{"id":16469,"date":"2020-11-10T13:37:33","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T21:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=16469"},"modified":"2020-11-10T13:37:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T21:37:35","slug":"alexandria-ocasio-cortez-on-bidens-win-house-losses-and-whats-next-for-the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/11\/10\/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-on-bidens-win-house-losses-and-whats-next-for-the-left\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Biden\u2019s Win, House Losses, and What\u2019s Next for the Left"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The congresswoman said Joe Biden\u2019s relationship with progressives would hinge on his actions. And she dismissed criticism from House moderates, calling some candidates who lost their races \u201csitting ducks.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/11\/07\/us\/politics\/07AOC-1\/07AOC-1-articleLarge-v2.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke outside her campaign office in the Bronx on Election Day.\"\/><figcaption>Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke outside her campaign office in the Bronx on Election Day.Credit&#8230;Desiree Rios for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/astead-w-herndon\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2018\/09\/14\/us\/author-head-astead\/author-head-astead-thumbLarge-v2.png\" alt=\"Astead W. Herndon\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>By&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/astead-w-herndon\">Astead W. Herndon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Nov. 7, 2020 (NYTimes.com)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For months, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a good soldier for the Democratic Party and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/article\/joe-biden-policies.html\">Joseph R. Biden Jr<\/a>. as he sought to defeat President Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But on Saturday, in a nearly hourlong interview shortly after President-elect Biden was declared the winner, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made clear the divisions within the party that animated the primary still exist. And she dismissed recent criticisms from some Democratic House members&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/11\/05\/us\/house-democrats-election-losses.html\">who have blamed the party\u2019s left for costing them important seats<\/a>. Some of the members who lost, she said, had made themselves \u201csitting ducks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are edited excerpts from the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We finally have a fuller understanding of the results. What\u2019s your macro takeaway?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I think the central one is that we aren\u2019t in a free fall to hell anymore. But whether we\u2019re going to pick ourselves up or not is the lingering question. We paused this precipitous descent. And the question is if and how we will build ourselves back up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We know that race is a problem, and avoiding it is not going to solve any electoral issues. We have to actively disarm the potent influence of racism at the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But we also learned that progressive policies do not hurt candidates. Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To your first point, Democrats lost seats in an election where they were expected to gain them. Is that what you are ascribing to racism and white supremacy at the polls?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it\u2019s going to be really important how the party deals with this internally, and whether the party is going to be honest about doing a real post-mortem and actually digging into why they lost. Because before we even had any data yet in a lot of these races, there was already finger-pointing that this was progressives\u2019 fault and that this was the fault of the Movement for Black Lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve already started looking into the actual functioning of these campaigns. And the thing is, I\u2019ve been unseating Democrats for two years. I have been defeating Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee-run campaigns for two years. That\u2019s how I got to Congress. That\u2019s how we elected Ayanna Pressley. That\u2019s how Jamaal Bowman won. That\u2019s how Cori Bush won. And so we know about extreme vulnerabilities in how Democrats run campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of this is criminal. It\u2019s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don\u2019t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the Year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you\u2019re not even really on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I\u2019ve looked through a lot of these campaigns that lost, and the fact of the matter is if you\u2019re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Well, Conor Lamb did win. So what are you saying: Investment in digital advertising and canvassing are a greater reason moderate Democrats lost than any progressive policy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These folks are pointing toward Republican messaging that they feel killed them, right? But why were you so vulnerable to that attack?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re not door-knocking, if you\u2019re not on the internet, if your main points of reliance are TV and mail, then you\u2019re not running a campaign on all cylinders. I just don\u2019t see how anyone could be making ideological claims when they didn\u2019t run a full-fledged campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our party isn\u2019t even online, not in a real way that exhibits competence. And so, yeah, they were vulnerable to these messages, because they weren\u2019t even on the mediums where these messages were most potent. Sure, you can point to the message, but they were also sitting ducks. They were sitting ducks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a reason Barack Obama built an entire national campaign apparatus outside of the Democratic National Committee. And there\u2019s a reason that when he didn\u2019t activate or continue that, we lost House majorities. Because the party \u2014 in and of itself \u2014 does not have the core competencies, and no amount of money is going to fix that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I lost my election, and I went out and I said: \u201cThis is moderates\u2019 fault. This is because you didn\u2019t let us have a floor vote on Medicare for all.\u201d And they opened the hood on my campaign, and they found that I only spent $5,000 on TV ads the week before the election? They would laugh. And that\u2019s what they look like right now trying to blame the Movement for Black Lives for their loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Is there anything from Tuesday that surprised you? Or made you rethink your previously held views?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The share of white support for Trump. I thought the polling was off, but just seeing it, there was that feeling of realizing what work we have to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We need to do a lot of anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country. Because if we keep losing white shares and just allowing Facebook to radicalize more and more elements of white voters and the white electorate, there\u2019s no amount of people of color and young people that you can turn out to offset that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the problem is that right now, I think a lot of Dem strategy is to avoid actually working through this. Just trying to avoid poking the bear. That\u2019s their argument with defunding police, right? To not agitate racial resentment. I don\u2019t think that is sustainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a lot of magical thinking in Washington, that this is just about special people that kind of come down from on high. Year after year, we decline the idea that they did work and ran sophisticated operations in favor of the idea that they are magical, special people. I need people to take these goggles off and realize how we can do things better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are the D.C.C.C., and you\u2019re hemorrhaging incumbent candidates to progressive insurgents, you would think that you may want to use some of those firms. But instead,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/06\/02\/us\/politics\/dccc-blacklist-incumbent-policy.html\">we banned them<\/a>. So the D.C.C.C. banned every single firm that is the best in the country at digital organizing.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/11\/03\/us\/elections\/results-president.html?name=styln-elections-2020&amp;region=inline&amp;block=storyline_latest_updates_recirc&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Article&amp;impression_id=8d440e50-239c-11eb-b19e-a7f295254f45&amp;variant=1_Show&amp;index=0\">Election 2020&nbsp;\u203a<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The leadership and elements of the party \u2014 frankly, people in some of the most important decision-making positions in the party \u2014 are becoming so blinded to this anti-activist sentiment that they are blinding themselves to the very assets that they offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That\u2019s also the damn thing of it. I\u2019ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they\u2019re blaming us for their loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I need my colleagues to understand that we are not the enemy. And that their base is not the enemy. That the Movement for Black Lives is not the enemy, that Medicare for all is not the enemy. This isn\u2019t even just about winning an argument. It\u2019s that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they\u2019re just setting up their own obsolescence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/11\/07\/us\/politics\/07AOC-2\/07AOC-2-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"Joseph R. Biden Jr. speaking on Friday. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said his relationship with the party\u2019s progressives would hinge on his actions.\"\/><figcaption>Joseph R. Biden Jr. speaking on Friday. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said his relationship with the party\u2019s progressives would hinge on his actions.Credit&#8230;Erin Schaff\/The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What is your expectation as to how open the Biden administration will be to the left? And what is the strategy in terms of moving it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t know how open they\u2019ll be. And it\u2019s not a personal thing. It\u2019s just, the history of the party tends to be that we get really excited about the grass roots to get elected. And then those communities are promptly abandoned right after an election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think the transition period is going to indicate whether the administration is taking a more open and collaborative approach, or whether they\u2019re taking a kind of icing-out approach. Because Obama\u2019s transition set a trajectory for 2010 and some of our House losses. It was a lot of those transition decisions \u2014 and who was put in positions of leadership \u2014 that really informed, unsurprisingly, the strategy of governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What if the administration is hostile? If they take the John Kasich view of who Joe Biden should be? What do you do?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I\u2019d be bummed, because we\u2019re going to lose. And that\u2019s just what it is. These transition appointments, they send a signal. They tell a story of who the administration credits with this victory. And so it\u2019s going be really hard after immigrant youth activists helped potentially deliver Arizona and Nevada. It\u2019s going to be really hard after Detroit and Rashida Tlaib ran up the numbers in her district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s really hard for us to turn out nonvoters when they feel like nothing changes for them. When they feel like people don\u2019t see them, or even acknowledge their turnout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the party believes after 94 percent of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organizers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organized Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic Party is the John Kasichs won us this election? I mean, I can\u2019t even describe how dangerous that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You are diagnosing national trends. You\u2019re maybe the most famous voice on the left currently. What can we expect from you in the next four years?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t know. I think I\u2019ll have probably more answers as we get through transition, and to the next term. How the party responds will very much inform my approach and what I think is going to be necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last two years have been pretty hostile. Externally, we\u2019ve been winning. Externally, there\u2019s been a ton of support, but internally, it\u2019s been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is the party ready to, like, sit down and work together and figure out how we\u2019re going to use the assets from everyone at the party? Or are they going to just kind of double down on this smothering approach? And that\u2019s going to inform what I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Is there a universe in which they\u2019re hostile enough that we\u2019re talking about a Senate run in a couple years?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I genuinely don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t even know if I want to be in politics. You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn\u2019t even know if I was going to run for re-election this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Really? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the incoming. It\u2019s the stress. It\u2019s the violence. It\u2019s the lack of support from your own party. It\u2019s your own party thinking you\u2019re the enemy. When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you\u2019re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I chose to run for re-election because I felt like I had to prove that this is real. That this movement was real. That I wasn\u2019t a fluke. That people really want guaranteed health care and that people really want the Democratic Party to fight for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I\u2019m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere \u2014 they\u2019re probably the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/help.nytimes.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/115014792127-Copyright-notice\">\u00a9&nbsp;2020&nbsp;The New York Times Company<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The congresswoman said Joe Biden\u2019s relationship with progressives would hinge on his actions. And she dismissed criticism from House moderates, calling some candidates who lost their races \u201csitting ducks.\u201d By&nbsp;Astead W. Herndon Nov. 7, 2020 (NYTimes.com) For months, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a good soldier for the Democratic Party&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/11\/10\/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-on-bidens-win-house-losses-and-whats-next-for-the-left\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16469"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16470,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16469\/revisions\/16470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}