Dana Milbank wrote it off as a victory of demographics, a minor, inconsequential point which left the “down-the-line liberal” Rep. Joe Crowley in its wake, a simple ploy that avoids any hard headed analysis of the Democrats themselves. “The argument that there is a Democratic establishment resisting the progressive tide is a straw man.”
This was as one such reaction to the victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Congressional primary for New York’s 14th District, secured against the secure middling Rep. Crowley, who had been fairly immune to challenges – three in all – the last being in 2004. This fact tended to induce a certain failing not found in other seasoned politicians: an ultimately fatal vulnerability in campaigning.
The primary night debate between an ill-prepared Crowley and confident Ocasio-Cortez last month left the veteran exposed. Ocasio-Cortez, in contrast to her overly seasoned opponent, “presented,” in the words of Briahna Gray, “as a well-studied newcomer with natural talent: delivering a summary of her agenda in a manner which was confident and sharp, if not effortless. The theme of her remarks was clear: ‘Not all Democrats are the same.’”
Fundamentally, and critically for the Democrats, the youthful usurper was pitching an angle neglected by the card carriers of orthodoxy in the party. “It’s not enough to fight Trump. We have to fight the issues that made his rise in the first place.”
All Crowley was…