Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday singled out AIPAC as a ‘special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda,’ starting a new debate about the pro-Israel organization’s involvement in the party
The debate has been simmering since AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC spent unprecedented sums to unseat two progressive Democrats in their respective primaries over the summer – largely, but not exclusively, bankrolled by donations from Republican megadonors in an election year that was far and away the most expensive in history.
As internal Democratic debate over the party’s ills and its future reached fever pitch in recent days, AIPAC was once again catapulted to the center of the matter.
“Weird to have a whole discourse about ‘special interest groups’ that completely leaves out corporate and industry lobbies – by far the most influential ‘groups’ in the Democratic Party,” Jeremy Slevin, a senior adviser to AIPAC foe Sen. Bernie Sanders, wrote on Sunday.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the most nationally prominent AIPAC critic despite, ironically, being attacked from the left as an apologist for the group earlier this summer, singled out the pro-Israel organization while echoing Slevin’s point. “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,” she tweeted in response.
Let me start by saying I do get the sarcasm. I’m one of the people who likes to solidify behind the leftmost feasible candidate which is always the Dems.
Now it’s exactly the time to go full bore third party and try to get ranked choice voting on ballots. Make the joke all you want about it being too late, I stand behind my decision and believe that anything after primary season, no matter what fuckery occurred during the primaries, is too late. No one thinks it’s too late today except people who are paid to think that.