 In an interview with the New York Times, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave us some inside-inside into the intra-party warfare that we are currently seeing within the Democratic Party and what she says, even though it's not super surprising, it's still a little bit shocking because not only has the Democratic Party, collectively speaking, not taken her up on her offer of advice in order to make the party more popular and appealing to young people, but they have made her so miserable, been so hostile towards her, that she actually contemplated quitting politics. So she explains, The last two years have been pretty hostile, externally we've been winning, externally there's been a lot of support, but internally it's been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive. Is the party ready to like sit down and work together and figure out how we're going to use assets from everyone at the party, or are they going to just kind of double down on this smothering approach? And that's going to inform what I do. Now the interviewer asks, is there a universe in which they're hostile enough that we're talking about a Senate run in a couple of years? And she responded saying, I genuinely don't know. I don't even know if I want to be in politics. You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn't even know if I was going to run for re-election this year. The interviewer responds saying, really, why? And she says, it's the incoming. It's the stress. It's the violence. It's the lack of support from your own party. It's your own party thinking you're the enemy. When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press, and then turn around and say, you're bad because you actually append your name to your opinion, I chose to run for a re-election because I felt like I had to prove that this is real, that this moment was real, that I wasn't a fluke, that people really want guaranteed health care and that people really want the Democratic Party to fight for them. But I'm serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere, they're probably the same. Wow. This is horribly sad. I mean, when you see this bright, young, energetic voice enter the Democratic Party, you would expect them to want to embrace her, at least in theory if they wanted to win, but all that she has been met with is hostility. Not only that, the help that she offers to Democrats, they reject it. Any party that wants to win would not do that. They'd at least try to pretend to be somewhat like her because she's popular. Why? Not because there's this cult of personality surrounding her, but because she supports progressive policies. So the fact that the Democratic Party is so hostile towards the left and progressivism that one of their rising stars considered quitting and it still may be considering quitting, that shows you how poor shape the party's in. This is really bad. People like AOC should be welcomed into the party with open arms, but they're shitting on her and talking trash about her anonymously. So I've covered the stories about how Democrats anonymously say that, oh, she's just, she's hurting all of us and she's terrible and they won't go on the record. But because she actually is blunt and she doesn't hide behind these anonymous things that she says that everyone else does, she gets attacked. It's just, it's sad. Now, in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, he followed up and asked her about this and she gave us a little bit more insight. You told The New York Times that you almost didn't even run for re-election, in part because of treatment from your own party. You said, quote, it's the incoming, it's the stress, it's the violence, it's the lack of support from your own party. It's your own party thinking you're the enemy, unquote. Do you really think other Democrats see you as the enemy? Do you think Joe Biden sees you that way? I don't believe Joe Biden. I don't believe President Biden sees me that way. And I believe that that's actually one of the reasons why he won election. You know, there's a market difference between 2020 and 2016 and how the Democratic Party was able to unify to Joe Biden's credit before the election and get everyone on the same page to make sure that we vote Donald Trump out of office. That being said, you know, there are, at least in the House caucus, very deep divisions within the party. And I believe that we need to really come together and not allow Republican narratives to tear us apart. You know, as you mentioned, we have a slimmer Democratic majority. It's going to be more important than ever for us to work together and not fight each other. And so when we kind of come out swinging, not 48 hours after Tuesday, when we don't even have solid data yet pointing fingers and telling each other what to do, it deepens the division in the party and it's irresponsible. It's irresponsible to pour gasoline on these already very delicate tensions in the party. So we can help. It's not saying that every member has to campaign as a progressive in a traditional progressive way, but it's to say that we have assets to offer the party, that the party has not yet, you know, fully leaned into or exploited. And I believe that we can take some of these seats. You know, I think Katie Porter is an amazing example. Michael Levin, there are swing seats. Every single swing seat member that co-sponsored Medicare for All won their reelection. Right. And so the conversation is a little bit deeper than that, than just saying, you know, anything progressive is toxic and a losing message. So I mean, basically what she is expressing is frustration. She's trying to help the party make the party more popular and at every step of the way, they spin in her eye. And this is the frustration that I feel as well. But it's why we need to keep fighting because when the establishment breaks you down so much that you actually seriously contemplate getting out of politics, that's that's them winning. That's a victory for them. So it sucks because, you know, unlike AOC, I don't have to put my name out there. My neck on the line. She's the one who's actually in Congress fighting. So for her, it's difficult. She gets death threats all the time. She gets demonized by Fox News. She puts up with more than any of us have to deal with. So it's exhausting. And this is what the Democratic Party wants. Now, she did say things that I disagree with. She says, I believe that we need to come together and not allow Republican narratives to tear us apart. But that is where I disagree, because, you know, at face value, it might seem like ostensibly Democrats who blame the left for their losses are doing so because of the Republican Party's attacks. But this has nothing to do with what the Republicans will say. The Republican Party is going to attack Democrats and call them socialists, regardless if they are, you know, neoliberals, it doesn't matter. Republicans are going to Republican because that's what they do. What matters is how you fight for the people. But the reason why we need to not come together and we need to fight them is because they're not actually serious. Like individuals like Abigail Spanberger and Jim Clyburn, these aren't good faith actors who just disagree with you on the strategy. This isn't a good faith debate that we're having. This is one side who has been corrupted by large multinational corporations and the contributions that they've taken. And another side who actually wants to save the planet and the country, stop people from dying who don't have health care. So to even suggest that, you know, both sides are equal is wrong. This isn't about coming together. This is about us winning out over a corrupt, corporatist party who doesn't actually want change. And she does say that party unity is important. And that is one thing that I unequivocally disagree with. We don't need to be unified. In fact, I think that we need to fight. We have to fight because you can't unify with the party who doesn't stand for anything you stand for. And not only that, everything that they stand for is antithetical to what the left wants. We want single payer Medicare for all. They want a free market solution to that. We want a Green New Deal. Well, any Democrat who claims they support the Green New Deal supports some watered down version of it when that's not going to suffice when we are facing climate catastrophe. So we can't just unify and unite. We have to have these battles. That's really important. Because otherwise, if we don't, they're going to steamroll us and we're starting to gain some traction. But it's tough and it's tiring. And, you know, they try to make sure that you feel so discouraged and demoralized that you check out of the process. I mean, I think we all felt this when the entire Democratic Party establishment collectively came together to crush Bernie's campaign back in March. But you just keep fighting. Never let them get you down. Because the minute they sense that, you know, you're ready to check out and quit, that's when they realize that their strategy is working. But we have to show them we're not backing down no matter what. We are going to be a thorn on their side and we're going to take over because they're not fighting for us. But I mean, look, just the mere fact that AOC was considering quitting because of the Democratic Party, that is so sad. Again, they should be embracing voices like her, but they're trying to drive them out of the party. And that's just, it's disgusting. You know, it shows you how much work we have to do.