As the United States continues to prepare for the 2020 elections, political battle lines keep getting drawn across the country between those defending the most marginalized groups and those who aren’t. Prominent progressive New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded bluntly this Wednesday to an editor with The New York Times who had attempted to minimize the impact of the progressive defenses of those marginalized people that she and her colleagues had pushed. She insisted that in fact, it’s true that Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar represent the Midwest and in turn, the political aspirations of the people living there. The drive they’ve made is one fundamentally of the American people.
Ocasio-Cortez shared, discussing Tlaib and Omar:
‘They literally are [Midwestern], & this comment is what erasure looks like. HIGH TURNOUT from DEEP BLUE SEATS & being competitive everywhere is the core of a winning strategy. It’s disturbing to see this Trump talking pt that dense, diverse communities “aren’t the REAL [America/Midwest/etc].”
President Donald Trump has himself incessantly gone after Ocasio-Cortez and her close colleagues at this point, and they’ve already responded by asserting that in fact, they represent aspirations of the people of the United States. They’re not posers, or frauds, or socialists, or al Qaeda sympathizers, and they don’t hate America, no matter how many times Trump and his allies want to throw out something like that and hope it sticks. In fact, every one of them were elected by the people of America and advocates are working hard to get those people to unite against Trump come the 2020 general election.
The editor who initially insisted that Tlaib and Omar don’t represent the “real Midwest” eventually deleted his initial commentary, insisting that he just didn’t make his point well enough instead of acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, he was wrong for suggesting women of color aren’t “real enough Midwesterners” to be able to tell us something about social and political aspirations in the region.
No matter the detractors, a diverse leading group of Democratic primary presidential candidates continues to make its way to the nomination stage, and Trump has polled poorly against all of them at times.
Check out Twitter’s response…
Featured Image via screenshot
