The reviews from yesterday’s primary elections are in and praise for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning upset are through the roof among establishment hacks who couldn’t be arsed to learn her name till just yesterday.
We begin with Nancy Pelosi who just a few days ago was reciting manifest destiny at Maxine Waters like some hobbyist colonizer:
Pelosi statement on @repjoecrowley, who lost his primary tonight to Ocasio-Cortez pic.twitter.com/8lCKKTY8ra
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) June 27, 2018
This was definitely drafted with a Crowley win in mind and honestly it rules that her office was too flummoxed to rewrite the whole thing. Then there’s this a few hours later:
PELOSI dismisses results last night as just one district. “Not to be viewed as something” larger.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 27, 2018
Next we have this lanyard-wearing dipshit calling himself Ben Ritz, known colloquially around here as a headass:
Amazing. If Joe Crowley can't win re-election even after embracing almost every left-wing proposal from a $15 minimum wage to Medicare-for-all, then there's really nothing mainstream Democrats can do to placate the far left.
— Ben Ritz (@BudgetBen) June 27, 2018
Obviously this is the Democratic equivalent of Eric Cantor in 2014. So perhaps Democrats aren't actually inherently better or more reasonable than Republicans, we're just a few years behind in the devolution process.
— Ben Ritz (@BudgetBen) June 27, 2018
Get rekt, binch!
Here we see Amanda Marcotte coming through with the clutch take that Ocasio’s win is actually a sign that dems want more of Pelosi:
Sorry about the delete. Fixing wording for accuracy. (Edit button, @jack!) Anyway, to add to this: While DSA is silly, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s win shows that voters like progressive women. And while Pelosi is not 100% perfect, she is progressive and a woman.
— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) June 27, 2018
The eagerness to write Ocasio-Cortez’s as some kind of defeat of the country’s most famous progressive female leader is….a stretch.
— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) June 27, 2018
Finger on the pulse, this one.
Any list like this wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of time-crime victim and political journalist Joy Reid:
Pretty much all of political journalism are doing an Ocasio-Cortez crash course tonight, myself included. https://t.co/NT8199Fi2s
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) June 27, 2018
You better believe Smooth Brain has his own volley of takes to add to the mix:
The overwhelming majority of Sanders candidates for Congress or Gov have lost. That hasn't changed. https://t.co/Qt9NE4Cn8o
— Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) June 27, 2018
Gus_802 having a normal one:
The newest member of Trump’s constituency pic.twitter.com/LkCoLsqL5J
— Petty Is Praxis (@rtyson82) June 27, 2018
This headass:
She is no more capable of leading than the tea-partners who have failed to keep our current spending in check with a GOP legislative and executive branch.
We need more middle. Not more parliament.
— (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) June 27, 2018
This one too:
And a bunch lost, several in NYC. It is a big deal and very cool but not Earth shattering. It's a +29 Dem district that is majority black and Latino. A young charismatic Latina should beat a fat old white guy. She's great and is gonna be awesome but Pelosi isn't out of line here.
— Bob Gurnett 🍺🍕🃏 (@BobIsntFunny) June 27, 2018
Palmer Report having a normal one:
Well, it WAS as safe as the Dems can get. But now that Crowley has been taken out by a niche nobody from the far left, she in turn can be taken out by a niche nobody from the center right. The people who think it can’t happen are the same people who thought Crowley couldn’t lose.
— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) June 27, 2018
To close this out, the candidate in her own words:
Almost two years ago, I started what was then a completely ‘impossible’ bid for Congress.
Since then, everything has changed.
Now, there’s only 20 minutes left.
And it feels great.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 27, 2018
I have spent today criss-crossing the district my family has called home for generations. I have met strangers who knew my dad, and knew stories about my loved ones.
I have touched the hands of people who have felt ignored and invisible for a long, long time. And they felt seen.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 27, 2018
Today I saw people voting that are almost never seen in an off-year midterm primary.
Just now, as I’m typing this with 8 minutes left, two young men of color, 20 years old, just walked up to me and said they just voted.
2 yrs ago, the “experts” told me not to bother with them.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 27, 2018
But I knew that in refusing to engage with non-voters, we were churning a cycle of neglect and cynicism.
So I reached out. And we have been embraced. We have built power. We have organized.
What we have built is permanent. No. Matter. What.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 27, 2018
We triggered the first primary election in 14 years. OUR supporters, collecting signatures in the bitter snow for 5 weeks, did that.
No matter who the vote is for, every single vote cast to day is ours – because we made this election happen.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 27, 2018
This is the start of a movement.
Thank you all.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 27, 2018