"A quite spectacular and significant event" - Noam Chomsky on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's primary victory and the rise of democratic socialists.
From the transcript of this Democracy Now! program:
The 2018 midterm election season has been roiled by the internal divisions between the Democratic Party’s growing progressive base and the more conservative party establishment. In New York City, this division came to a head with the most shocking upset of the election season so far, when 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez handily defeated 10-term incumbent Representative Joe Crowley, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House. Ocasio-Cortez ran a progressive grassroots campaign as a Democratic Socialist advocating for “Medicare for All” and the abolition of ICE. For more on her victory and what it means for the Democratic Party, we speak with Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy
Now!, democracynow.org, The War
and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn back to my interview
with world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky, now
at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the upcoming midterm elections and the increasing
number of Democratic Socialist candidates running, who raise the issue of
immigration as one of the top issues. I recently sat down with
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democratic congressional
candidate, whose recent primary victory upended the 10-term incumbent
Congressman Joe Crowley, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, who was being
talked about as the next House speaker to succeed Pelosi. And I began by asking
her how she achieved her staggering primary victory.
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I do think that the way that we won in New York 14 is a model for
how we can win almost anywhere. I knew from the outset that—you know, I had no
misconceptions of the fact that the New York political machine was not going to
be doing me any favors. And so I didn’t—I tried to kind of come in as
clear-eyed as possible. And I knew that if we were going to win, the way that
progressives win on an unapologetic message is by expanding the electorate.
That’s the only way that we can win strategically. It’s not by rushing to the
center. It’s not by trying to win spending all of our energy winning over those
who have other opinions. It’s by expanding the electorate, speaking to those
that feel disenchanted, dejected, cynical about our politics, and letting them
know that we’re fighting for them. So I knew that I had to build a broad-based
coalition that operates outside of the traditional Democratic establishment,
and that I had to pursue kind of an uphill journey of convincing activists that
electoral politics is worthwhile.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issues you ran on?
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: And the issues I ran on were very clear, and I think it was an
important part to us winning: improved and expanded Medicare for all;
tuition-free public colleges and universities, as well as trade schools; a
Green New Deal; justice for Puerto Rico; an unapologetic platform of criminal
justice reform and ending the war on drugs; and also speaking truth to power
and speaking about money in politics not just in general, but how it operates
in New York City.
AMY GOODMAN: In a moment, I’m going to play her clip talking about immigration
activism. Yes, Alexandria Cortez—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went to the border
right before Election Day. In fact, her plane was delayed. I was concerned she
wouldn’t be back in New York for the Primary Day. But if you could start by
responding to this? And then we’ll hear what she has to say about immigration
activism.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I think there’s—her victory was a quite spectacular and
significant event. I think what it points to is a split in the Democratic Party
between the—roughly speaking, between the popular base and the party managers.
The popular base is increasingly, essentially, social democratic, following,
pursuing the—concerned with the kinds of progressive objectives that she
outlined in those—in her remarks, which should be directed not only to
expanding the electorate but to the general working-class, poor population of
the world, of the middle-class population of the country, for whom these ideals
are quite significant. They can be brought to that. That’s one part of the
party. The other part of the party is the donor-oriented, managerial part of
the New Democrats, so-called, the Clintonite Democrats, who are pretty much
what used to be called moderate Republicans. The Republican Party itself has
drifted so far to the right that they’re almost off the spectrum. But the split
within the Democratic Party is significant, and it’s showing up in primary
after primary. Will the party move in the direction of its popular base, with
a, essentially, social democratic, New Deal-style programs, even beyond? Or
will it continue to cater to the donor class and be essentially a moderate
wing—a more moderate wing of the Republican Party? And unless that issue is
resolved, I don’t think they have a very good chance in the forthcoming
elections.
I think she
was right in saying that the policies she’s outlined should have broad appeal
to a very large segment of the population. We should bear in mind that, for now
almost 40 years, since the neoliberal assault began, taking off with Reagan, on
from there, a large majority of the population are living in conditions of
stagnation or decline. Real wages are—for, say, male real wages—are about what
they were in the 1960s. It’s been—there has been productivity growth. Hasn’t
gone to working people. It’s gone into the very few extremely overstuffed
pockets. And that continues. So, the Labor Department just came out with its
report for wages in the year ending May 2018. Now, they actually slightly
declined. All sorts of talk—real wages, that is, wages measured against
inflation. And it’s apparently continuing, with an even further drop. This is a
time when a lot of crowing about the marvelous economy, you know, full
employment and so on, but wages continue to stagnate. And furthermore, it’s
plainly going to get worse. The Republicans are on a binge of pursuing the most
savage form of class warfare. The tax scam is a good example, the attacks on
workers’ rights, on—Public Citizen just came out with a report on
corporate impunity, which is almost comical when you read it. The
administration has simply cut back radically on any kind of dealing with
corporate crimes. And, of course, the EPA has practically stopped
working. It’s as if grab whatever you can, stuff it in your pocket,
before—while you have a chance. Under those conditions, the kind of appeal that
she was talking about should mean a lot to the general population.
Notice, as
everybody’s well aware, the tax scam was a purposeful effort not only to enrich
the super-rich and the corporate sector—corporate profits, of course, are
overflowing—but it was also an effort to sharply increase the deficit, which
can be used—and Paul Ryan and others kindly announced to us right away what the
plans were—the deficit could be used to undermine any elements of government
structure which benefit the general population—Medicare, Social Security, food
for poor children. Anything you can do to shaft the general population more can
now be justified under the argument that we have a huge deficit, thanks to
stuffing the pockets of the rich. This is an astonishing phenomenon. And under
those conditions, a properly designed progressive program should appeal to a
large majority of the population. But it has to be done correctly and not
shaped in ways which will appease the donor class.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to the interview with Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, who has really upended the Democratic Party, and the kind of
message this candidate of Puerto Rican descent in New York has sent to the
entire party, I think the Republican Party, as well. But this is what she says
about immigration.
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: We have to occupy all of it. We need to occupy every airport, we
need to occupy every border, we need to occupy every ICE office, until those kids
are back with their parents, period.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the right-wing media—for example, Fox News and others—have
kept—have written about this over and over since she made this comment about
occupying airports. Interestingly, her area of Queens and Bronx include Rikers
Island and LaGuardia Airport. Noam Chomsky?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I think we just had a very dramatic illustration of what
courageous opposition to these atrocious policies can do—namely, the young
Swedish woman who prevented an airplane from taking off because it was
deporting an Afghan man to almost certain murder.
Please go here to continue the transcript or to watch the full video interview: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/27/noam_chomsky_on_alexandria_ocasio_cortezs
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