Republicans have done an embarrassingly poor job at making Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez look bad.

Failing to slander her agenda, they've turned to personal attacks.

Alex Jones just took this to its logical idiotic conclusion.

Now the Democrats, after seeing the Republicans completely fail in their smears, have taken up the cause of shutting her up.

Frustrated Democratic lawmakers are offering Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez some advice: Cool it.

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Some legislators are voicing concerns that Ocasio-Cortez appears set on using her newfound star power to attack Democrats from the left flank, threatening to divide the party — and undermine its chances at retaking the House — in a midterm election year when leaders are scrambling to form a united front against President Trump and Republicans. The members are not mincing words, warning that Ocasio-Cortez is making enemies of soon-to-be colleagues even before she arrives on Capitol Hill, as she’s expected to do after November’s midterms. “She’s carrying on and she ain’t gonna make friends that way,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.). “Joe conceded, wished her well, said he would support her … so she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.” Asked if Ocasio-Cortez is, indeed, making enemies of fellow Democrats, Pascrell didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” he said. “No doubt about it.”

I get the importance of interpersonal relationships, but AOC isn't saying that their moma is fat.

She's criticizing their policies, and if they can't handle that then they don't understand what politics is.

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) offered a similar message, saying success in the 435-member House comes slowly — and hinges largely on the ability of lawmakers to forge constructive relationships with other members. Alienating more senior lawmakers within your own party, he warned, will only stifle the ability of Ocasio-Cortez to get anything done — even despite her newfound celebrity. “Meteors fizz out,” Hastings said. “What she will learn in this institution is that it’s glacial to begin with, and therefore no matter how far you rise, that’s just how far you will ultimately get your comeuppance.” He added: “You come up here and you’re going to be buddy-buddy with all the folks or you’re going to make them do certain things? Ain’t happening, OK?”

I'm sure she's heartbroken to hear that you won't endorse Medicare For All because AOC hurt your feelings.

Has anyone else noticed just how delicate and fragile Democratic politicians are?

GQ calls them Tea Cup Democrats.



Democrats have responded by absorbing and capitulating to Republicans’ twisted version of asymmetrical reality—one that demanded their own civility in the face of ever-mounting viciousness—backing themselves into an ever-smaller corner until those like Schumer have lowered themselves into a cowering crouch, whispering unity and civility to anyone who will listen. Old Democrats have been bringing a tea cup to a bar brawl because that bar was once a nice, civilized cafe, a real community center, 30 years ago—and they're scolding other Democrats for not holding their pinky fingers up when a bar stool flies across the joint.

While I'm sure that corruption has much more to do with the current state of the Democratic Party, I have to agree that cowardice plays a part as well. Democrats are both spineless at fighting Republicans, while wasting no time when it comes to scolding and denigrating their progressive base.

The Democratic leadership has taken the position that the problem is not their leadership, but their base. This despite the fact that under their civil, centrist, and careful stewardship, the Democratic party bled out 1,000 seats nationally over the past 10 years—in part because the party long ago stopped offering more bold solutions needed for their working class base in a country where 40 percent of Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency and student loan debt just hit $1.5 trillion.

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Democrats forget that they can bend public opinion towards moral clarity and big ideas, with projects like the New Deal, gay marriage, and voting rights. Today, a phalanx of careful Democrats lose their shit anytime a single candidate dares to offer solutions that meet the severity of the challenges facing America today—a reflex that has been losing elections all over the country.

Nancy Pelosi and former Governor Michael Dukakis has also assured us that AOC's victory is not the playbook for the Democrats as long as they can prevent it.

Politics is all about language, and the GOP has dominated the language of the debate since the 80's.



Back in the Reagan years, the word “liberal” was made into a dirty word by Republicans. Most Democrats (the late Senator Ted Kennedy and a few other principled souls excluded) shed the term faster than you could say “sellout.” Worse, in their supposed endeavor to be more attractive to the presumed American “mainstream,” the Democrats barely noticed that they effectively allowed Republicans to set the term of political reference.

While the GOP set out to define Democrats with words such as: traitor, decay, sick, greed, corruption, radical, permissive, bizarre, the Democrats ran so far away from liberal that they left liberal policies behind.

Then they kept running. They rebranded "liberal" to "progressive", and then center-right politicians like Clinton and Obama claimed that they were "progressive", which was/is a joke.

Now we have Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez calling themselves "socialists".

That too is a joke. They are nothing more than New Deal Democrats, so they are watering down the word in the same way that Hillary watered down "progressive" when she claimed to be one.

However, there are several good things to come out of this joke.

For one, we finally have some Democrats that aren't running away from a label. Even when their own party is stabbing them in the back. This doesn't allow Republicans to make them look weak.

Secondly, remember when Obama was "socialist"? Remember when Bill Clinton was "socialist"? How about when Carter was "socialist"?

Republicans have been using the word so carelessly, almost every Dem is a "socialist", that it has lost all meaning. The smear has long since left our world and our reality.

So when they accuse Sanders and AOC of being "socialists", it makes regular Americans think of Clinton and Obama, which simply won't scare anyone.

Unable to make Sanders and AOC look weak, and unable to scare anyone who isn't already on the right-wing with a label that they use against moderate conservatives, Republicans are forced to explain why this time the label of "socialism" is truly scary (as opposed to every other time they've used it).

But to do that they have to discuss actual issues, and that's where they have really screwed up.



Attacked on Fox for her brand of politics, she argues that “The fact that paying people enough to live is considered a ‘radical, far-left’ position says more about the current state of our nation’s politics than it does about mine.”

Republicans can't win this battle. However, establishment Democrats are more than capable of smothering their base and losing this war. They obviously would prefer to lose.