last week’s election, Democrats were disappointed by lackluster results. The party lost several key seats and failed to secure control of the U.S. Senate.
It’s thought that far-left talking points like defunding the police and socialist tax policies, promoted by Democrats including Ocasio-Cortez, turned off scores of potential voters.
“There are folks running around on TV blaming progressivism for Dem underperformance,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “The whole ‘progressivism is bad’ argument just doesn’t have any compelling evidence that I’ve seen.”
“When it comes to ‘Defund’ [the police] & ‘Socialism’ attacks, people need to realize these are racial resentment attacks. You’re not gonna make that go away. You can make it less effective,” she wrote.
In 2019, Ocasio-Cortez accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of racism.
Pelosi’s remarks came after Ocasio-Cortez and three other freshman congresswoman voted against a bill, in defiance of the rest of the Democratic Party.
Pelosi sniped to the New York Times, “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”
Pelosi reportedly said in an internal party meeting, “You got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it. But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just okay.”
“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 Washington 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.”
Image: nrkbeta, CC BY-SA 2.0 <;, via Wikimedia Commons
