© Handout/DNCC/Getty Democratic New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, pictured here during the 2020 Democratic National Convention in August, has told progressive voters that supporting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is a 'tactical vote' in support of vulnerable people.
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After more than two dozen moderate Democrats broke from their party's progressive wing and sided with Republicans on a legislative amendment Wednesday, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in a Monday tweet criticized the limited time lawmakers have been given to read the $2.5 trillion stimulus bill before they are expected to vote on Monday. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is publicly rejecting those calls, arguing that Democrats don't have the votes to pass Medicare for All in the House and there are other options the party has that. FILE PHOTO: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addresses media as she arrives to vote early at a polling station in The Bronx, New York City, U.S., October 25, 2020.
On Friday, Democratic New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told progressive voters reluctant about supporting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden that their support for him can offer 'tactical votes' in support of vulnerable communities, namely immigrants.
'I am casting this vote out of solidarity with our most marginalized and vulnerable communities,' Ocasio-Cortez told actress and activist Jane Fonda in a Fire Drill Friday interview, an ongoing series about politics and climate change sponsored by the environmental group Greenpeace.
'I don't think anyone can really look at me in the eye and genuinely tell me that immigrants who are having forced hysterectomies, who are being put in cages and camps, who are being separated from their children in some of the largest human rights violations at [a] scale that we have seen in a very long time—I don't think anyone can look me in the eye and say that they won't be better off in a Biden administration, that they won't be more protected under a Biden administration,' she said, according to The Hill.
'This isn't always about support for the candidate,' she added, telling progressives that it's possible to criticize Biden and his policies while still supporting his election. 'We can make tactical votes.'
Ocasio-Cortez's comments reference several aspects of Republican President Donald Trump's immigration policies at the southern U.S. border.
Her first reference alludes to a medical whistleblower's allegations in September that detainees at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Georgia were receiving unwarranted hysterectomies.
Ocasio-Cortez also referenced the detainment cells and refugee camps at the border. The online journalism organization The Marshall Project found that the number of asylum seekers in U.S. immigration centers and camps had increased under the Trump administration, leading to overcrowding and fewer resources, worsening conditions already considered inhumane by immigration advocates.
The child separations Ocasio-Cortez mentioned refer to Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy of separating thousands of undocumented immigrant children from their parents or guardians at the border.
Though the policy began under the Obama administration, in January 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general released a report in January stating that under Obama, such family 'separations were rare and occurred because of circumstances such as the parent's medical emergency or a determination that the parent was a threat to the child's safety.'
Trump formalized the practice as part of his policy, regardless of the parent's medical status or threat to their children. A Tuesday court filing by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleged that 545 migrant children have had not been reunited with their parents. On Wednesday, the White House claimed the parents didn't want their children back.
'Many of them have declined to accept their children back.... It's not for lack of effort on the administration's part,' White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern said, according to NBC News.
'The fact of the matter is the United States has engaged in a program of mass human rights violations targeting immigrants,' Ocasio-Cortez said in a September 14 tweet. 'This includes mass child separation, systemic sexual assault of people in detention, kangaroo-court procedures, & more.'
'Our country must atone for it all,' she concluded.
Newsweek contacted Ocasio-Cortez for comment.
© SAUL LOEB/Getty Images Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (L) performs a ceremonial swearing-in for US House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, (C) and family at the start of the 116th US Congress at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 3, 2019. SAUL LOEB/Getty Images- A handful of outspoken left-wing activists are pressuring progressive lawmakers to refuse to vote for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unless she holds the first floor vote on single-payer healthcare.
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is publicly rejecting those calls, arguing that Democrats don't have the votes to pass Medicare for All in the House and there are other options the party has that would effect real change.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can only afford to lose the support of a handful of her House Democratic colleagues in order to be elected on January 3, to her fourth term as leader of the House.
A handful of outspoken left-wing activists are pressuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive House lawmakers to take advantage of this vulnerability to force a vote on one of their leading issues: Medicare for All. Commentator Jimmy Dore and Briahna Joy Gray, Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign spokesperson, led calls for Democrats to refuse to vote for Pelosi unless she holds the first House floor vote on single-payer healthcare.
They argue progressives would be foolish to waste what they see as a golden opportunity to promote Rep. Pramila Jayapal's Medicare for All legislation amid a raging pandemic and with millions of newly uninsured Americans.
'Force the Congress to show which side they're really on,' Dore said during his YouTube show this week. He accused Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent advocate for Medicare for All, of 'pretending to be part of a movement,' but in reality 'running cover for Nancy Pelosi.'
—Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) December 15, 2020
Gray joined Dore's call in a Tuesday piece for the progressive publication Current Affairs in which she argued that threatening to remove Pelosi from the speakership would help draw media and public attention to the healthcare debate.
'A floor vote on Jayapal's bill could capitalize on the public's overwhelming approval for Medicare for All, and expose the chasm between the policies Democratic voters want and the positions their elected representatives are willing to take,' Gray wrote.
Gray and Dore pointed out that Ocasio-Cortez has previously suggested she supports holding a House vote on Medicare for All.
Video: Mnuchin to join by phone as top U.S. congressional leaders meet on COVID-19; McConnell vows agreement (Reuters)
'We can't even get a floor vote on Medicare for All,' the congresswoman said in January. 'Not even a floor vote that gets voted down. We can't even get a vote on it.'
On Friday, Ocasio-Cortez responded to the criticism in a series of tweets replying to professional football player Justin Jackson, who backed Dore's call to force the vote.
Jackson tweeted, 'If @AOC and the squad don't do what @jimmy_dore has suggested and withhold their vote for Pelosi for speakership until Med 4 All gets brought to the floor for a vote… they will be revealing themselves. Power concedes nothing without a demand.'
Ocasio-Cortez argued that Democrats don't have the votes to pass Medicare for All in the House and lawmakers have already made clear whether or not they support the legislation.
'So you issue threats, hold your vote, and lose. Then what?' the congresswoman wrote.
The Bronx native argued that House progressives should instead focus their energies on pushing policies that can pass, including a $15 minimum wage and 'elevating longtime progressive champions to important positions of leadership.' She added that 'movement pressure' and successful progressive primary candidates are helping push more Democrats to sign on to the single-payer proposal.
Other influential progressives, including Intercept journalist Ryan Grim and former Sanders aide David Sirota, sided with Ocasio-Cortez and argued it would be wrongheaded to burn up political capital on a doomed vote.
Alexandria Ocasio-cortez Vote For Biden
'Only asking for that performative vote - rather than also asking for things that might change the structural power dynamic - would be a waste, and yet another instance of progressives reverting to a feckless tradition of prioritizing spectacles rather than the wielding of actual power,' Sirota wrote on Monday in the socialist outlet Jacobin.
Ocasio-Cortez's comments reference several aspects of Republican President Donald Trump's immigration policies at the southern U.S. border.
Her first reference alludes to a medical whistleblower's allegations in September that detainees at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Georgia were receiving unwarranted hysterectomies.
Ocasio-Cortez also referenced the detainment cells and refugee camps at the border. The online journalism organization The Marshall Project found that the number of asylum seekers in U.S. immigration centers and camps had increased under the Trump administration, leading to overcrowding and fewer resources, worsening conditions already considered inhumane by immigration advocates.
The child separations Ocasio-Cortez mentioned refer to Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy of separating thousands of undocumented immigrant children from their parents or guardians at the border.
Though the policy began under the Obama administration, in January 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general released a report in January stating that under Obama, such family 'separations were rare and occurred because of circumstances such as the parent's medical emergency or a determination that the parent was a threat to the child's safety.'
Trump formalized the practice as part of his policy, regardless of the parent's medical status or threat to their children. A Tuesday court filing by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleged that 545 migrant children have had not been reunited with their parents. On Wednesday, the White House claimed the parents didn't want their children back.
'Many of them have declined to accept their children back.... It's not for lack of effort on the administration's part,' White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern said, according to NBC News.
'The fact of the matter is the United States has engaged in a program of mass human rights violations targeting immigrants,' Ocasio-Cortez said in a September 14 tweet. 'This includes mass child separation, systemic sexual assault of people in detention, kangaroo-court procedures, & more.'
'Our country must atone for it all,' she concluded.
Newsweek contacted Ocasio-Cortez for comment.
© SAUL LOEB/Getty Images Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (L) performs a ceremonial swearing-in for US House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, (C) and family at the start of the 116th US Congress at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 3, 2019. SAUL LOEB/Getty Images- A handful of outspoken left-wing activists are pressuring progressive lawmakers to refuse to vote for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unless she holds the first floor vote on single-payer healthcare.
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is publicly rejecting those calls, arguing that Democrats don't have the votes to pass Medicare for All in the House and there are other options the party has that would effect real change.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can only afford to lose the support of a handful of her House Democratic colleagues in order to be elected on January 3, to her fourth term as leader of the House.
A handful of outspoken left-wing activists are pressuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive House lawmakers to take advantage of this vulnerability to force a vote on one of their leading issues: Medicare for All. Commentator Jimmy Dore and Briahna Joy Gray, Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign spokesperson, led calls for Democrats to refuse to vote for Pelosi unless she holds the first House floor vote on single-payer healthcare.
They argue progressives would be foolish to waste what they see as a golden opportunity to promote Rep. Pramila Jayapal's Medicare for All legislation amid a raging pandemic and with millions of newly uninsured Americans.
'Force the Congress to show which side they're really on,' Dore said during his YouTube show this week. He accused Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent advocate for Medicare for All, of 'pretending to be part of a movement,' but in reality 'running cover for Nancy Pelosi.'
—Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) December 15, 2020
Gray joined Dore's call in a Tuesday piece for the progressive publication Current Affairs in which she argued that threatening to remove Pelosi from the speakership would help draw media and public attention to the healthcare debate.
'A floor vote on Jayapal's bill could capitalize on the public's overwhelming approval for Medicare for All, and expose the chasm between the policies Democratic voters want and the positions their elected representatives are willing to take,' Gray wrote.
Gray and Dore pointed out that Ocasio-Cortez has previously suggested she supports holding a House vote on Medicare for All.
Video: Mnuchin to join by phone as top U.S. congressional leaders meet on COVID-19; McConnell vows agreement (Reuters)
'We can't even get a floor vote on Medicare for All,' the congresswoman said in January. 'Not even a floor vote that gets voted down. We can't even get a vote on it.'
On Friday, Ocasio-Cortez responded to the criticism in a series of tweets replying to professional football player Justin Jackson, who backed Dore's call to force the vote.
Jackson tweeted, 'If @AOC and the squad don't do what @jimmy_dore has suggested and withhold their vote for Pelosi for speakership until Med 4 All gets brought to the floor for a vote… they will be revealing themselves. Power concedes nothing without a demand.'
Ocasio-Cortez argued that Democrats don't have the votes to pass Medicare for All in the House and lawmakers have already made clear whether or not they support the legislation.
'So you issue threats, hold your vote, and lose. Then what?' the congresswoman wrote.
The Bronx native argued that House progressives should instead focus their energies on pushing policies that can pass, including a $15 minimum wage and 'elevating longtime progressive champions to important positions of leadership.' She added that 'movement pressure' and successful progressive primary candidates are helping push more Democrats to sign on to the single-payer proposal.
Other influential progressives, including Intercept journalist Ryan Grim and former Sanders aide David Sirota, sided with Ocasio-Cortez and argued it would be wrongheaded to burn up political capital on a doomed vote.
Alexandria Ocasio-cortez Vote For Biden
'Only asking for that performative vote - rather than also asking for things that might change the structural power dynamic - would be a waste, and yet another instance of progressives reverting to a feckless tradition of prioritizing spectacles rather than the wielding of actual power,' Sirota wrote on Monday in the socialist outlet Jacobin.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Vote Results
He suggested Democrats push a series of other more achievable measures, including passing legislation to allow states to create single-payer healthcare systems, that would help pave the way for a future transformation of the healthcare sector.
Ocasio-Cortez seconded Sirota's proposals and added a few more of her own.
Ocasio Cortez Votes For Pelosi
'[People] may think it's just personalities that block floor votes. But it's not just that. There are structural blocks (yes, placed by conservative Dems) we must unravel,' she wrote.
