Before she has even been sworn in as one of the freshman House members, Ocasio-Cortez is quickly becoming the Democrat’s worst nightmare. Firat, she led a sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office and now, she’s calling for existing House members to be primaried in 2020, with socialist candidates of course. Democrats can get away with that in certain House districts, but to believe that there is a national movement to socialism is nothing but a pipe dream.
But, the problem for incumbents is, the more money they have to spend on primaries, the less they have for the general election and in 2020, Republicans will only have to win back 10 or 12 seats to regain control of the House. And in 2020, President Trump will be on the ballot. That will help Republicans a lot.
“All Americans know money in politics is a huge problem, but unfortunately the way that we fix it is by demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves,” said the congresswoman-elect from New York, who herself ousted long-term Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley during the primaries to win her seat.
“We need new leaders, period. We gotta primary folks,” Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti said on the call. Chakrabarti is a co-founder of Justice Democrats, Politico reported.
The group said they want Democratic members of Congress to be representative of their diverse communities and support liberal policies like Medicare for all, abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department, implementing a “Green New Deal,” and rejecting corporate PAC donations. On the campaign trail, Ocasio-Cortez talked about forming a “corporate-free caucus” as a means to push for reform. That type of group, if it forms, could turn out to be the left’s counterpart to the Freedom Caucus, which pushed Republican leadership to the right.
Join our call today with @Ocasio2018 to hear our plans for 2020 and how to get involved in the #OurTime project to support more diverse working class leadership in our country.
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— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) November 17, 2018