Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: 'In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party'

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 6 January 2020

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) thinks Democrats should consider shrinking their too-big tent.

It's been a year since Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman ever sworn into Congress, but the effects of ousting a longtime Democratic representative have lasted long past her 2018 primary election. Ocasio-Cortez is still learning what it's "like to show up to Congress with a beginner's mind," and has "created more room for dissent" within the party along the way, she tells New York Magazine.

Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged that since she's come to the Capitol, "I learned a lot about how fear shapes the decisions of elected officials: I know this could be bad, and this could make someone mad," and so on. But she's still willing to take aim at her party's own Congressional Progressive Caucus, telling New York that "they let anybody who the cat dragged in call themselves a progressive. There's no standard."

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Ocasio-Cortez also isn't the biggest fan of her own party's longtime philosophy, saying "Democrats can be too big of a tent." That's especially apparent as the current 2020 Democratic field runs the gamut from the far-left Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whom Ocasio-Cortez endorsed, to the solidly centrist former Vice President Joe Biden. And when asked about what she'd do in Congress if the latter was elected, Ocasio-Cortez didn't hold back. "Oh God," she told New York. "In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are."