Ocasio-Cortez Aide Calls Democratic Party ‘Cowardice’ The ‘Greatest Threat To Mankind’

Huffington Post

July 6, 2109
by Mary Papenfuss
http://bit.ly/2FX3TBA

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[Social-Justice – The lack of congressional action in response to the president’s contempt for the rule of law, his admiration for brutal dictators and their policies, and his racist and morally bankrupt victimization of immigrant families and children on our southern border, and elsewhere around the country are prime examples of the Democratic party’s cowardice .

Every citizen of the United States should be deeply ashamed of the immigrant detention centers (concentration camps). They should also be ashamed and very angry about the separation of families, the kidnapping of children as pawns in a despicable racist game that has become an integral part of U.S. foreign policy.

Equally shameful is the apparent acquiescence of much of the country in these crimes against humanity. Where is the public outrage? Part of the problem is the absence of aggressive action by congressional leadership. Why the lack of leadership on this issue? What possibly could be more important, and more central to our identity as Americans? This not the time for hand ringing, and political calculation!

Even for a cynic, in times like these, the best policy choice is to boldly stand up for what is right, and let the chips fall where they may! The situation demands acts that reflect the desperation of these families and their children. The alternative is cowardice. Cowardice is not too strong a word.]

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A spokesman for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has thrown down the political gauntlet with a declaration that the “greatest threat to mankind”  This not the time for hand ringing, and political calculation is the “cowardice of the Democratic Party.”

“The party leadership is ‘driven by fear,’ They seem to be unable to lead.”

Corbin Trent made the dramatic statement in an interview with Ryan Grim that appeared in Grim’s essay Friday in The Washington Post. 

Trent, a co-founder of Justice Democrats, which helped propel Ocasio-Cortez and her other progressives to victory in the House, told Grim that the Democratic leadership is “driven by fear. They seem to be unable to lead.”

Grim, Washington Bureau chief of The Intercept (and formerly of HuffPost), pointed in his piece to the compromise the House made on the Senate’s border aid bill. The House supported it instead of its own version of border aid, even though the Senate bill failed to address the humanitarian crisis of immigrants detained at the border.

Ocasio-Cortez called support for the Senate bill an “abdication of power.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) tweeted that a vote for the Senate bill was a “vote to keep kids in cages and terrorize immigrant communities.” And Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) challenged: “If you see the Senate bill as an option, then you don’t believe in basic human rights.” 

Grim argued in the Post that the old-guard Democrats — led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — were buffaloed long ago by The Gipper: by Ronald Reagan’s presidential landslide in 1980 and 1984 reelection. They suffered a “traumatic political coming-of-age” in Reagan’s rise and have never been the same, he argued.

Because of that experience, their consistent fallback position is: “Now is not the time; push too fast or too far, and there’ll be a backlash,” according to Grim.

The old-era Democrats are still now “unable to embrace the new political environment in which the progressive agenda is genuinely popular,” he noted. “For people under a certain age, this slinking in the corner is deeply strange behavior.”