Progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, continued to hammer former Vice President Joe Biden on his record and electability as the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential primary prepares to take the debate stage for the first time Thursday.
Ocasio-Cortez, the popular freshman congresswoman from The Bronx, said in an interview with Vogue published Wednesday that the popular view of Biden’s electability stems from a desire to reach a mythical supporter of President Donald Trump, a “dude in a diner” that the party appears ready to do anything to court.
“If you pick the perfect candidate like Joe Biden to win that guy in the diner, the cost will make you lose because you will depress turnout as well,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “And that’s exactly what happened to 2016. We picked the logically fitting candidate, but that candidate did not inspire the turnout that we needed.”
The comments weren’t a huge surprise coming from the left-leaning congresswoman, who identifies as a democratic socialist and has engaged in spats with centrist think tank Third Way in recent days. And she’s hardly the only progressive criticizing Biden and the Democratic Party’s allegiance to the former vice president.
Nathan Robinson, writing in The Guardian on Sunday, took aim at Biden’s fetishization of bipartisanship and common ground.
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