Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quickly emerged as the darling of progressive activists, but inside the halls of Congress she became a “pariah” among fellow Democrats, a new book claims.
Even before Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — widely known by her initials AOC — ascended to the House of Representatives in 2019, she ranked party leadership and progressive figures in the lower house, according to “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of Political Revolution, ” came out on Tuesday.
“While someone like Obama wants to be seen as all things to all people, Ocasio Cortez actually thinks she can be all things to all people while leading a political revolution,” wrote author Ryan Grim, according to a preview of the book published by the Daily Mail on Sunday. .
Grim recounted how the progressive figure — who ousted 10-term incumbent and Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley — disappointed top party members early in his career.
In July 2018, a month after AOC defeated Crowley in the Democratic primary, he met with then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — who urged the 28-year-old leftist to drop the slogan “Abolish ICE.”
Pelosi believes the phrase, which targets US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been “injected into the political discourse by Russia,” according to Grim, Washington DC bureau chief for The Intercept.
The AOC and Nancy Pelosi reportedly had a frosty relationship in the early days. Reuters
He wrote that: “AOC is wondering. This is what the party leader thinks.”
Shortly after Ocasio-Cortez won the general election in November, she baffled Democrats with some of her antics — including joining 150 climate activists to sit in Pelosi’s office.
“He believed he could occupy the Speaker’s office and asked Pelosi to appreciate it,” Grim recounted of the episode.
While in public Pelosi treads carefully with Ocasio-Cortez, behind the scenes, she’s making life miserable for the political novice, according to Grim.
“How many times has he told me that … ‘I have a protest sign older than you in my basement’ s—. Like yeah, but I’m not collecting dust,” Ocasio-Cortez once told Grim in a text, HuffPost previewed.
Ocasio-Cortez boasts over 13.2 million followers on X and has a penchant for going viral with her left-wing antics.
But Pelosi was not impressed.
“All these people have whatever their public and Twitter world is,” Pelosi told The New York Times in 2019.
“But they have no followers. They were four people, and that was the number of votes they got.”
Ocasio-Cortez, whose district covers parts of the Bronx and Queens, later called the bit “total disrespect”
Pelosi isn’t the only one upset by Ocasio-Cortez, according to Grim.
Pramila Jayapal grew angry with some AOC staff, according to the book. CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images
Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) was “emphatically hijacked” by the Empire State newcomer and it’s “not something (she) will be quick to forgive,” she wrote, according to the Mail.
At one point, Ocasio-Cortez and her then-chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti were called into a meeting with Jayapal who demanded she “keep her staff in line,” Grim wrote.
Chakrabarti described the meeting as Ocasio-Cortez being called to “the principal’s office.”
Shortly after she was sworn in on January 3, 2019, Ocasio-Cortez, 29, defied her own party by voting against rules that would have required new tax cuts or entitlement spending to be paid.
He considered the move a “dark political maneuver” and a “bad economy,” which put many rank-and-file Democrats at risk, according to Grim.
“The gulf between the AOC’s power outside the Capitol and its display on day one inside could hardly have been greater,” Grim wrote.
AOC famously wore a dress that read “Tax the rich” to the Met Gala. Getty Images For The Museum/Vogue Met
“To reshape the landscape, he quickly sacrificed his relationships with colleagues.”
Grim, the former Washington DC bureau chief for HuffPost and the progressive co-host of the weekly Counterpoints show on YouTube, noted that Ocasio-Cortez is proudly trying to “remake the system and thank you for doing it.”
“Ocasio-Cortez’s curse is her desire to win a consensus that she is there to help, coupled with her radical politics,” he wrote.
Although he tried to show “personal warmth” to his congressional colleagues, it only made them “more suspicious” of his motives, Grim wrote, according to the Mail.
They “cannot accept and even have a working relationship with someone from a different party faction,” the book said.
The AOC is a member of the so-called “Squad” of progressive representatives. AFP via Getty Images
“Grim wrote: ‘”They can’t believe that Ocasio-Cortex isn’t planning to oust them.”
Early on, one of his signature issues quickly became the so-called Green New Deal, a vague pitch for deep reforms to curb the threat of climate change that has fed Republicans.
Evan Weber, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, has allied with the congressman in his push for climate change policy reform.
“I think we’ve done such a good job to the point of massaging the language that there’s a kind of arrogance like: ‘We can actually calm everyone down here’ instead of sticking to our guns and making real choices about different direction charts,” he told Grim in the book, according to the Mail.
But Weber later focused on a sheet of “frequently asked questions” put together by Ocasio-Cortez’s team that he described as a “disaster s–t of a show” that handed his critics a “silver platter.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s former spokesman, Corbin Trent, suggested that they had attempted a “half-revolution” and that their staff had become “too big for (their) problems,” Grim wrote.
“If we’re not going to move fast and break things, if you’re not trying to get along with people, why are you hooking up with people?” he said.
At 34, AOC would technically be old enough to run for president in 2024, but he declined to do so. AP
Ocasio-Cortez also angered the Democratic Party by endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential election, although she ended up endorsing the candidate and eventual winner, President Biden, according to Grim.
America’s Socialist Democrat sweetheart made waves in September 2021 when she showed up to the Met Gala wearing a white dress with red letters “Tax the Rich” on the back.
His appearance “infuriated every organization that was either told he couldn’t attend their events or, more commonly, was simply ignored by his office,” Grim wrote.
Since her early days with much fanfare, Ocasio-Cortez has slowly begun to climb the Democratic power ladder in Congress.
Jamie Raskin has been a fixture of the AOC in public. AP
He is currently a deputy member of the House Oversight Committee, which is widely regarded as one of the most powerful panels in the lower house.
Ocasio-Cortez refused to challenge Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in the primary.
Still, Grim concludes that Ocasio-Cortez, despite being outspoken in public, has been paralyzed by too much “pushing over conflict.”
Ryan Grim has deep resources in progressive circles. Henry Holt and Co.
“This constant feeling that he failed at something. And he let it in his head. He really took that to heart,” the book says.
The Post reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/