July 18, 2018

For Dems, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a fox who's gotten loose in the Democratic henhouse

By Monica Showalter

If there's anything that lays out how arrogant and entitled the Democratic Party is, take a look at how many Democratic grandees' feathers are being ruffled by Democratic Socialist "it girl" Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated a ten-term Democratic incumbent in their Bronx-Queens congressional district earlier this month and who now outshines them all.
It's not that her socialism or her ignorance of world affairs bothers them, the way it does us.  It's that she's showing bad machine politics sense, the one thing that keeps Democrats going in the absence of being able to admit they actually are all a bunch of socialists.
Bad machine politics, bad form.  And no kidding, they are actually howling about her "manners."  In a way, it resembles the NeverTrump crowd's obsession with status and style in the Washington swamp, except that this is much funnier.  Ocasio's a real disruptor for the preening roosters running the out-of-power Democratic Party, and they can't get her out.
Two things are cheesing them off big time.
One, the fight she's gotten into with soon to be former Rep. Joe Crowley, a Democratic machine pol if there ever was one, who, after the 28-year-old Ocasio beat the pants off him in the primary, then refused to take his name off the Working Families Party ballot slot, leaving space for a split Democratic vote that could theoretically turn the race to Republican challenger Anthony Pappas.  Stranger things have happened in politics, so don't discount it, and the two of them are openly sniping about it on Twitter.
That's really gotten the rest of them going – they are telling the press this makes her "an enemy" even before she gets seated as a congresswoman.  Get a load of what this future "colleague" from New Jersey is out telling the press:
"She's carrying on and she ain't gonna make friends that way," said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.).  "Joe conceded, wished her well, said he would support her ... so she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about."
"She's not asking my advice," he added, "[but] I would do it differently, rather than make enemies of people."
Asked if Ocasio-Cortez is, indeed, making enemies of fellow Democrats, Pascrell didn't hesitate.
"Yes," he said.  "No doubt about it."
Enemies?  Really?  She's trying to maximize her chances of winning, and they're calling her "enemies"?  As I said, her socialist calls for guaranteed income and abolishing ICE and the end of capitalism don't bother them, but not doing things Joe Crowley's way seems to be enemy territory.
The other thing that's gotten their goats is that she's endorsed other socialists in other districts in the primaries.  Meaning more toppled incumbents.
That's too close to home for these entrenched Democrats, whose statements throughout the delicious, must-read Hill piece suggest entitlement to office.  "Meteors fizzle out," as Rep. Alcee Hastings sniffed to The Hill.  Here's what the Hill reported:
Separately, a number of Democrats are also going after Ocasio-Cortez for her decision to endorse a handful of progressive candidates challenging sitting Democratic lawmakers, a list that includes Clay and Reps. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.), as well as Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.).
Ocasio-Cortez has defended that decision, saying she's merely endorsing other liberal candidates "who uplifted & acknowledged my own campaign before anyone else would."
It's as if a fox has been let loose in the Democratic henhouse.
What we have here is a picture of Democrats convinced they hold their offices by divine right, and Ocasio, with all her loopy socialist ideas and ignorance of global affairs, disrupting them big time.  The thing is, her victory in New York's 14th District, at 58%, really was a powerful one.  What's more, it had gas, so to put it, because she won a second race in second New York district that she wasn't even running in, on a write-in campaign.  That was a district I used to live in (for the fun of it) several years ago, in the South Bronx, which has a large percentage of Puerto Rican voters, whose ethnicity matches Ocasio's.  Ocasio has power.
With Democrats out of power in two houses and rejected generally by voters, their howls are kind of comical.
One can also argue that Ocasio doesn't know how to use her newfound power, given the extent to which she has already annoyed her fellow Democrats.  She doesn't grasp machine politics at all, which is the whole raison d'être of Democrats these days, and doesn't seem to know that she doesn't know.  She just wants it all: socialism über alles.  But what we are seeing here is a Jurassic party that has been around too long, has gotten comfortable with its one-party status in so many districts, and as a result has gone right along with the mis-education of Millennials to the teacher unions as well as the lunatics in academia.  Now it's found itself upended by one of them – with guaranteed-to-fail extremist ideas and zero appeal to the mainstream.  So now they're turning on her, and not anonymously, as in the case of Trump.  They're going straight to open warfare right in the press.
Yes, indeed, a fox is loose in the Democrats' henhouse, and they're freaking out.  Expect more fluttering feathers along with outraged clucks and caws.  For us Republicans, get out the popcorn.