Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has issued a dire warning to her party about the chaos that could ensue if they succeed in pushing President Joe Biden off the ticket. And she criticized Democrats who’ve given off-the-record quotes that suggest the party has resigned itself to a second Trump term.
In an Instagram Live video on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez warned liberals that a brokered convention could lead to chaos, in part because she says some of the Democratic “elites” who want Biden out also don’t want Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee in his place.
“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP be the nominee,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed none of the people she’s spoken with who are calling on Biden to drop out — including lawmakers and legal experts — have articulated a plan to swap out the nominee without minimizing the serious legal and procedural challenges that are likely to ensue.
Ocasio-Cortez also highlighted the racial, ethnic and class divisions that appear to have formed between the majority of those pining to blow up the ticket — led mostly by white Democrats and media pundits — and those elected officials who feel they and their constituents have too much at stake to upend the process at this point and so are willing to do the work to re-elect Biden-Harris. She alluded to this cultural divide in her video when she spoke out against anonymous sources expressing a sense of fatalism on behalf of Democrats about what might happen if Biden remains on the ticket:
What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose. For me, to a certain extent, I don’t care what name is on there. We are not losing. I don’t know about you, but my community does not have the option to lose. My community does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.
If Biden is on the ballot, I will vote for him. I also want him off.
But, frankly, we need to scare the pants off the Democratic party if there is going to be any chance they change their behavior.
Where are the five great younger candidates they have have been fostering to be ready for something like this? Nowhere, because they keep putting all their effort into one entrenched candidate and then force them through no matter what. Look how disastrous it was when they kept pushing Hillary when Bernie was doing so well, she lost. Now so many people are saying “no” to Biden, what should we expect will happen?
If history is our judge, we’re going to lose, whether we can afford to or not. Because even if we supported Biden right now with solidarity, a lot of people are going to not vote for him, whether we like it or not.
Would it be better if the Democratic party didn’t see how unhappy people were and we all pretended it would be ok and told them we would just vote for any candidate they give us no matter how bad?