By now most of America knows about the seismic event that occurred in New York’s 14th District during last week’s primary elections. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year old community organizer from the Bronx, won the Democratic nomination in a landslide, defeating 10-term Congressman Joe Crowley.
Ocasio-Cortez’s election has buoyed both local and national Democrats, who see her ascendance as a potential sign that the progressive, Bernie Sanders wing of the Party is rising. Indeed, Ocasio-Cortez was a campaign worker for Sanders during his 2016 presidential run.
Ocasio-Cortez describes herself as a Democratic Socialist, which is how Sanders also describes himself. While the word socialist could potentially scare off some voters, her platform is in fact in line with a vision of America that a majority of Americans share.
She believes in Medicare for all, in taking special interest money out of politics, and in housing for all, among other issues.
In a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Ocasio-Cortez was asked to describe democratic socialism. Her answer was powerful:
“I believe that In a modern, moral, wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live.” She continued: “So what that means is healthcare as a human right. “It means that every child, no matter where they’re born, should have access to a college or trade school education, should they so choose it.” She concluded her answer to Colbert by saying: “I think that no person should be homeless, if we can have public structures and public policy to allow for people to have homes and food and lead a dignified life in the United States.”
All I can say is, wow. That sounds a lot like the kind of progressivism I grew up with on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It also sounds like a picture of a beautiful and loving America that most people want to live in.
In fact, I can name about 3,000 Central American refugees currently separated from their children and stranded at the Mexican border who have risked their and their children’s lives to gain entry to the welcoming and socially progressive America that Ocasio-Cortez describes.
And there are millions more who want to come, make no mistake. Because despite all its problems, and despite even the autocratic and corrupt Trump regime, millions of people still want to come to America, if only for what it represents: freedom, and a chance to achieve something and make a better life for oneself and one’s family.
So what are we to make of Democratic Party nominee for New York’s 14th District, Ms. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Is she the future of the Democratic Party? She’s young, she’s a person of color, and she’s extremely progressive. Will there be more like her in the future?
Given the candidate the Democrats force fed down their supporters’ throats in 2016, the centrist, unengaging, downright dishonest at times Hillary Clinton, now is the time for the leaders of the Party to embrace new candidates like Ocasio-Cortez.
Because if the 2016 race for the Democratic Party nomination fight taught us anything, it’s that the Democratic base is far to the Left of its leaders. I also truly believe, and the pre-election polls bear this out, that many Republicans would have voted for Bernie. But once Hillary won the nomination these folks switched to Trump. Clinton just had too much baggage, too little energy, and too few new ideas.
So Bernie Sanders paved the way, and now it’s time for rising stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to claim the mantle of the new Democratic Party, the truly progressive, socially democratic party that FDR is so famous for championing.
Let’s hope she and the new crop of young Democrats are up to the challenge, and that the exigencies of fundraising and the views of special interests don’t get in the way of them creating a new Party, and by extension a new America, that works for all Americans.
The country is waiting.
