[Peace-discuss] NYT: AOC Has Never Spoken to Joe Biden. Here’s What She Would Say.

[Robert Naiman]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/politics/aoc-progressives-joe-biden.html

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Never Spoken to Joe Biden. Here’s What She
Would Say.
In an interview, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she intended to support the
presumptive Democratic nominee, but the “process of coming together should
be uncomfortable for everyone involved.”

By Astead W. Herndon

Published April 13, 2020
Updated April 17, 2020

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party fell flat in this year’s
presidential primary, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knows it.

Even before Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race last week,
making former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. the party’s presumptive
nominee, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was ruminating on the lessons the left must
learn to be more successful moving forward.

But in the short term, Democrats are desperate to defeat President Trump in
November, and Mr. Biden is making some policy overtures to unite the party.
The hope is to win over supporters of Mr. Sanders as well as top surrogates
like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York congresswoman who is popular among young
progressives — a group Mr. Biden is struggling to win.

In a recent phone interview, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made clear that she intended
to support the Democratic nominee, but said his current overtures to
progressives must go further. She made a distinction between supporting Mr.
Biden in November and offering a full-throated endorsement of his campaign.
Where she lands, she said, is up to him.

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

*Q. I guess my first question is simple: Has the Biden campaign reached out
to you?*

A. No.

*OK. Well, what type of outreach are you looking for? Not just to you but
to progressives broadly.*

There’s this talk about unity as this kind of vague, kumbaya, kind of term.
Unity and unifying isn’t a feeling, it’s a process. And what I hope does
not happen in this process is that everyone just tries to shoo it along and
brush real policies — that mean the difference of life and death or
affording your insulin and not affording your insulin — just brush that
under the rug as an aesthetic difference of style.

There’s also this idea that if we all just support the nominee that voters
will come along as well. I’ve flagged, very early, two patterns that I saw
[among Biden’s campaign], which is underperformance among Latinos and young
people, both of which are very important demographics in November. And so,
I don’t think this conversation about changes that need to be made is one
about throwing the progressive wing of the party a couple of bones — I
think this is about how we can win.

The whole process of coming together should be uncomfortable for everyone
involved — that’s how you know it’s working. And if Biden is only doing
things he’s comfortable with, then it’s not enough.

*Can you give me examples of areas that you want to see him get
“uncomfortable?”*

They floated this olive branch to the progressive left of lowering the
Medicare age to 60. And it’s almost insulting. I think Hillary was looking
at policies that lowered it to 50. So we’re talking about a “progressive
concession” that is 10 years worse than what the nominee had in 2016.

Progressives aren’t a monolith like every voting block isn’t a monolith.
But I also know, from a Latino perspective, I think we need a real plan to
be better than what happened during his service with the Obama
administration.

*In terms of deportations?*

In terms of deportations, in terms of apprehensions, I mean, even in terms
of rhetoric. It was just a couple months ago that he told immigrant
activists to vote for someone else. I want to see him get uncomfortable
there. Putting “Dreamers” on a path to citizenship is great, but that’s a
policy concession from 10 years ago.

People need to feel hope in a Democratic administration. And that’s what
this is about.

If we’re not talking about paths to citizenship for undocumented people,
and if we’re just talking about policy changes of 5 or 10 percent —
especially when you look at something like climate change — it’s not about
moving to the left. It’s about who is able to find hope in your
administration. And creating plans that give people hope and possibility.

*But Biden has gotten to this point by rejecting some of these things.
What’s your realistic level of confidence he will get uncomfortable on
these issues? He’s been in this game a long time.*

I think the ideological argument is a false one, and I think that’s backed
up by exit polling. While Biden is the nominee, we also know that he didn’t
win because of policy — I don’t think he won because of his agenda, he won
because of different factors. In state after state after state, Democratic
voters support a progressive agenda.

I want to respect his win, he won because of his coalition building, he won
because of his service, he won for a lot of different reasons — but I don’t
think he won because Americans don’t want “Medicare for all.” And in this
moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if what we’re seeing with coronavirus
didn’t further change people’s views in further support of a progressive
agenda.

*How should the relationship that progressives had in 2016 with Hillary
Clinton inform the way you all go about it in 2020 with Biden? What are the
lessons from how that turned out that are worth changing, or replicating,
this time around?*

As much as a dumpster fire as Twitter can be sometimes, I actually think
the process was much less painful and nasty and fraught than it was in
2016. In 2016, things like superdelegates delegitimized the process so much
that it felt a lot more scorched-earth, and I’m not even talking about
between the two candidates, but just how voters felt about the party.

I think people understand that there are limits to what Biden will do and
that’s understandable — he didn’t run as a progressive candidate. But, at
the bare minimum, we should aspire to be better than what we have been
before. And I just don’t know if this message of “We’re going to go back to
the way things were” is going to work for the people for who the way things
were was really bad.

*Is an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsement of Joe Biden a sure thing?*

I’ve always said that I will support the Democratic nominee. But unity is a
process, and figuring out what that looks like is part of this whole
conversation that I think Bernie and Warren and other folks are a part of
as well.

*Yes. But I guess I’m asking about you. Is there something you’re looking
for? Is there a difference between voting for him or campaigning for him?
What are the range of possibilities of your relationship with the
Democratic nominee in the next months?*

Beating Donald Trump is a matter of life or death for our communities. I
think it’s a difference between making an argument for harm reduction, and
making the argument for, there’s actually going to be progress made for us.

What I want to do is to be able to go out and say, “This is the plan for
us.” But it’s hard to do that if there’s no plan for us.

*And who’s us?*

Any number of communities, whether it’s the Bronx, whether it’s Latinos, or
whether it’s people of color, whether it’s women, whether it’s young
people, whether it’s people with student debt, whether it’s working-class
people, or people with no health care.

And you know, I’m not trying to be divisive. But when you talk about
lessons from 2016, one of the most divisive things that we can do is just
smother and silence legitimate points of critique — especially from people
whose lives are most at risk in this administration. Because, for some
people, this argument of returning to normalcy sounds like an argument of
respectability politics and civility. And for other people, it sounds like,
will my child be put in a cage?

Aesthetics plays a big role in politics, a huge one. But I just want to
improve people’s lives. And while we’ll improve people’s lives with Donald
Trump not in the White House, we need to do better than what we’ve done
before.

I’m a progressive [laughter]. That’s literally what it means.

*What if Biden doesn’t do it? What if he doesn’t get uncomfortable? And you
know, only gives kind of aesthetic, in-name-only concessions to the left?
What do you do?*

I will be supporting the Democratic nominee in November. I would just hope
that the nominee supports our communities too.

*Is a Biden-A.O.C. unity rally ever in the cards?*

It could be. I have not talked to the vice president.

*Ever?*

Never. Not that I know of, no.

But I know the goal ultimately is to win. And I’m not trying to needle as a
way of making a point or to score points. I want to win. And I want to make
sure that we win broadly.

*Do you worry about causing damage to the vice president in a way that
helps Donald Trump? How do you square unity with applying pressure from the
left?*

It’s a tightrope. I do not feel a choice in adhering to my principles and
my integrity, and being accountable to the movement that brought me here.
But also, I don’t want another term of Trump.

I’m not going to lie to people and say Puerto Rico’s debt is going to be
forgiven or there’s going to be some audit of the debt if that’s not the
plan. But at the same time, I don’t want this president throwing paper
towels at my family again.

I just want to tell the truth and I want to feel good about the truth.
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