AOC: Democrats Can Push Biden In ‘More Progressive Direction’

Progressive Democrats with dreams of bread-lines and poverty who worry that a Biden administration won’t be socialist enough – never fear, AOC is here.

According to Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), progressives will “likely” be able to swing the former Vice President in a more progressive direction should he win the election, according to Fox News.

“We’re different people, and clearly I, in the primary, one of the reasons why I was supportive of Senator Sanders was because of how progressive his stances are, but, you know, the primaries are over, and right now what is most important is to make sure that we ensure a Democratic victory in November and that we continue to push Vice President Biden on issues from marijuana to climate change to foreign policy,” AOC told Just the News.

“I think, overall, we can likely push Vice President Biden in a more progressive direction across policy issues,” she added. “I think foreign policy is an enormous area where we can improve; immigration is another one.”

That said, Ocasio-Cortez walked a tightrope – emphasizing that she wouldn’t attempt to undermine the ‘moderate’ Democratic platform.

AOC’s interview comes as Noam Chomsky pushes for Democrats to shift even further to the left.

 

Chomsky urged US leftists to vote for Biden in this November’s presidential election and to press him to pursue a progressive agenda. 

“What the left should do is what it always should do: it should recognise that real politics is constant activism, in one form or another. Every couple of years something comes along called an election, you should take off a few minutes to decide if it’s worth voting against somebody, rarely for somebody. In the course of, say, Corbyn in England, I would have voted for him but most of the time the question is ‘who do you vote against?’  –New Statesman

“There are some areas where we just fundamentally disagree, but that’s OK,” said AOC. “I think it’s important to acknowledge that we can have, in some cases, very large disagreements — it doesn’t mean that we’re trying to undermine the party or undermine each other. It means that we’re trying to do what’s best for people in the country.”

On the topic of healthcare reform, the New York socialist said Biden is “pretty stubborn” – insisting he can revive Obamacare with a federally run public option, while AOC’s progressive wing is pushing for Medicare-for-All.

“One concern I’d say that I have with a public option is that it very easily allows insurance companies to just kind of bump off their more expensive patients onto a public option, thus making an increase in the costs on a public option and kind of them keeping healthier people that require less insurance coverage for themselves,” she said.

“The whole purpose of insurance is to even out those costs, which is why I believe single-payer is a better policy, so in terms of that we do disagree,” AOC added. “But either way, I do think that a public option is likely a better scenario than we have right now.”

When it comes to marijuana, AOC said she would push for “full legalization.”

“But, you know, we will hash those out,” she said. “Our main priority is to make sure that the vice president is successful and victorious in November so that we can have those kinds of conversations in the first place from a more effective stance with him in the White House.”