By SJ Otto
The web site Politico.com has been covering the actions of a new sub-Democratic Party organization called Justice Democrats and their relations ship with the new rising star in the US House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a member of Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) and she unseated incumbent Congressman, Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley. She is now the Representative for New York
Justice Democrats actually put up about 12 candidates they were trying to get elected in Democratic primary battles. The other 11 didn’t win.
As the article explains progressive political activists inside and outside of the Democratic Party wants to push the Democrats to the left. As Activist Cenk Uygur explained to Politico:
“After the election, was I mad at Donald Trump? I guess, kinda,” he said, who ended up leaving the group when a series of previously deleted misogynistic blog posts were unearthed. “But mainly I was mad at the Democratic Party for blowing it. How could you lose to this guy?
I came to realize Democrats are never going to learn,” he added, “and that the only way to make a difference is to defeat the corrupt corporate Democrats. They get paid to lose. The corporate donor pays them to be weak, and pays Republicans to be strong.”
I have to admit that I have felt about the same way about the Democratic Party. The mainstream of the party complains that this group, Justice Democrats, are destructive towards the party as a whole and especially the “so called” moderate Democrats.
The author of this article, DAVID FREEDLANDER, wrote in a headline kicker:
‘There Is Going to Be a War Within the Party. We Are Going to Lean Into It.’
The Justice Democrats helped get Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez elected. Who are they after next?
And in the article:
“I am talking about the radical conservatives in the Democratic Party,” said Saikat Chakrabarti. “That’s who we need to counter. It’s the same across any number of issues—pay-as-you-go, free college, “Medicare for all.” These are all enormously popular in the party, but they don’t pass because of the radical conservatives who are holding the party hostage.”
Not long ago, this would have been an outlier position even among American liberals. Today, it’s the organizing principle of a newly empowered segment of the Democratic Party, one with a foothold in the new Congress.
Another important quote from this article:
“Chakrabarti is chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the closest thing to a new celebrity Congress has had in years—a 29-year-old former activist and bartender who, on the most recent Martin Luther King Day, sat on the same New York stage as the rapper Common, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler and MacArthur “genius award” winner Ta-Nehisi Coates.”
And the article points out that much of these changes came from just a few people, who were able to make major changes to the present political atmosphere:
“Sen. Bernie Sanders’ cannonball run in 2016 and united by their superprogressive politics and a millennial disdain for the establishment.”
All of this is good news for DSA members (at least the true leftists) and real socialists and progressives who are sick and tired of corporate Democrats and their lack luster, meaningless campaigns with such useless slogans as “we’re the party of jobs”—big deal. Who is going to be against jobs?! No one is, of course.
Many Democrats are yelling “foul” at the idea of using primaries to try and unseat career Democrats who have sat on their asses and done nothing.
Right now many of us want medical care for all. The problem that most moderate Democrats have, as well as their Republican counter-parts, is that they want to preserve the jobs of all the insurance companies, while providing some kind of healthcare for the poor and working poor. What we really need is to get rid of the insurance companies and provide a government health care system for all people in the country. It may be painful for the moderate Democrats to swallow that, but they need to either get on board or get voted out of office. We need a serious left-wing push, to knock out the conservative politicians, their hacks and years of stupid ideas and beliefs. America
To see the article in whole click here.
Pix by FiveThirtyEight.