When discussing the diversity of the Democratic party I am not talking about racial diversity, but rather ideological diversity. In an interview with the Intelligencer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), explains how “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party.” In her statement Cortez highlights the differences in viewpoints among moderate Democrats such as Joe Biden and far-left Democrats such as herself and Bernie Sanders. AOC believes she is unable to criticize the democratic party even though her beliefs differ from the Democratic establishment. She also believes that the title of Democrat has now served as an umbrella term for progressive, when in her opinion, not every Democrat fits the qualifications to label themselves a progressive.
In an opinion piece on CNN, Froma Harrop makes the claim that AOC should run as Democratic Socialist in her run in 2020 if she is so displeased with the Democratic caucus. Harrop believes that with all her celebrity status and social media attention, she would be able to make this transition. Harrop makes the point that the leftist views of AOC do not account for the majority of the Democratic Caucus. When the Democrats claimed power in the House during the 2018 election, it was due to the surge of moderate Democrats who won swing districts, not on safe liberal districts such as that of Cortez.
However, earlier in the year, in a press conference after meeting with AOC regarding impeachment proceedings, House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, claimed that the Democratic Party is like a family, and like a family, people have their differences but are still a united family. Nevertheless, when AOC was asked about a Biden presidency she responded with a groaning “Oh God.”
In Federalist 10, Madison advocated for a two party system to protect against factions. Do you believe that by staying in the Democratic caucus AOC is harming or benefiting her faction? Do you believe that AOC would be successful if she left the Democratic Party?
3 comments:
Third parties have trouble succeeding in America, at least within the current "winner takes all" system. Even with her celebrity, the population of people that would vote for AOC are likely concentrated in the more liberal states, which all have a set number of electoral votes, so it would be very difficult for her to win against a Republican candidate anyway if she could not appeal to swing states if she left the Democratic party. However, her argument does support a reform of the electoral system that would get rid of the two-party gridlock. Then again, people do gravitate towards the two-party system, which is usually "The ones in power" and "the ones who don't like the ones in power." So, even if she did branch out, she'd probably have to work with and vote with the Democratic Party anyway. We don't have a parliamentary system, so separating by ideology is much more difficult. For the more left parties to succeed, there likely has to be a larger cultural change, not just among the politicians but the whole countries.
I think Natalie did a great job responding to the questions Anna posed, so I'll address the question in the post's title instead: "Is the Democratic Party too diverse?" In my opinion, no, nor is a wide range of ideology within a party unique to this era. Before the Civil War, free soilers and abolitionists, who held two very different views on slavery, coexisted in the same party. Another example is the New Deal Coalition, which included fervent progressives on one end, and conservative "Blue Dog Democrats" on the other end. Although the range of ideology caused intra-party conflicts, during this time, the broad diversity of both parties allowed for overlap and more compromise/consensus-based decisions in the government. I think the ability of our two-party system to allow for a range of beliefs within each party is what will eventually help lessen polarization.
I think that the decision to stay within the Democratic Party is honestly a smart one because, as Natalie stated, third parties in our democracy don't succeed much. I personally love Ocasio Cortez and think she's incredibly intelligent, and would like to see her succeed in government. Unfortunately, to do this, she must present herself in a setting with a larger audience so that she can make these changes. But she's not pretending to be a more moderate Democrat just to gain popularity; she's being honest about her position and how she feels about the Democratic Party as a whole, which I think is dope.
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