Ocasio-Cortez’ popularity ratings mirrored the results for both Democratic congressional leaders, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York.
- A Siena College poll conducted between March 31 and April 4, 2019, meantime, showed voters in Ocasio-Cortez’s district have a generally favorable view of her, with a 47 percent job approval.
- According to the poll, Ms Ocasio-Cortez had a 22 per cent approval rating, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota had a 9 per cent approval rating among 1003 “likely general-election voters who are white.
- Few members of Congress have generated as much controversy and gained as much influence in as short a span of time as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
- Overall, Ocasio-Cortez has a positive 47-42 percent job approval rating with Democrats grading her at 59-32 percent and Republicans at 17-74 percent. Nearly half of all voters, 48 percent, and 61 percent of Democrats are prepared at this point to re-elect Ocasio-Cortez, while 39 percent of all voters, 78 percent of Republicans, but only 27.
US President Donald Trump has defended his Twitter attack on four non-white congresswomen using a racist trope. "The Squad" fired back....
US President Donald Trump has defended his Twitter attack on four non-white congresswomen using a racist trope. "The Squad" fired back.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the Democratic Party’s new stars. But is her fame helping or hindering its chances at the next election?Source:AFP
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a rising star in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party — bold, outspoken and hugely popular on social media.
But the millennial congresswoman is reportedly sparking concerns among some top Democrats, with fears her defining presence could lose the party crucial swinging voters at the 2020 election.
The issue has come to a head this week, with Ms Ocasio-Cortez at the centre of a Twitter spat with US President Donald Trump.
And while his comments were officially condemned as racist by the House of Representatives, the latest spat could be actually helping Mr Trump win the 2020 election.
RELATED: Trump’s ‘racist comments’ denounced
It started when in a series of tweets, the US President suggested the new generation of Democrats who have been feuding with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should “go back” to their countries to fix their governments, saying “you can’t leave fast enough”.
When his tweets were labelled racist, Mr Trump insisted on Tuesday that his tweets suggesting the four Democratic congresswomen of colour return to their countries “were NOT Racist,” and he appealed to fellow Republicans to “not show weakness” and to resist a house resolution condemning his words.
“I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” Mr Trump exclaimed on Twitter, a day after declaring that “many people agree” with his assessment of the four freshman politicians.
“Those tweets were NOT Racist,” Mr Trump wrote on Tuesday amid a continued backlash to his weekend tweets that progressive women “go back” to their “broken and crime-infested” countries.
The original tweets were aimed at Democrats Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. All are American citizens, and three of the four were born in the US.
You’re right, Mr. President - you don’t have a racist bone in your body.
You have a racist mind in your head, and a racist heart in your chest.
That’s why you violate the rights of children and tell the Congresswoman who represents your home borough, to “go back to my country.” https://t.co/adlCUO7r0v
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFPSource:AFP
TRUMP’S OUTSPOKEN RIVAL
Since being elected, Ms Ocasio-Cortez has been an outspoken critic of Mr Trump.
But an anonymous Democratic group leaked an internal poll to Axios revealing swinging voters strongly dislike prominent progressive politicians, such as Ms Ocasio-Cortez.
According to the poll, Ms Ocasio-Cortez had a 22 per cent approval rating, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota had a 9 per cent approval rating among 1003 “likely general-election voters who are white and have two years or less of college education”.
AOC’s ‘squad’ has dominated headlines recently.Source:AP
Seventy-four per cent of these voters had heard of Ms Ocasio-Cortez, while 53 per cent had heard of Ms Omar.
“If all voters hear about is AOC, it could put the (House) majority at risk,” a Democrat involved in the 2020 congressional races said. “She’s getting all the news and defining everyone else’s races.”
The same poll viewed the term “socialism” favourably by just 18 per cent of voters compared with 69 per cent who disliked it, while “capitalism” was viewed 56 per cent favourably and 32 per cent unfavourably.
Some progressives have dismissed the survey, saying it just marks the latest attack on the party’s left wing.
Waleed Shahid, the communications director for Justice Democrats, described the polling as “infuriating” and “truly bizarre”.
It’s infuriating and truly bizarre that Democratic leaders and consultants released anti-AOC and anti-Ilhan polls to the press **under the condition of anonymity** this morning. https://t.co/MVRnA7bNf2
— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) July 15, 2019But the leak in itself adds to the widening rift in the Democratic Party, where disagreements between party leadership and progressive new politicians have dominated headlines recently.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Ms Omar and their fellow freshman congresswomen Ms Tlaib and Ms Pressley have repeatedly butted heads with Ms Pelosi this past week over impeachment, immigration and the consolidation of power in Congress.
Ocasio Cortez Approval Rating Today
Ms Pelosi sparked tensions after she appeared to dismiss the four women during an interview with The New York Times in which she said “they’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got”.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Ms Ocasio-Cortez accused Ms Pelosi of “singling out” women of colour, which prompted criticism from longtime Democrats.
But could it really be enough to cost the Democrats the next election?
IS AOC’S ‘SQUAD’ HINDERING THE DEMOCRATS?
Ms Ocasio-Cortez clearly ruffles feathers among both Republicans and Democrats.
But whether she’s actually setting back progress for a 2020 Democratic win is not as clear-cut as the new polling implies.
The debate over whether their politics are counter-productive didn’t start with the recent feud with Ms Pelosi. It dates back to the midterm elections after which Ms Ocasio-Cortez was sworn into Congress.
There have been well-documented tensions between progressive Democratic congresswomen and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Source:AFP
Gorana Grgic, an expert at the United States Studies Centre, says on one hand, the popularity of the “squad” only goes so far.
“If you look at the districts that all four of these women are in, they’re solidly blue,” she told news.com.au. “AOC is maybe the only example of beating the old guard of the Democratic Party … but the other three obviously replaced representatives that were going into retirement.
“If you look at the 2018 results, where the election was mostly won by the Democrats was in the mid-west, where you had these Republicans that obviously couldn’t get support given that they were associated with the Trump administration.
“Nancy Pelosi is aware of the fact that a lot of these moderates have carried the Democratic Party.”
Dr Grgic also said the ongoing tensions between Ms Ocasio-Cortez and Ms Pelosi had done little to help the Democratic Party’s image.
“When you’re in opposition and part of the legislature and having a winning hand on the Supreme Court, it certainly doesn’t help when you have disaccord in your own rows,” she said.
In a press conference earlier this week, AOC and her fellow Democrats hit back at Donald Trump over a series of racist tweets he posted.Source:AFP
But at the same time, Ms Ocasio-Cortez is doing her job — she’s representing the concerns of her constituents.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Favorability Rating
“AOC is representing parts of New York that are very progressive and want her to keep fighting the good fight,” Dr Grgic said.
“While it doesn’t help for the broader perception of party unity, I don’t think that will have too many detrimental consequences.
“They’re holding Trump to account and really pointing out all the malpractices within the administration. But they’re also setting the agenda on some of the most important public policy issues — everything from healthcare to immigration.”
TRUMP’S CALCULATED MOVE
Mr Trump, who won the presidency in 2016 in part by energising disaffected voters with inflammatory racial rhetoric, made clear he has no intention of backing away from that strategy in 2020.
His words, which evoked the trope of telling black people to go back to Africa, may have been partly meant to widen the divides within the House Democratic caucus, which has been riven by internal debate over how best to oppose his policies.
And the President isn’t backing down either.
“It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me,” Mr Trump said on Monday at the White House.
“A lot of people love it, by the way.”
And while Mr Trump’s attacks this week brought Democrats together in defence of their colleagues, the gamble is also paying off.
His allies noted he was also having some success in making the progressive politicians the face of their party.
The Republican president questioned whether Democrats should “want to wrap” themselves around this group of four people as he recited a list of the quartet’s most controversial statements.
“Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party,” he wrote on Tuesday, adding: “See you in 2020!”
“The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four ‘progressives,’ but now they are forced to embrace them,” he tweeted on Monday afternoon.
WHY CONSERVATIVES KEEP COMING FOR AOC
Conservative critics are clearly fascinated with Ms Ocasio-Cortez, having made her the subject of sustained attacks.
Some of the criticism has focused on her self-identifying as a “democratic socialist”, and the viability of her signature proposals like the Green New Deal and abolishing the entire Homeland Security department.
Other attempts to smear her — like criticising her for working as a bartender, pointing out her high school nickname and posting an amateur music video she appeared in — have fallen flat, largely because she has spun them in her favour on social media.
But at the end of the day, at 29 years old, Ms Ocasio-Cortez is ineligible to run for President next year. Why the sustained effort to tear her down instead of focusing on high-profile candidates like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris?
Conservatives are constantly attacking AOC.Source:AP
The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer suggested the New Yorker’s ethnic background may explain why she’s so threatening to many of her critics.
“In America, when people of colour succeed despite the limits placed on them and use their new-found status to indict the system for holding others back, they are held up as proof that the limits do not exist, they are denounced as ingrates, or they are pilloried as frauds incapable of the successes attributed to them,” he wrote in January this year. “The exception is if they present their success as evidence that the structural barriers are not as great as they seem, and that in truth, the only thing that holds back marginalised communities is their own lack of ability or motivation.
“If they affirm the righteousness of the class and caste system that they defied to succeed, they are hailed as heroes by the same people who would otherwise have denounced them as frauds.”
At a joint press conference, the four congresswomen said their ‘squad’ was more than four people’ and ‘will not be silenced’.Source:AFP
Dr Grgic suggested Mr Trump would be wary of any opponent with a similar skill set to him. And despite Ms Ocasio-Cortez and Mr Trump’s polar opposite political oppositions, their methods of interacting with the media and the wider public are surprisingly similar.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez has used social media to her advantage, with Time magazine naming her one of the most influential people on the internet.
“Donald Trump is wary of anyone who is able to steal the limelight and command so much media attention,” Dr Grgic said. “Her rise was a really unexpected story. Everything since then and the way she’s been able to use social media and really garner a great followership is something Donald Trump has clearly been watching because he himself is very active on these channels.”
Dr Grgic also said there may be a darker dimension at play, comparing the recent racial attacks on Ms Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow young congresswomen to the “birther” conspiracy theory he pushed against Barack Obama.
“In terms of the nativist white nationalist theme, it’s the same sort of attacks. But I think she is someone who is very skilful at playing the media, and she knows she can set the agenda pretty easily given the followership she has,” Dr Grgic said.
COMMENTARY: In Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s world of “inclusion and diversity” the unborn have no place — nor does any Catholic who believes and abides by the Church's teaching on life, sexuality and marriage.
Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the late Antonin Scalia had a genuine, if not improbable, friendship. Ideologically, they represent opposite ends of the legal spectrum: Scalia an originalist/textualist and Ginsberg a judicial activist.
Yet when questioned about how they managed to have such a cordial relationship, Scalia noted, “I attack ideas, I don’t attack people — and some very good people have some very bad ideas.” At a 2015 joint appearance with Ginsberg at George Washington University, when questioned about their relationship, Scalia quipped, “Call us the odd couple. She likes opera, and she’s a very nice person. What’s not to like? Except her views on the law.”
So when my former colleague and friend Heidi Schlumpf was named the new executive editor at the National Catholic Reporter, I tweeted her a message suggesting we might become the “Scalia and Ginsberg” of Catholic women commentators. As is typical for Heidi, she good-naturedly thanked me and said she hoped we could.
And now, for the first time since assuming her new role at the Reporter, she and I are disagreeing publicly — sort of. When I read the headline of Schlumpf’s recent opinion piece, “AOC is the Future of the Catholic Church,” I groaned. Although I understand her appeal to young people, I am not a fan of Ocasio-Cortez, the 30-year-old bartender-turned-Congresswoman.
While some feel that “AOC,” as she’s commonly called, is a breath of fresh air, posting decidedly un-congressional videos of herself eating popcorn and musing on her new apartment in D.C., her unfamiliarity with and fear of garbage disposals, and her famous makeup tutorial, I don’t believe she’s demonstrated the credentials or in-depth knowledge needed to be a legislator, marking up bills, managing a large staff and being responsive to constituents. Millennials by thousands follow her social media accounts, and it doesn’t take much for her to grab the headlines, often for days as was exemplified last week by her unwarranted and wholly uninformed attack on the status of a statue of St. Damián of Molokai representing the people of the state of Hawaii in the U.S. Capitol building (the people of Hawaii having requested themselves that St. Damián’s image represent them notwithstanding and the statue was a gift from the state).
That being said, Schlumpf’s piece appeared to be the victim of what I would term a wildly misleading headline. Rather than centering on the reasons AOC was the “future of the Church,” it emphasized instead Ocasio-Cortez’s response to a vulgar verbal insult made against her by a fellow member of the House of Representatives. I share Schlumpf’s outrage at the comments allegedly directed at the congresswoman, and her analysis of AOC’s rebuttal on the House floor is spot on.
To speak to any woman in the manner Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., allegedly did is shocking at best, unbefitting a gentleman, and beneath the dignity of the public office he holds. The New York congresswoman fought back, not by trading insult for insult, but in an eloquent and moving speech that, as the mother of three daughters, I applauded.
But that is where Schlumpf and I part ways. Schlumpf writes about how much Ocasio-Cortez’s speech reflected her “Catholic values,” specifically stating that “Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly railed against the ‘dehumanizing’ of others and instead called for treating people with dignity and respect.”
Yet one cannot square this claim, as a Catholic, with AOC’s self-proclaimed role as a supporter of “reproductive justice,” earning her a 100% approval rating from NARAL. She notes that she is a “proud” opponent of the Hyde Amendment, the long-time federal bill that prevents federal dollars from funding elective abortions. It’s a popular piece of legislation, with high approval ratings among both Democrats and Republicans alike. Ocasio-Cortez even broke longstanding inter-party protocol by endorsing the opponent of her fellow Democratic colleague Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., in his primary battle against abortion advocate Marie Newman — citing Lipinski’s pro-life voting record as a factor for her opposition. Newman, who also received millions of dollars in funding from abortion activist groups, narrowly defeated Lipinski in March.
Ocasio-Cortez’s “reproductive justice” page on her website notes the following:
“Reproductive freedom is especially essential for all individuals of marginalized genders, including cisgender women and trans people. Alexandria does not accept any federal, state or local rollbacks, cuts or restrictions on the ability of individuals to access quality reproductive healthcare services, birth control, HIV/AIDS care and prevention, or medically accurate sexuality education. This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion, birth control, and family planning services, as well as access to adequate, affordable pre- and post-natal care, for all people, regardless of income, location or education.”
With the exception of the mention of pre- and post-natal care, virtually everything in this plank of AOC’s stated platform is in direct opposition to “treating people with dignity and respect.” The unborn have no place in AOC’s world of “inclusion and diversity.” It also poses threats to religious liberty, especially for faith traditions that recognize marriage as the conjugal union of a man and a woman and teach that our sexual identity is part of who God created us to be, not a malleable social construct.
As just one example, when a Catholic hospital faced a lawsuit because they declined to perform a hysterectomy on a healthy woman for the purposes of “sexual reassignment,” AOC came to the defense of the plaintiff, not of the Catholic hospital.
“My faith commands me to treat Mr. Minton as holy because he is sacred, because his life is sacred, because you are not to be denied anything I am entitled to, that we are equal in the eyes of the law.” Despite the fact that Catholic hospitals do not, and never have, provided sterilizations, sex reassignment surgeries, abortions, or physician-assisted suicides, AOC seems perfectly comfortable with compelling them to do so.
So no, while I can appreciate AOC’s defending herself against verbal degradation, I can’t agree that she represents the “future of the Church.” Because the future of the Church requires respect for the religious beliefs and practices of Catholic institutions and a future for all, including those waiting to be born.
To paraphrase Pope St. John Paul II, none of your other human rights matter very much if you’re not alive to enjoy any of them to begin with. Human rights start when human life begins. And unfortunately for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, it’s also where her belief in radical equality ends.
“Faith is a light that illuminates not only the present but also the future,” said Pope Francis, and “marriage and family are the future of the Church and of society.”
Considering AOC’s benighted view of this clear Catholic vision, and her contrary position on so many issues important to Catholics, if she were the future of the Church, then God help us all. The Church as we know it would cease to exist.
Mary FioRito is the Cardinal Francis George Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington
and the deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame.
This column was updated after posting to correct the state Rep. Yoho represents.
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