Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Discusses a "Progressive Caucus" Democratic Block Vote Congresspeople / Boing Boing

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former socialist Democratic heroine, will attend Congress this fall, and although she has promised not to blow up the Democratic Party when she arrives, she will not let the establishment pro-finance the roll.

She launched the idea of ​​creating a sub-group of progressive Democrats voting en bloc, who will discipline party leadership and prevent it from selling to us. While there are parallels with the far-right caucus, there is one important difference: the Freedom Caucus is committed to proving that governments do not work, so close the government serves their agenda. That would not be the case of a Progressive Democratic caucus.

The problem – if we can call it that – is that the progressives, even at the edge of the party spectrum, are much less likely to shoot the hostage than the ultra-conservatives, a point raised by several CCP members who interception talked about the idea of ​​Ocasio-Cortez. Ideologically, conservatives who largely oppose government spending, or the government in general – that is, according to Ronald Reagan, "the problem" – have fewer problems shutting down the government or rejecting a law . Republicans tend to try to get things rolling, while Democrats, in the ideal, try to build things. And very few Democrats are willing to reject a small amount of progress because it is not enough.

In 2009, for example, dozens of Democrats signed a letter saying that they would not support any version of health care reform that did not include a "robust" option. public health insurance. By drawing a line in the sand, they drew the attention of the leaders and the White House and were able to extract concessions (such as the legal capacity for a state to go from there). Before with a single payer system he wished). But the final version of the Affordable Care Act did not include a public option, and every member who signed the letter voted for it anyway. Given a binary choice between voting "no" and voting to expand Medicaid, broadening coverage broadly, and implementing other reforms to the Affordable Care Act, it would have taken a rare progressive to vote "no". fundamentally less credible threats than conservative ones.

Ocasio-Cortez floats a "sub-caucus" of progressives willing to vote together as a block [Ryan Grim/The Intercept]

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