Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has issued a dire warning to her party about the chaos that could ensue if they succeed in pushing President Joe Biden off the ticket. And she criticized Democrats whoāve given off-the-record quotes that suggest the party has resigned itself to a second Trump term.
InĀ an Instagram Live video on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez warned liberals that a brokered convention could lead to chaos, in part because she says some of the Democratic āelitesā who want Biden outĀ alsoĀ donāt want Vice PresidentĀ Kamala HarrisĀ as the nominee in his place.
āIf you think that is going to be an easy transition, Iām here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP be the nominee,ā she said.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed none of the people sheās spoken with who are calling onĀ Biden to drop outĀ ā including lawmakers and legal experts ā have articulated a plan to swap out the nominee without minimizing the serious legal and procedural challenges that are likely to ensue.
Ocasio-Cortez also highlighted the racial, ethnic and class divisions that appear to have formed between the majority of thoseĀ pining to blow up the ticketĀ ā led mostly by white Democrats and media pundits ā and those elected officials who feel they and their constituents have too much at stake to upend the process at this point and so are willing to do the work to re-elect Biden-Harris. She alluded to this cultural divide in her video when she spoke out against anonymous sources expressing a sense of fatalism on behalf of Democrats about what might happen if Biden remains on the ticket:
What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose. For me, to a certain extent, I donāt care what name is on there. We are not losing. I donāt know about you, but my community does not have the option to lose. My community does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. Theyāre the first ones put in Rikers. Theyāre the first ones whose families are killed by war.
āCould lead to chaosā. Maāam, that ship has sailed. When even high ranking party members openly doubt the presidentās ability to get elected, much less actually lead, youāve clearly lost control of the situation.
Will replacing Biden at this stage be easy? Of course not. But he shouldnāt have been in the Oval Office in the first place. Running a candidate this frail once was a gambleā¦ doing it twice is suicidal.
Democrat leadership only has itself to blame for this predicament.
When I voted in the primary, there was one name on the ballot: Joe Biden. Anybody who thinks that was a free and fair election is on crack.
There were states with multiple people on the ticket and Biden won them hands down.
Why did some states have multiple people and some only one?
Because there were no serious candidates who filed because the message from party leadership was clear: the incumbent is running, itās his.
Every state has their own way of doing primaries, is the short answer. Probably people were eligible to run in some states but not in others for varies reasons.
Hopefully someone else chimes in with a better answer than I could give.