When 28-year-old, first-time, Latina candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulled off a stunning primary upset against 10-term Democrat Joe Crowley in New York, it was cause for celebration. At least that\u2019s how I saw it. But, apparently, I had a different reaction than that of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill.<\/p>\n

Pelosi downgraded Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s surprise victory calling it a random outlier and saying,<\/a> “It should not be viewed as something that stands for everything.” And McCaskill, asked what she had in common with Ocasio-Cortez, said, \u201cNot much.\u201d<\/p>\n

I view these dismissals of Ocasio-Cortez as both offensive and counter-productive. I can\u2019t understand why leaders of the Democratic party aren\u2019t celebrating the success of a candidate who is doing precisely what the Democratic party should be encouraging: coming off the sidelines, getting engaged in politics, putting herself on the line for progressive ideas\u2014and representing the exact demographic that the party needs to move forward and to regain its mojo.<\/p>\n

Well, actually, I think I do understand why Pelosi and McCaskill are distancing themselves from Ocasio-Cortez, but the reasons aren\u2019t \u00a0pretty. It\u2019s all about the internal politics of the Democratic establishment. Ocasio-Cortez knocked off a big name, a party insider who was on the short list to replace Pelosi as House Minority Leader [or possibly majority leader, if the blue wave actually hits in November]. The party elite had a succession plan\u2014it was Crowley\u2019s \u201cturn\u201d\u2014and now Ocasio-Cortez has messed up the pre-determined order of things. That\u2019s a no-no.<\/p>\n

I’m afraid, too, that Ocasio-Cortez also carries with her\u2014in the narrow view of the Democratic party apparatus\u2014the \u201ctaint\u201d of being an organizer in Bernie Sanders\u2019 bid for the Democratic nomination in 2016. His candidacy was viewed by the party power elite as an insurgency, an assault on democratic centrist orthodoxy, and a threat to the prescribed order of things, in which the presidential nomination rightfully belonged to Hillary Clinton. They\u2019re still mad about that, apparently, even though Sanders\u2019 ideas remain popular–as demonstrated by Ocasio-Cortez, who describes herself as a Democratic Socialist, like Sanders. So, while America retreats into the 19^{th<\/sup> Century on social and economic issues under Donald Trump, the Democratic party seems to be re-litigating its 2016 internal battle between Bernie-ites and Clinton-ites\u2014and taking it out on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.<\/p>\n}

As the party of Trump increasingly moves to the right, espousing radical, retrograde ideas that were once too extreme to talk about in public, it\u2019s clear to me that the Democratic party must offer a choice as the party of the progressive ideas that have made life in America better for a wide range of people. They should be standing up for the New Deal ideas that Republicans, in their current orgy or power, are assiduously tearing down, day by day, one by one.<\/p>\n