Ocasio-Cortez says Republicans failing in 'big play' to scare people away from socialism
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Republicans are failing in their attempt to use socialism accusations to scare voters away from the Democratic Party, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. said on Thursday.
"Drumming fear around socialism is the GOP’s big play, & it’s failing, bc capitalism = GoFundMe as our national healthcare system," she tweeted.
Ocasio-Cortez, who has become the proverbial face of conservative warnings about socialism, also tweeted an article celebrating the fact that the economic system was losing its ability to inspire fear.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}INSIDE TRUMP 2020: AS DEM FIELD SETS, CAMPAIGN TAKES AIM AT 'SOCIALIST ORGANISM WITH 22 HEADS'
She quoted a line that indicated Republicans engaged in an ineffective tactic used during the Cold War. "The 'old-fashioned red-baiting approach, familiar to those of us who lived through the Cold War, doesn’t seem to be working,'" she tweeted.
The article also liberally quoted Bhaskar Sunkara, who edits the Democratic socialist magazine Jacobin and wrote "The Socialist Manifesto." Sunkara previously argued that Democrats should try to take down former Vice President Joe Biden as a 2020 frontrunner because he's not viewed as progressive enough.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The New York congresswoman's tweet came as leading Republicans pressed a narrative that Ocasio-Cortez and leading presidential candidates were promoted socialist policies.
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“We see them as a homogenous group of socialists,” Kayleigh McEnany, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, previously told Fox News while discussing the 2020 primary field. Communications Director Tim Murtaugh similarly said the Democratic field, was “one big socialist organism with 22 heads.”
Many 2020 candidates endorsed Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal" and shared her support for "Medicare-for-all" -- two policies that would involve massive government intervention of the sort that Republicans call "socialist."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who reportedly sought Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement, has become perhaps the biggest piece of evidence in the GOP's case that Democrats were drifting too far to the left.
He has repeatedly expressed support for socialist movements and countries and pushed policies that would dramatically change the government's role in large sectors of the economy. He also gave a speech outlining his vision of "Democratic socialism" and mocked criticism as unrealistic.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The issue seemed to resurface when Sanders praised efforts by the Chinese government to fight "extreme poverty."
"What we have to say about China in fairness to China and its leadership is -- if I’m not mistaken -- they have made more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization," Sanders told The Hill on Tuesday. "So they’ve done a lot of things for their people."
Fox News' Alex Pappas contributed to this report.