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AOC and the Squad’s List of Left-Wing Accomplishments Is Quite Long [1]

['Branko Marcetic', 'Tyler Austin Harper', 'Jared Abbott', 'Fred Deveaux', 'Cori Bush', 'Ben Burgis', 'Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez', 'Natalie Shure', "Lichi D'Amelio"]

Date: 2024-05

It’s tough being a member of the “Squad” these days. Once the darlings of the American left, the group of progressive and socialist House members that includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, and others are as likely to be savaged these days from the Left as they are from the Right. Popular YouTube commentators regularly denounce them as “sellouts,” protesters interrupt their meetings calling them warmongers, and even committed socialists question what the point of the Squad has been. The lion’s share of this ire has been trained on Representative Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who’s faced relentless criticism since winning office from all sides, sometimes over substantive issues (once failing to show up for an Amazon union rally, casting a vote that denied railworkers the ability to strike), sometimes over remarkably petty ones (conciliatory rhetoric, the positioning of her hands while being arrested). Much of this was crystallized in a recent critical analysis of Ocasio-Cortez’s record in New York magazine by Freddie deBoer, who charged she has drifted “from radical outsider to Establishment liberal,” making mere “token gestures of resistance to solidify the illusion that she is a gadfly,” and argued that her and the rest of the Squad’s entry into Congress has been entirely fruitless. But this is hard to square with both a closer analysis of Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad’s record, and with the picture painted by progressive groups and unions that work with them. Have they occasionally fallen short? Sure. But the reality of the Squad’s accomplishments and movement importance is far more positive than the one-dimensional, gloomy narrative that has become popular in some corners of the Left.

“A Tremendous Win” First, there’s lawmaking. Ocasio-Cortez’s legislative record is not nearly as barren as her detractors have it. Much like Bernie Sanders, the congressswoman has been able to sneak through the cumbersome legislative process by putting forward amendments to larger bills. For example, one successful 2019 amendment cut $5 million from the Drug Enforcement Administration budget and redirected it to treatment programs for the opioid crisis. A year later, she managed to get her repeal of the 1998 Faircloth Amendment passed through the House — a landmark vote and a longtime priority for affordable housing advocates, given the Bill Clinton–era measure’s effective ban on new public housing construction. Another from 2022 mandated the Pentagon study the therapeutic uses of MDMA and hallucinogens. Sometimes, Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad have made contributions by blocking legislation instead of passing it. Sean Vitka, policy counsel for Demand Progress, told Jacobin the Squad, and particularly Representative Tlaib (D-MI), were instrumental in a major 2019 victory against mass surveillance, when they forced through the end of the Patriot Act’s Section 215. The controversial provision had allowed the warrantless collection of a broad swath of “business records” — everything from banking and library history to medical records and, most controversially, phone metadata — and drew particular outrage when the Edward Snowden leaks revealed just how badly it was being abused to spy on Americans. When time came to reauthorize the Patriot Act’s many sunset provisions in 2019, according to Vitka, Tlaib served as “one of the key organizers” of a congressional letter signed by twenty House Democrats (including herself and fellow Squad members Representative Omar [D-MN] and Ocasio-Cortez) vowing to oppose it unless certain privacy protections were ensured. “Tlaib helped lead one of, if not the, earliest efforts staking out what reform would be necessary to allow the Patriot Act to continue,” he says. The end result: Section 215 and two other controversial provisions finally expired, after then House speaker Nancy Pelosi in May 2020 pulled the reauthorization bill, realizing that opposition from progressive Democrats and Freedom Caucus Republicans meant the votes weren’t there. “This was a tremendous win,” says Vitka. “I’ll be damned if that isn’t one of the biggest successes in terms of protecting the privacy interests of the US public.”

Upside, Inside Out Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad are uniquely responsive to unions and outside groups, according to those who have worked with them. “Alexandria herself, in her first few weeks in office, reached out to me and came to my office for a meeting. She’s the only member of Congress who’s ever done that,” says Association of Flight Attendants-CWA president Sara Nelson. “She was here for two hours, talking through issues, trying to learn what was important to us,” Nelson adds. Ocasio-Cortez has solicited information from and worked with the union to try to ensure its priorities were represented through the Federal Aviation Authority’s reauthorization process. “I have her chief of staff on my cell phone,” says deputy director of Food and Water Action Mitch Jones. “We’ve found her office to be responsive when we need them to be.” Food and Water Watch criticized Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal resolution at the time for failing to eliminate fossil fuels directly, criticism that was met with a policy response. “After hearing feedback from us, she introduced the Fracking Ban Act,” Jones says. “Not everyone who supported the Green New Deal was willing to take on fossil fuels in the way that she did.” Ocasio-Cortez has worked with progressive organizations on other legislation and campaigns. In 2019, the congresswoman introduced a six-bill legislative package named A Just Society, focusing on everything from anti-poverty initiatives to improving working conditions, with her Place to Prosper Act including national rent control and beefed up tenant protections. “The Center for Popular Democracy [CPD] worked closely with the congresswoman on the housing portion of the package,” the organization’s codirector Analilia Mejia told Jacobin. That included joining CPD affiliates for several mobilizations over housing, including an August 2019 “Welcome Back Congress” action that saw hundreds of protesters turn up at House members’ offices. Mejia says that Ocasio-Cortez and other Squad members contributed to the organization’s Medicare for All campaign, including by helping CPD staff prepare activist Ady Barkan to testify at a hearing on the policy. Last year, Squad members also took part in a civil disobedience action over the overturning of Roe v. Wade that saw her and sixteen other members of Congress arrested, and where Ocasio-Cortez was criticized for faking being handcuffed by holding her hands behind her back — even though that was exactly what the organization had trained them to do, to show they weren’t resisting arrest. “It was ridiculous. You can’t win no matter what,” says Mejia of the criticism. Ocasio-Cortez has likewise worked closely with Housing Justice for All, taking part in town halls, workshops on eviction defense, and other events. One of the campaigns that she was prominent in was for a package of state-level housing bills in 2019, one of which was sponsored by socialist state senator Julia Salazar, that presented sweeping reforms to New York’s housing regulatory landscape, including an expansion of New York City’s rent control. The legislation was passed and signed into law later that year. Alexandria herself, in her first few weeks in office, reached out to me and came to my office for a meeting. She’s the only member of Congress who’s ever done that. “She held a number of town halls that were well-attended and carried the message that we need stronger rent control laws,” says Housing Justice for All campaign coordinator Cea Weaver. “She played the same role in our eviction moratorium and ‘cancel rent’ campaign during 2020 and 2021.” This isn’t the only state-level campaign Ocasio-Cortez has lent a hand to. Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) organizer Charlie Heller recently detailed her involvement in two winning New York campaigns, one a two-year-long fight to block a new fracked gas plant in Astoria, and the other a four-year-long effort to pass the Build Public Renewables Act, a major step to shifting the state to renewable energy. According to Heller, these victories wouldn’t have happened without Ocasio-Cortez’s vocal support and campaigning giving them needed publicity and legitimacy. National Nurses United has likewise praised the congresswoman for joining their fight against efforts to defund and privatize a Bronx veterans administration hospital. Ocasio-Cortez has lent her considerable platform to other union fights. She skipped the inauguration to attend a Teamsters strike and urged others to show up, again rallied with UPS workers as they prepared to strike this year, publicly backed and spotlit Starbucks workers’ unionization struggles, joined the picket line at a Buffalo hospital, worked a bar in solidarity with tipped workers, and recently showed up at an actors and writers picket line in Manhattan. Critics would dismiss these as meaningless symbolic actions. But this is belied by the fierce and well-justified criticism she received when she failed to attend an Amazon workers rally in 2021 prior to a union vote. Ocasio-Cortez and the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) ultimately patched things up, and she and Sanders appeared at a key ALU rally in Staten Island the following year, where the congresswoman threatened to cut subsidies and tax breaks to the company if they didn’t stop union-busting. Similar to her Iron Dome vote, criticism of Ocasio-Cortez has focused almost exclusively on her justifiably maligned missed ALU appearance, but then wholesale ignores the ways she’s assisted unionization efforts and other worker struggles. The result is a distorted picture of not just her record, but the value she and other left-wing elected officials have for these movements — which, similar to the striking teachers inspired by the 2016 Sanders campaign, has included spurring on others’ own political work. “Her campaign for office in 2018 was very inspirational to a lot of the people who ended up running on the No IDC slate,” says Weaver, referring to the movement that shattered the conservative stranglehold on New York politics in 2018, which has helped blow open the doors to progressive policy and socialism’s advance in the state. “She’s utilized different mediums to get people engaged in politics who have never been and spurred on union organizing,” says Nelson. “We have activists in our organizing tribe because of her and the Squad.”

Seeds of Radicalism Finally, there’s the somewhat more nebulous role Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad have played in the political shifts of the past few years. The process of political transformation is messy and chaotic. Disparate actions add up little by little and then suddenly, building up pressure on those in power, expanding the bounds of what’s possible and creating momentum for change. It’s undeniable that the Squad, by virtue of their work in Congress and acting as a conduit for outside groups, has been integral to this. Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal resolution might be one of the most impactful pieces of legislation that never became law. Simply by generating the level of publicity and debate it did — something hard to imagine without her involvement — the measure has directly inspired similar versions at the state and city levels and even in other countries. Similarly, shortly after she introduced her national fracking ban, the New York state legislature permanently banned fracking via legislation, preventing a future governor’s reversal by executive order. “She’s introduced big things that don’t pass but set the tone,” says Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president at Public Citizen. “What comes of that is people moving individual components of it, things at the state level that are connected.” It’s hard to imagine the few but important climate victories that wound up in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) happening without the Green New Deal, Ocasio-Cortez labeling climate change an “existential” threat, and actions like her joining the Sunrise Movement’s sit-in at Pelosi’s office, which together helped shoot the perennially ignored climate crisis up the list of media and political priorities while legitimizing progressive policies to meet it. Mejia, who served as national political director for the 2020 Sanders campaign then Biden Labor Department appointee, argues there’s a direct line from the congresswoman to the White House’s climate policies, thanks to the Sanders-Biden policy task forces. “AOC and John Kerry cochaired the climate table,” she says. “I had a front row seat and saw these policy positions get hardwired into Build Back Better, the IRA, the American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA].” It’s likewise hard to imagine the extremely pricy ARPA, Biden’s much larger stimulus bill correctly credited for pulling the US economy out of crisis, being passed at all under the lifelong penny-pinching Democratic president without the likes of Ocasio-Cortez consistently dismissing deficit concerns at the same time that she elevated voices critical of fiscal hawkery. Left-wing scrutiny of the Squad and particularly Representative Ocasio-Cortez has steadily veered from constructive criticism and needed pressure to a kind of caricaturish vitriol. More than that, a number of popular pandemic-era policies had antecedents in or received crucial public support from the Squad. A third round of stimulus checks wouldn’t have happened under Biden without their leadership forcing the issue. Squad members were consistently pushing for student debt cancellation as far back as 2019 and were among the most prominent voices urging Biden to enact it as soon as he won in 2020, which he of course eventually did. In fact, from the very start of the pandemic, Ocasio-Cortez called for direct cash payments, a pause on student loan repayments, mortgage relief, and a moratorium on evictions, all of which soon became core, popular parts of Trump and then Biden’s pandemic responses. She did this on the very day Congress’s second pandemic relief bill was signed into law, a relatively modest effort that simply mandated some employers to give their workers expanded paid sick and family leave. It was only nine days later that the much larger CARES Act, with its stimulus checks and universal basic income–like unemployment insurance payments, became law. Then, between its passage and Trump ordering an eviction ban, the Squad introduced a bill canceling rent and mortgage payments, creating political space for Trump’s flawed but fairly radical tenant protection measure. In one case, there’s actually a very direct and unambiguous link between the Squad’s agitation and a pandemic-era policy victory: Biden wasn’t planning to lift a finger about the expiration of the eviction moratorium in 2021 until Rep. Cori Bush’s August sit-in on the steps of the US Capitol forced his hand, keeping the vital pandemic protection alive for two more months.

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[1] Url: https://jacobin.com/2023/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-the-squad-left-criticism-policy-accomplishments

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