Saikat Chakrabarti, chief of staff to freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), has a controversial take on today's moderates in the Democratic Party. In a now-deleted tweet, Chakrabarti compared centrist Democrats to old, racist, southern Democrats.
Whoa. @AOC’s chief just deleted this. pic.twitter.com/xRJphPAkwb
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) June 27, 2019
Strangely, despite making the message disappear, Chakrabarti later doubled down on it.
This is in reference to my comparing Blue Dogs and New Democrats to 1940s Southern Democrats. Southern Democrats enabled a racist system too. I have no idea how personally racist they all were. And we're seeing the same dynamic play out now.
— Saikat Chakrabarti (@saikatc) June 27, 2019
We shouldn't be surprised by this, because we already know AOC has no tolerance for anyone who isn't as progressive as she is. When former Maryland representative and presidential candidate John Delaney told the California Democratic Party's convention this month that Medicare for All was not morally acceptable or economically feasible, Ocasio-Cortez told him to "sashay away."
She's also distanced herself from other Democrats by demonizing big corporations like Amazon. When the company tried to set up shop in New York City for its second headquarters, AOC led the effort against it and lost a fan in Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo accused her of being part of a group who put their "narrow political interests" over what's best for New Yorkers. The city would have benefitted from thousands of new jobs, but Ocasio-Cortez said it doesn't matter because those jobs would have been "subsidized."
When it comes to climate change, she's warned us that we will be doomed in 12 years. That's why she camped out in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office and demanded the leader endorse her Green New Deal.
She ranted about Pelosi's decision making again on Twitter Thursday after the House accepted a Republican-led immigration bill without considering amendments that would address the use of detention centers on our southern border. It was that cave that appeared to spur Chakrabarti's above message for the centrists in their party.
