In one corner is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and her small gang of millennial crybully mean girls associated with the Democratic Socialists of America. In the other corner are the longtime career pros of the Congressional Black Caucus who are sick and tired of her.
The CBC and the progs have very different priorities.
The CBC is supportive of the Dem leadership, it isn’t obsessed with Trump (though some like Rep. Maxine Waters have cashed in very effectively) and largely wants to achieve conventional policy and pork goals. On the other side, Cortez and the gang are threatening to primary some CBCers and force their way into the leadership without paying their dues.
The Cortez prog gang’s threats to target CBC lawmakers with their infinite pile of lefty cash is breaking the camel’s back.
Congressional Black Caucus members are furious at Justice Democrats, accusing the outside progressive group aligned with firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) of trying to oust lawmakers of color, specifically African American lawmakers.
Justice Democrats is backing primary challengers to eight-term Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), a Hispanic Caucus member, and 10-term Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). The insurgent group also made noise this year about challenging Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), a CBC member seen as the heir apparent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
And CBC leaders are fretting that Justice Democrats may target other black lawmakers in the coming weeks and months, including Reps. Yvette Clarke(D-N.Y.), Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) and Anthony Brown(D-Md.). Brown said the group has been making calls in his district, actively trying to recruit a challenger to run against him — something that Justice Democrats denies.
“It just seems strange that the social Democrats seem to be targeting members of the Congressional Black Caucus, individuals who have stood and fought to make sure that African Americans are included and part of this process,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), a senior CBC member, told The Hill.
“I don’t know what that agenda is, but if they want to come after members of the Black Caucus, it’s two ways,” warned Meeks, the Queens Democratic Party boss who clashed with Justice Democrats in a local district attorney race last month.
Begun, the prog wars have.
And, it’s getting personal.
A black Democratic lawmaker has a bone to pick with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for saying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “singling out of newly elected women of color.”
Rep. Lacy Clay of Missouri told Fox News that the Democratic representative from New York, in addition to other liberal Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts “have to learn to be effective legislators.”
“It shows their lack of sensitivity to racism. To fall back on that (trope) is a weak argument. It has no place in a civil discussion,” Clay, who is a 10th-term congressman, added.
“Their ignorance is beyond belief,” Clay reportedly said Thursday in the Speaker’s Lobby.
Adding further fuel to the fire, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, recently said moderate Democrats “seem hell bent to do to black and brown peopled today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s,” prompting ire.
Cortez has skated by largely on her social media shtick and by baiting Republicans and playing the victim. What happens if she begins to be battered repeatedly by elected black female House members?
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