Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushed back Wednesday on GOP accusations that her fellow democratic socialists will drive into Congress a communist agenda, saying Republicans “are seeking to usher in a new McCarthyism for this era.”
“Their only way in a time of deep unpopularity is to try to stoke fear and new conspiracies. And so they’re trying to inject conversations about communism to scare people,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat said, before ticking off DSA policies she supports, including Medicare for all, raising the minimum wage and stronger unions.
“If a Republican wants to call a stronger union ’communist,’ they’re more than welcome to do that. I’m not going to be deterred,” she said.
When asked about members of the Democratic Socialists of America who publicly self-identify as communists, she said, “It’s a free country.
“You’ve got people with all sorts of affiliations in this country. We don’t politically persecute people,” she said, adding that “you can have bona fide all sorts of extreme groups.”
“You can hold whatever views you have in this country, and that’s how America works,” she concluded.
Congressional Republicans and President Trump have amped up their attacks on the Democratic Party’s most leftist faction in recent months following the victory of DSA candidates in major metropolitan cities for mayor such as New York and Seattle as well as congressional primary wins in New York and Colorado.
Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Trump mocked DSA candidates and incumbents during a rally in Marietta, Georgia, saying their name does not accurately describe them.
“The radical left is actively trying to destroy our children’s future with the disaster known as communism. It’s communism. This isn’t social democrat,” he said, describing communism as the “single greatest threat” to the U.S.
“These people are stone cold crazy. And it is the enemy of the free people everywhere and everywhere in the world,” he said.
“It goes back thousands of years by different names, but that’s the way it happens all the time. It’s squalor. It’s poverty. It’s death. It’s destruction.”
“And that’s why we declare again today that the United States of America will never be communist.”
