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House Dem Condemns 'Juvenile' AOC's Race Comments: 'Ignorance Is Beyond Belief'

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There’s a civil war brewing within the Democrat Party, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for the left.

With the party already embroiled in the 2020 primary process and candidates slinging mud for attention, the infighting has now made its way to the House of Representatives.

Low-ranking newcomers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have made it their mission to criticize Democrat leaders, and now others in their own party are fed up with the circus.

On Wednesday, a Democratic congressman and member of the Congressional Black Caucus pushed back against Ocasio-Cortez after the outspoken New York representative implied that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was purposely going after women of color in the party.

“What a weak argument, because you can’t get your way and because you’re getting pushback you resort to using the race card? Unbelievable,” Missouri Congressman William Lacy Clay said.

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He was referencing a recent Washington Post interview in which Ocasio-Cortez complained that she and other young members of Congress — particularly Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley — were being repeatedly admonished by Pelosi.

Those four far-left Democrats have been scolded by the speaker in the past, usually after making comments or proposals that aren’t in line with the mainstream Democrat platform. But instead of seeing this as part and parcel of being first-year reps, Ocasio-Cortez went racial.

“But the persistent singling out . . . it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful . . . the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color,” Ocasio-Cortez said to the Post.

That last part is what Congressman Clay focused on in his remarks. “That’s unbelievable to me,” the Democrat said, according to The Hill.

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But Clay wasn’t done. The congressman took offense to Ocasio-Cortez trying to turn Pelosi’s leadership role into a matter of race.

“I could care less. I could really care less. I agree with the Speaker. Four people, four votes out of 240 people, who cares,” he said.

But it wasn’t just Ocasio-Cortez who was blasted by the Missouri lawmaker.

Clay also called out Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti for using racially-charged language in a recent tweet.

Centrist Democrats like Pelosi “certainly seem hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s,” Chakrabarti posted, referencing a time of segregation and open racism.

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Clay was not impressed.

“It shows you how ignorant and little history [Chakrabarti] knows, how ignorant he is to American history. How dare he,” Clay said.

“They want to score points for whatever reason,” Rep. Clay continued. “But I find it juvenile, their tactics, I find their ignorance to be beyond belief about American history and about who are really segregationists. And so how dare they try to play the race card at this point, it shows you the weakness of their arguments.”

He’s absolutely right. Ocasio-Cortez seems to believe that crying racism is a debate-ending strategy which silences all critics. But as Clay pointed out, all it does is betray the shallowness of her own stance.

Nancy Pelosi isn’t scolding the camera-hogging newcomers because of their races. She’s doing it because it’s literally her job as speaker of the House to lead other, junior members of her party.

This is akin to new employees arriving at a job, making fools out of themselves, and then calling the boss “racist” when she points out that they’re making major mistakes.

Ocasio-Cortez will never realize — let alone admit — that her own policies are what make her ripe for criticism. Disastrous, half-baked proposals like the Green New Deal are the laughingstock of Congress, but she’s too arrogant to notice.

But wiser lawmakers like Clay are noticing, and so are the rest of the American people. If Democrats keep this up, there won’t be much of a party left to challenge President Trump when the 2020 election rolls around.

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Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico.




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