Is the Democrat Party inevitably destined to be AOC’s Democrat Party?
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), seen as one of the most radical left-wing lawmakers in Congress, has her squad growing thanks to the election of a handful of young new progressives on November 3.
The “Squad” refers to the freshman congresswomen elected in the 2018 midterms who, like Ocasio-Cortez, favor socialist policies such as the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, open borders, and defunding the police. The other members of the group are Representatives Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
Two of the new additions to The Squad are male.
The first, Democrat Mondaire Jones of New York, is an advocate for Medicare for All and the Green New Deal and has called for defunding police departments and ending cash bail.
“Congress must cease all funding that militarizes police forces, repeal the 1994 Crime Bill that accelerated mass incarceration, and abolish cash bail, which condemns poor people to pretrial detention while more affluent people await trial from the comfort of their homes,” he wrote in a June article.
For Jones, dismantling white supremacy involves “moving funding away from police departments and toward programs that improve public safety by helping to address the roots of systemic inequality.”
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Jamaal Brown, also of New York, likewise backs the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, along with canceling student debt and “shifting funding and resources from police departments, jails, and prisons to new agencies designed to protect public health.”
In addition, he has pushed the “Reconstruction Agenda,” which includes creating a “National Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate, document, and assess the federal government’s role in America’s history of racism.”
According to Brown, a “federal investigation and commission modeled on the transitional justice approach in Germany, South Africa, and Rwanda” is needed to make a proposal for slavery reparations.
He also wants to “dramatically” reduce prison populations, by ending mandatory minimums, cash bail, the “war on drugs,” and what he calls “mass deportation.”
Then there’s Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who, in addition to the Green New Deal, seeks a $15 minimum wage, the abolition of immigration enforcement, and an end to “right-to-work” protections for workers — a move that would empower labor unions.
Bush has floated the idea of funding more social services not only by defunding the police, but the military as well.
“If you’re having a bad day, just think of all the social services we’re going to fund after we defund the Pentagon,” she tweeted in October.
The election of the three radicals will strengthen the Democratt Party’s progressive wing, which has taken heat in recent days as moderates within the party are blaming the more extreme element for the party’s loss, rather than gain, of seats in the House on Election Day.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in a caucus call last week that if “we are going to run on ‘Medicare-for-all,’ defund the police, socialized medicine, we’re not going to win.”
The Free Beacon has reported on Democrats’ support for defunding the police, despite claims by some progressives that they never supported the idea:
Earlier this year, progressive Democrats backed proposals to defund police departments across the country. In July, Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), both members of the far-left “squad,” endorsed a bill that would strip federal funding for police departments and disband several federal law enforcement agencies. Ocasio-Cortez, who has also backed efforts to defund police departments, said New York City’s decision to cut more than $1 billion in funding for the city’s police department in June did not go far enough, saying “the fight to defund policing continues.”
Ocasio-Cortez, however, defended progressives by arguing that the Democrats who support policies such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All won reelection.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has said that the New York congresswoman “runs the floor. That wing of the party, the socialist wing of the party, they are the new power of the Democratic Party.”
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) does not renounce socialism because it would get her in trouble with her party’s progressives.
Democrats are currently on track to lose between seven and 11 seats in the House of Representatives, which would make for the thinnest majority in two decades.
