The Democratic Party is shifting fast. Socialists are winning elections in left-wing strongholds, pushing out longtime incumbents and pulling the party further from its traditional center.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was supposed to be the untouchable icon of this movement. She launched the modern democratic socialist wave by defeating incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018, a seismic upset that sent shockwaves through the party. That victory paved the way for a new generation of hard-left lawmakers, including Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley, collectively known as the Squad.
So AOC should be a hero in perpetuity to the socialist left. Apparently, that is no longer guaranteed.
As originally reported, Cenk Uygur, the founder of the left-wing media outlet Young Turks, called her out directly on X. AOC hasn’t endorsed a challenger to an incumbent Democrat in the last two election cycles,” Uygur wrote. And she is enthusiastically supporting Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker if Dems win the House. When people were working so hard to get her elected, this is exact opposite of what we were hoping for.”
Hasan Piker, Uygur’s nephew and a rising voice on the socialist left, piled on over the weekend. He criticized not only AOC’s support for Jeffries but also her overall approach in Congress, arguing she has played things too cautiously.
“I think AOC plays it maybe too safe,” Piker said. “Zohran said the same thing too, and that’s my criticism of Zohran as well. But then I’m going to be honest with you, with Zohran at least we’ve seen the immediate return on investment.”
Piker also took direct aim at Jeffries, describing the House Minority Leader as “one of the biggest Israel stooges in Congress right now.”
The irony here is hard to miss. The woman who essentially founded the democratic socialist movement in its current form is now being judged as insufficiently radical by her own ideological allies. She is not moving left fast enough for the people who once cheered her loudest.
That says something important about where this faction of the party is headed. If AOC, the original standard-bearer, cannot satisfy the appetite for radical change, the pressure on every Democrat in a safe left-wing district will only grow. The goalposts keep moving, and they are moving in one direction only.