Latest news with #AlexandriaOcasioCortez
Wall Street Journal
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
The Left Needs New Leaders
Kimberley A. Strassel's dissection of the 'Democrats' 'Autopsy' Flop' (Potomac Watch, July 25) provides a comprehensive postmortem of the disconnect between the ideological program of the Democratic Party's leadership and more centrist views of the majority of American voters. As Ms. Strassel points out, it will require a 'charismatic outsider' to course-correct a party that has been taken over by its left wing and is deeply out of touch with the American mainstream. I can't say who that person will be, but I can recommend the first step that person should take: Kick Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of the party. Then assist any of her acolytes who are willing to 'self deport.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
AOC isn't radical enough for the anti-Israel Left. It's a sinister sign of the future
'AOC funds genocide in Gaza', announced a sign posted outside the Bronx campaign office of progressive New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In a particularly chilling gesture, the office's windows were splattered with red paint, including a splotch big enough to blot out an image of her face. An anti-Israel group called the 'Boogie Down Liberation Front' took responsibility for Monday night's act of vandalism in a message to a local journalist, stating 'The Bronx is sick and tired of people like AOC … using us as a stepping stone for their own political careers'. It added that their community 'stands with the people of Palestine and we denounce the hypocrisy of AOC who voted to fund Israel's ongoing genocide and starvation campaign in Gaza.' At immediate issue was Ocasio-Cortez's vote last Friday against an amendment to a military spending bill that would have cut millions in aid to Israel for its air defence systems. The amendment, which only six Congressmen supported, was proposed by Ocasio-Cortez's polar political opposite, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, whose apparent motivation was her belief that Israel no longer requires American taxpayer assistance due to its successful military operations earlier this year. Greene's amendment was also supported by noted anti-Israel Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Ocasio-Cortez has argued that the amendment would have done 'nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza'. She maintains that she still believes Israel is committing genocide, but that it should not be denied defensive weapons. That was not enough for some increasingly extreme factions on the Left, however, which consider approving any amount of support for Israel to be unacceptable. It should go without saying that nobody should be cheering on the vandalism of any politician's campaign office. Ocasio-Cortez's campaign has also revealed that she has received an increased number of death threats in recent days – a disturbing reminder that political violence is never far from the surface in American politics today. It also says something very concerning about where the American Left is heading that she should become a target of their vitriol. Back in 2018, she had a roaring start on the Left-wing of the Democratic Party. A one-time barmaid who claimed to speak progressive, working class truth to corporate power, regardless of party, she rode the anti-incumbency trend in the midterm elections of Donald Trump's first presidency to become the youngest woman ever to sit in the US Congress. She went on to be one of the very few American politicians so well known that her initials often supersede her name, a distinction usually reserved for presidents of the order of FDR or JFK. In office, AOC emerged as the best known member of the 'Squad', a small group of Left-wing Congresswomen whom many progressives hailed as the future of US politics. Her radical agenda made her a role model for young Democrats who distrust their party's older and more moderate leadership, and a bugbear for flustered Republicans who only made her more popular in constant media attacks. In recent years, however, AOC seems to have lost her progressive lustre, even if her politics haven't really changed. Last year, her stance on Israel caused the Democratic Socialists of America – a national progressive organisation that had backed her since her first standing for office – to withdraw its endorsement, accusing her of 'deep betrayal'. AOC clearly retains substantial popularity among Democrats – at over $15 million, her campaign contributions in 2025 exceed those of all other members of Congress this year as she considers greater ambitions, possibly including a primary challenge to fellow Democrat Chuck Schumer for his New York Senate seat. Some 72 per cent of those funds came from outside her congressional district. But the vandalism at her office – alongside other trends, like the emergence of Zohran Mamdani as the Democrat nominee for mayor of New York City – suggests that the Left is beginning to turn in a far more sinister direction. Paul du Quenoy is a historian and president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Fox News
4 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
CHRISTOPHER RUFO: AOC, Mamdani engage in political identity theft for votes
New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—two of America's most prominent socialist politicians—have committed identity theft. No, they did not pilfer a Social Security number or swipe the digits of someone else's credit card. They have done something more subtle: stealing the image of the oppressed for personal and political gain. It's an old trick. Just as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., claimed Native American heritage as she ascended the ranks of academia, Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez adopted the identities of the poor and downtrodden as they ascended the ranks of politics. Both built their political personas on a small kernel of truth: Mamdani claimed on his college application to be black because he was born in Uganda, despite being the son of two famous, affluent, and educated Indians; Ocasio-Cortez claimed to be a "Bronx girl" because she lived in the borough until age five, when she moved to a tony corner of Westchester County, New York. Both have structured their identities around grand narratives of oppressor and oppressed, which they hope to convert into power and prestige. The truth is that both Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez belong to groups—Indians and Latinos, respectively—that do not fit neatly into America's deepest historical binary, that between White and Black, colonist and slave. Though both could doubtlessly point toward some personal slight or past injustice against their ethnic group, neither Mamdani nor Ocasio-Cortez can lay a real claim to historical oppression. Indian Americans are among the most educated and affluent groups in America, and the vast majority of Latinos arrived in the United States after desegregation and the Civil Rights Act. The very fact that millions of people uprooted themselves from India and Latin America to try their luck in this country indicates that they considered America a land of opportunity, rather than injustice. For Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez, however, the myth of post-Civil Rights Act discrimination must be maintained at all costs. Both use their privilege—Mamdani, graduate of Bowdoin and son of a professor; Ocasio-Cortez, graduate of Boston University and daughter of an architect—to advance their narrative of oppression. They do it because it works. Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez have translated the politics of resentment to win political campaigns in Queens and the Bronx, respectively. They motivate anxious, college-educated left-wing activists, who run the ground game for their campaigns and harvest the support of working-class and minority voters in the outer boroughs. It has always been thus. Marx and Engels were sons of affluence; Lenin was a lawyer; Mao was a librarian at Peking University. Left-wing radicals abandoned the theory of spontaneous working-class revolution not long after they hatched it. The "vanguard of the proletariat" has been their dominant concept since the Russian Revolution. And identity theft—claiming to represent the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed—has been their dominant tactic. How should opponents respond? Pointing out the fraud might be effective. After all, Warren never fully recovered from the revelation that she misrepresented her ancestry in pursuit of power. But it will be harder with the new generation of identity thieves, such as Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez, who are skilled at political agitprop and can rely on their racial minority status to make some critics reluctant to go after them. The better approach is to frame the argument around two concepts: America and manipulation. First, critics should point out that millions of people around the world want to come to America for its opportunities, equality under law, and genuinely tolerant culture; the Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez families have become successful precisely because of this country's system, which should be celebrated rather than condemned. Second, critics should portray such politicians as dishonest and self-serving, public figures who misrepresent their backgrounds in pursuit of personal status and manipulate voters to advance destructive ideologies. Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez's policies will yield the opposite of what they promise, as socialist policies have done in the past. Regrettably, the identity-theft strategy will remain with us for the foreseeable future. When I was an undergraduate at Georgetown University, I noticed that many of the most affluent and connected students had prepared an oppression narrative or sob story—not out of modesty but ambition. They sensed, correctly, that a story of racial, psychological, or familial trauma would grant them status and a competitive edge. I saw the sons of Middle Eastern sheiks and the daughters of American moguls rehearsing lines about supposed oppression that are now familiar in the national discourse. The trouble is that fake identities can yield real consequences. Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are elites masquerading as the oppressed. If they are successful, they will create a system that rewards people like them and punishes those below.
Fox News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
AOC broke House rules at Met Gala while wearing ‘Tax the Rich' dress
The 'Fox & Friends' hosts discuss Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being ordered to repay thousands after an ethics investigation found House rule violations tied to her Met Gala appearance, including delayed payments and underbilling.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Robert Reich Thinks the Baby Boomers Blew It
For more than four decades, Robert Reich has been ringing the alarm bell about rising inequality in America. He did it as a member of three presidential administrations, including a stint as labor secretary under President Clinton. He did it as a revered professor at U.C. Berkeley, Brandeis and Harvard. He's currently doing it online, where, somewhat improbably, the 79-year-old has become a new-media star, having built a devoted audience of millions across Substack, TikTok and Instagram. Through it all, his message has remained consistent: Inequality — be it economic, racial or political — erodes social trust, diminishes belief in democracy and can create openings for demagogues. Which is why I wanted to talk to Reich about this political moment, one defined in so many ways by a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and also by growing resistance to that trend. Think here of the economic populist messaging coming from some Republicans, like Josh Hawley, or the rise of young and charismatic politicians who focus on income inequality, people like the democratic socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani, who won New York City's Democratic mayoral primary just a few days after Reich and I first spoke. But I also wanted to talk to Reich about the personal moment in which he finds himself. He recently retired from teaching after more than 40 years. Indeed, the run-up to his final lecture is the subject of a documentary, 'The Last Class,' which is currently in theaters. Reich also has a memoir on the way, 'Coming Up Short,' which will be published on Aug. 5. In the book, and in our conversation, he reckons with the political failures of his fellow baby boomers, the rise of what he sees as a culture of brutality and bullying and why Democrats have failed to connect with struggling Americans. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio App The title of your memoir is a pun on the fact that you're short, but it also refers to your argument that your generation failed to strengthen democracy, failed to reduce economic inequality and, generally, failed to contain 'the bullies.' What went wrong? We took for granted what our parents and their parents bequeathed to us. I was born in 1946, as were George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. The so-called greatest generation gave us not only peace and prosperity but the largest middle class the world had ever seen. What I try to understand is how we ended up with Donald Trump. Trump is the consequence, not the cause, of what we are now experiencing. He is the culmination of at least 50 years of a certain kind of neglect. And I say this very personally, because I was part of this failure. It is a reckoning that is deeply personal. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
