WASHINGTON — NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez clapped back at fellow Democratic lawmaker Rep. Joe Manchin of West Virginia after he said he did not support defunding the police — tweeting an image of her glowering at him at the State of the Union.
The Bronx-born socialist expressed her displeasure on Thursday at an earlier tweet from Manchin, a centrist, who attacked the party’s noisy left flank as hand-wringing continues over the party’s poor 2020 showing.
“Defund the police? Defund, my butt. I’m a proud West Virginia Democrat. We are the party of working men and women. We want to protect Americans’ jobs & healthcare. We do not have some crazy socialist agenda, and we do not believe in defunding the police,” he wrote.
Ocasio-Cortez’s (D. Bronx) response to her colleague’s tweet notched more than 200,000 likes by Thursday afternoon and prompted progressive group the Sunrise Movement to start a petition to “Defund Joe Manchin’s butt.”
The Democratic Party is in the throes of a full-blown civil war following last week’s presidential race which Joe Biden won but saw Democrats’ majority in the House eroded and their dreams of recapturing the Senate dashed.
The disappointing results have sparked a furious round of finger-pointing as centrist Democrats lash out at their progressive colleagues, and vice versa.
In a caucus call last week, Rep. Abigail Spanberger [D-Va.], who narrowly won reelection, implored her colleagues to “not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again.”
“We lost good members because of that,” she said.
Democratic stalwart and Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn [D-S.C.] has also warned about the dangers of “sloganeering” and said calls to “defund the police” had hurt Democratic candidates.
Meanwhile, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries reportedly took a veiled shot at his progressive colleagues on another call, quipping: “Do we want to win, do we want to govern, or do we want to be internet celebrities?”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D. Calif] has avoided entering the fray as rumors swirl that some members of the Democratic caucus want to oust the 80-year-old over their abysmal 2020 showing.
But the party’s progressive wing, led by Ocasio-Cortez and fellow “Squad” members Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, have shot back — accusing Democratic leadership of resting on their laurels and failing to organize at the grassroots level.
In a post-mortem released Tuesday, progressive groups like the Sunrise Movement charged that it was “unforced errors” like Pelosi’s ice-cream stunt at the peak of the pandemic which cost them those half dozen seats.
“When Democratic leaders make unforced errors like showing off two sub-zero freezers full of ice cream on national television or cozy up with Wall Street executives and corporate lobbyists while Trump tells voters we are the party of the swamp, it is not surprising that we lose,” they wrote.