On Sunday morning, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) responded to presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden apparently refusing to condemn people tearing down statues of Confederate figures. Cruz blasted, “Dems support the riots. The vandals. The anarchists. That’s their base. And they’re terrified to offend them.”
Dems support the riots. The vandals. The anarchists.
That’s their base. And they’re terrified to offend them. https://t.co/B5nRPRGBYM
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 5, 2020
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tried to take on Cruz by theorizing that the fact that Biden was the presumptive nominee indicated that the Democrats’ base was not hard-leftists, tweeting, “Yes, that is precisely why the party nominated… Joe Biden.”
“Is it me, or is the GOP losing their touch with the conspiracy-theory-as-campaign-rhetoric technique?” she added in a follow-up post.
Yes, that is precisely why the party nominated… Joe Biden https://t.co/ZFx5YAnd9b
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 5, 2020
Is it me, or is the GOP losing their touch with the conspiracy-theory-as-campaign-rhetoric technique?
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 5, 2020
That triggered a withering response from Cruz: “You’re the base he’s terrified of. Do you support: 1) Tearing down statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson & Abraham Lincoln? 2) Destroying Mt. Rushmore. 3) Abolishing the police. 4) Acquiescing to ‘autonomous’ lawless zones like CHAZ/CHOP? 5) ANTIFA mob violence?”
You’re the base he’s terrified of.
Do you support:
1) Tearing down statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson & Abraham Lincoln?
2) Destroying Mt. Rushmore.
3) Abolishing the police.
4) Acquiescing to “autonomous” lawless zones like CHAZ/CHOP?
5) ANTIFA mob violence? https://t.co/qJCM6Z7yjt
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 5, 2020
Cruz’s tweet was issued early Sunday afternoon. By midnight there were still only crickets from Ocasio-Cortez.
In April, Ocasio-Cortez spoke to The New York Times about what she expected about working with Biden. “The whole process of coming together should be uncomfortable for everyone involved — that’s how you know it’s working,” she said. “And if Biden is only doing things he’s comfortable with, then it’s not enough.”
Despite her implication in her Sunday tweet that she believes the Democratic base is not hard-left, she told the Times in April, “While Biden is the nominee, we also know that he didn’t win because of policy — I don’t think he won because of his agenda, he won because of different factors. In state after state after state, Democratic voters support a progressive agenda.”
She added, “I think people understand that there are limits to what Biden will do and that’s understandable — he didn’t run as a progressive candidate. But, at the bare minimum, we should aspire to be better than what we have been before. And I just don’t know if this message of ‘We’re going to go back to the way things were’ is going to work for the people for who the way things were was really bad.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s own radical message was in evidence in December 2019, when she said at a Bernie Sanders rally in Los Angeles, “So we need to fight to start this work, an establishment of an advanced society. Because as much as much as we like to say that the United States is the richest country in the history, or rather in modern history, for who? The richest country, who cares about how much gold is being amassed if we can’t realize an advanced society with those resources? And we’re here to say that what we’re living in right now is not an advanced society. It is fascism! What we have, what we’re evolving into as well.”
In March 2019, Ocasio-Cortez suggested to an audience at the South by Southwest Conference & Festivals that America was “10% better than garbage,” asserting, “It’s just that now we’ve strayed so far away from what has really made us powerful, and just, and good, and equitable, and productive, and so I think all of these things sound radical compared to where we are but where we are is not a good thing. And this idea of like 10% better from garbage, is, shouldn’t be what we settle for …”
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