This article has been updated to include a post from Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) in response to AOC's posts going after AIPAC.
After Democrats faced stunning election losses, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) talked to voters in her district as to why they reelected her but also voted for President-elect Donald Trump. Any glimmer of hope about AOC maybe having learned something doesn't look to have much of an effect, though, as she took to her X account on Sunday night to blame Jews for election losses, specifically the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The congresswoman brought up AIPAC in a quoted repost of Jeremy Slevin. According to his bio on X, he currently works for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and previously worked for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), both of who have been quite vocal in their anti-Israel views, and with the latter being a member of the far-left Squad like AOC.
The congresswoman singlehandedly focused on AIPAC with concerns over "special interest groups" that Slevin had raised. As AOC claimed, they're "pushing a wildly unpopular agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats," which is why people "should be discussing AIPAC."
If people want to talk about members of Congress being overly influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats then they should be discussing AIPAC https://t.co/2o22CMMtqw
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 17, 2024
AOC was called out that same night by StopAntisemitism and AIPAC themselves, also on Sunday night.
AOC is blaming the Jews for the Democrats losing the House, Senate, and White House.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) November 18, 2024
Color us shocked. pic.twitter.com/60uBhZXjMS
Fact check on what Democratic voters find popular vs unpopular, @AOC. https://t.co/hwCTqBS0SS pic.twitter.com/CQjZIp4Kil
— AIPAC 🇺🇸🇮🇱🎗️ (@AIPAC) November 17, 2024
That didn't stop the congresswoman, as she doubled down with more reposts on Sunday and Monday.
This includes a repost of The Intercept, an anti-Israel and anti-AIPAC publication, and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), another anti-Israel lawmaker. Pocan, as we covered at the time in June, expressed bizarre giddiness at the idea of the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even declaring himself "available" to carry it out.
Here's how AIPAC shapes Washington: https://t.co/YsNwOBmc7o https://t.co/yWcbqZoncs
— The Intercept (@theintercept) November 18, 2024
In how many ads did you advocate for your position on Israel, @AIPAC? Any?
— Mark Pocan (@MarkPocan) November 18, 2024
Oh yeah, that’s right, you’re a right-wing Trojan horse group. Busted.
If you were so confident of your positions, you would advertise them. Not just use GOP money to try to buy Dem primaries.@AOC https://t.co/H2Vy0ZmpBB
This is hardly the only time that AOC has gone after AIPAC. During primary races affecting her fellow Squad members, AOC went on plenty of anti-AIPAC screeds, particularly when it comes to expressing outrage that a pro-Israel PAC would dare to spend money in races where there is a clear choice between a pro-Israel candidate and an anti-Israel candidate. To her and other anti-AIPAC voices, holding primary elections is supposedly a "core threat to democracy," despite how AOC and other Squad members came into office by defeating Democratic incumbents.
Those races in question, as AIPAC referenced, involved the loss of Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) to Rep.-elect George Latimer in the June primary for New York's 16th Congressional District, and Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) to Rep.-elect Wesley Bell in the August primary for Missouri's 1st Congressional District. Both Bowman and Bush went after AIPAC in their races.
Beyond how problematic it is on its own that AOC would go after a pro-Israel PAC, it also throws Democrats in serious disarray in a way that does not help the party after they faced such losses earlier this month.
On Monday, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who primaried President Joe Biden for the 2024 cycle, also spoke out against the congresswoman, highlighting this very point.
If people want to talk about members of Congress being overly influenced by anti-pragmatic and anti-semitic interests pushing a wildly unpopular agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats… https://t.co/dGK1d7V6RA
— Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) November 18, 2024
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