Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused establishment Democrats of treating her “like shit” as progressive activists urged her to run for president in 2028.
In a 100-minute long video posted on Instagram, the 37-year-old congresswoman from New York said that the party had a “remarkable opportunity” to pass left-wing policies after the midterm elections. She also accused the party’s leadership of starving funds from left-wing candidates during the campaign.
“There’s this huge conversation about candidates that were under invested in,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She cited Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who came within 240,000 votes of flipping Florida from red to blue, but ultimately lost to the Republican candidate Ashley Moody.
“If Angie Nixon had just had a little bit of that support, that outcome could have changed. But that money has to come from somewhere and it comes from these people,” Ocasio-Cortez said in reference to the party’s Senate leadership.
Reflecting on the period after she was first elected to Congress in 2018 at the age of 29, Ocasio-Cortez accused senior Democrats of being “horrifically cruel” to her. “I mean I was treated like shit,” she said. “Everybody took a swing at me.”
The Bronx congresswoman is seen as the likeliest progressive candidate to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
Oh, I didn’t hit the paywall when I had posted! Apologies! I’ll see if I can dig up a version that isn’t behind a paywall
Edit: No luck so far. I’ll keep looking though!
Could you take a look at the source code of that Times page? There should be a .mp4 link that looks like it’s the main video: if it points to YouTube there’s a good chance it’s somewhere the rest of us can see it.I’d do it myself but I can’t get past the paywall, and that kind of inner link can get stripped from archive copies. I appreciate you looking.EDITED to say I think I found it. I am not on Instagram, but I found it via another article. Yesterday, November 9, AOC posted a live on her IG reels that explained the process of selecting a new Speaker of the House, and it is 100 minutes long, so I’m pretty sure this is it.
I use igram.mx to view and download Instagram reels, for those of us who do not use Meta products at all. Put her username “aoc” in the searchbox, it will take you to her profile, and right now it’s the one in the top center with her pointing to a white board with a dry erase marker. You might have to pass a quick bot check; I always do on that site.
Thank you!