It is time to take on the centrists in the Democratic Party

By SJ Otto

Once again I see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s name in the news. And it is for a good reason. Ocasio-Cortez is going to help progressive Democrats to defeat the stodgy old centrist Democrats. Most of these centrists follow a strategy that is familiar to most of us — They raise a lot of money, they stick to the political middle and they don’t discuss any issues that may offend any of their constituents. That strategy has not worked well. The Democrats lost every branch of government until they just recently regained the US House. Except for Bernie Sanders, it has been years since a socialist or a really progressive Democrat has won anything.

We have not had a left leaning president since London B Johnson. So Ocasio-Cortez is a welcome change. It only makes sense to try and win more progressive Democrats to office. We gain little from electing conservative Democrats. Almost every politician running for office, Democrat OR Republican, talks of saving or rebuilding the middle class. Almost no one is running on a platform to save the working poor. That would be those hard working people who make minimum wage or just a little bit more than that.

There has to be a lot of people in this country who work hard but are below the middle class. And yet there is NO REPRESENTATION for these people in Congress. That needs to change. We need to try and take the Democratic Party and change it from a corporate centrist party to a working and poor people’s party.

The argument that the country is too conservative doesn’t cut it anymore. The conservatives have strangled this country and the traditional Democrats have done nothing but hide. Their motto seems to be “I’m for that also, just not as much.” They’ve acted as if they are ashamed of themselves for not being conservative.

It’s time to be bold. It’s time to assert ourselves. We have things to say and we need to save them. According to Business Insider:

“On a Facebook Live conference call held Saturday by the progressive group Justice Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez asked hundreds of viewers to consider launching their own campaigns, no matter who they'd be facing. "This is about bringing justice to our system," said Ocasio-Cortez. "All Americans know that money in politics is a huge problem but unfortunately, the way that we fix it is demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves," she continued. For Ocasio-Cortez, the issue seemed to be beyond politics, saying "that's really what we need to do to save this country."

She is right. We need to take control of the Democratic Party or at least make a genuine effort, even if it takes us a while. We working poor have a right to be represented in Congress.

Pix from CNN.com.