Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took to Twitter on Friday morning to weigh in on the political strife ripping through the Democratic caucus, which held a three-hour-long phone call on Thursday afternoon with its members that was live-tweeted by reporters after people on the call started leaking to the media.
In an apparent response to accusations that left-wing messaging, such as “defund the police” and “socialism,” hurt Democrats in congressional races, Ocasio-Cortez suggested that politicians should have tried harder to fight them because they were actually “racial resentment attacks.”
“When it comes to ‘Defund” & “Socialism’ attacks, people need to realize these are racial resentment attacks. You’re not gonna make that go away. You can make it less effective,” declared Ocasio-Cortez in a lengthy Twitter thread Friday morning. “How do you make it less effective? Invest in year-round deep canvassing. Data shows that this kind of work helps blunt the force of racial resentment at the polls.”
How do you make it less effective? Invest in year-round deep canvassing. Data shows that this kind of work helps blunt the force of racial resentment at the polls.
If you’re always running away from convos about race, then the only ppl owning it are GOP. You’ll lose.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 6, 2020
One of the most significant moments in the call was Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) ripping into the “defund the police” and “socialism” sloganeering wing of the Democratic party for costing them congressional seats in the 2020 election. Audio provided to The Washington Post captured Spanberger’s frustrations:
The number one concern that people brought to me, in my [inaudible] was defunding the police. And I heard from colleagues who said ‘Oh, it’s the language of the streets, we should respect that.’ We’re in Congress. We are professionals. We are supposed to talk about things in a way where we mean what we’re talking about. If we don’t mean we should defund the police, we shouldn’t say that….
And we need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again, because while people think it doesn’t matter, it does matter, and we lost good members because of that….
And if we are classifying Tuesday as a success from a congressional standpoint, we will get f****** torn apart in 2022.
Politico reports that some Congressional Democrats agreed with the criticisms of the radical messaging coming out of members of the caucus, with House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) remarking that Democrats would get destroyed in the midterm elections using such messaging.
Congressman Conor Lamb (D-PA) also agreed with Spanberger’s criticism, which prompted Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to fight back on Twitter.
“It’s unrealistic and unprofessional to be okay with people dying because air pollution is causing cancer in their communities. It’s unrealistic and unprofessional to look away while Black folks get gunned down in the streets by police,” tweeted Tlaib.
It’s unrealistic and unprofessional to be okay with people dying because air pollution is causing cancer in their communities. It’s unrealistic and unprofessional to look away while Black folks get gunned down in the streets by police. https://t.co/Qd9FV12P4u
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) November 6, 2020