AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Abbott
With the midterms fast approaching and the polls looking worse by the day, many elected Democrats are desperate to distance themselves from their party’s increasingly progressive image. But that effort has been made more difficult by the so-called “Squad,” which, despite electoral disaster looming on the horizon, insists on dragging the Democratic Party in an ever-more radical direction.
The Squad first became a force in politics soon after its formation in 2018 following the election of its first four members: Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the de facto leader of the progressive left. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri were added as the fifth and sixth members following the 2020 elections – even as the radical policies pushed by the original four nearly cost Democrats the House that year.
For instance, following the death of George Floyd, the Squad became the legislative face of the “Defund the Police” movement, and on several occasions, appeared to encourage or excuse the violence gripping America’s cities throughout the summer of 2020. The Squad has also called for abolishing border patrol and even all prisons. During the pandemic, Ocasio-Cortez demanded the Governor of New York close the Rikers Island Correctional Facility and release all 10,000 prisoners into the general population.
Ocasio-Cortez also recently revealed that she believes capitalism is “not a redeemable system” – not an uncommon statement for the Squad, who openly advocate for socialist policies and describe themselves as “democratic-socialists.”
It was statements like these that nearly cost Democrats their House majority in 2020 and led to severe blowback from the few remaining moderate Democrats in Congress. Even veteran Democrat operatives like James Carville and David Shor have warned that the Squad’s radical policies are too polarizing and will only lead to disaster.
However, the Squad has continued to unashamedly push their progressive priorities, no matter the harm it may cause to their colleagues’ electoral prospects. Even as most Democrats are now desperately trying to reverse course on “Defund the Police,” Cori Bush has doubled down, saying as recently as February that she still stands behind the slogan. Just a few weeks ago, Ocasio-Cortez was on the road rallying for another progressive candidate in Texas, still calling for the Green New Deal and “Medicare for all.”
On the whole, it appears as if none of the Squad has been chastened by their close call in 2020 and has remained completely unable to grasp that, while they may come from D+25 districts, most of their fellow Democrats do not. Even in liberal areas, there are some clear signs that voters are not too happy with the progressive agenda. Last month, San Francisco voters, some of the most progressive citizens living in one of the most progressive cities in one of the most progressive states in the entire country, recalled three school board members for being “too progressive.” Nearly 80% of voters supported the recall.
In Virginia, Democrats dismissed concerns about wokeness in schools as a “conservative disinformation campaign of falsehoods, half-truths, and exaggerations designed to create, mobilize and exploit anxiety around White status to secure political power.” Then, Glenn Youngkin defeated former Democrat Governor Terry McAuliffe in a state that Joe Biden had won just one year before by 10 points largely on a promise to get woke ideologies out of schools.
Even in cities where progressivism once thrived, reality has set in and now has many of the Squad’s radical policies in full retreat. Many Democrat city leaders who once embraced “Defund the Police” are now refunding the police and quickly trying to hire more officers to combat a spike in violent crime. Liberal lawmakers who imposed harsh COVID restrictions under the guise of “following the science” are now backtracking.
Polling suggests that those Democrats who have broken with progressivism have done so out of a desire for self-preservation. Even minority groups, who the Squad claims to care so much about, are against much of the Squad’s social justice agenda. Politico recently obtained internal polling conducted by House Democrats that said Americans found the Democratic Party too “preachy,” “judgmental,” and “focused on culture wars.”
Despite those alarming statistics, the Squad remains unrepentant. Due to the outsized and largely glowing adoration the Squad receives from most mainstream outlets, who bill the Squad as the future of the party, most Democrats won’t be able to distance themselves from their policies.
Many Democrats thus find themselves in an unenviable position. Should they placate the Squad and allow the party to be pushed further left, their voters may reward them by kicking them to the curb this fall. Should they criticize the Squad and openly break with progressive policies, however, they may find themselves subject to a well-financed primary challenge from the left and relentless attacks from the Squad’s army of activists. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why 30 House Democrats have already announced their retirement this year, the most since 1992. Democrats’ biggest problem this November, then, might not be Republicans or even Joe Biden’s failed agenda, but this small group of radical legislators who can’t seem to see the destructive path they’re leading their party down.
Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with over a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.
DECLARE THEM PERSONS NON GRATA.
What to do with a groups low IQ leftist screwballs who hate this country. What to do. What to do. Oh well. One good thing is they are so dedicated to destroying this country and it’s institutions that they never hide their real feelings. So that is actually a good thing. KAG
our country is not about hate, even tho one has freedom of speech! you do not talk against the flag or patriotism and anyone who is not happy hear should leave or be put out! we do not want or need this type of crude behavior! you haters who vote for these misfits should be ashamed and need to leave with the rest of the satanic group!!!!
This is a helpful piece. We have to hope that the heavy load of newcomers to America do not all congregate in one place. We don’t need little foreign districts in America and citizens haven’t and won’t benefit from segregation.
Interesting that you didn’t answer the question posed in the title.
Anti American. Oath violators. Enemies of The People. Stooges – useful idiots. Political distraction.
What do we do? Well, first of all, we stop referring to those four Congressional blemishes as ‘The Squad’; it only gives them legitimacy and a phony importance. Then, drop the ‘AOC’ designation; 3-letter references to politicians are appropriate for those who earn them: JFK, FDR, MLK, etc.
Airhead Of the Century is a manufactured joke.
They need to not be allowed to call themselves Democrats or progressives, but what they really are which is Marxist Communists. The parties should both insist on a name change for their kind.
How many members of the squad will automatically get reelected by their constituents? When will these incompetent haters be given their walking papers? These 4 politicians have a disturbingly strong stranglehold on the entire American experience. When are more Republicans going to openly show more passionate patriotism? We desperately need more eloquent statesmen. We have way too many manipulative politicians.
NCSWIC!! NOTHING!!
Charge them with treason.
This is what you get when really stupid people vote.
Simple, the voters need to throw them out of office. if that doesn’t happen then others in congress need to move against them and make them unimportant. They are 4 out of how many? The other members need to stand up and have a spine. Unsure whether this will ever happen, but it’s what needs to happen.
The squad is not the problem; the source of the dilemma is the dimwitted liberals that vote for a racist, American-hating, antisemite, communist-loving despot. They deserve what they get. What a horrible place to live surrounded by so many racists.
As a New Yorker, who didn’t vote for either of the two progressives mentioned in this article, (Bowman and AOC), it is hard to shut them down when they constantly ignore your voice and comments when contacting them. (They demand that their staff circle-file your emails, letters, etc. so that they can “claim” that their constituents are in agreement with their statements and actions. The biggest thing we can do is to get them voted out, but the liberal Democratic council in New York like to work behind closed doors and is strongly influenced by powerful rich people (we happen to have quite enough billionaires in New York, who think they own the state and we all know money talks better than talking sense). These two progressive Congresspersons have gotten a taste of money and power, which raised them out of their former lifestyles–( Bowman was in education, and AOC was a part-time bartender, who participated in protests because it gave her a platform to voice her self-importance) and they certainly don’t intend to ever return to that level of living.
I intend to continue to not vote for any person who thinks these two are doing anything for the residents. We won a few local positions away from the Democrats, which they made a big declaration of voting fraud, but when the full vote count was made, including every absentee and affidavit ballot, they lost by a mile, despite every effort they made to cheat the system. Now they are trying to push for allowing undocumented immigrants to vote, despite the fact that most of them don’t want to register under the voting laws in place in New York, because they have to show identification to get a license and register to vote (in other words be known on a system). Okay, New York doesn’t require/allow asking for an ID to vote, but you do have to register to vote and be on the active voting rolls, according to the voting laws in NYS. Upholding these laws has to be a priority, plus people need to realize that they have to maintain their voting status by voting every time there’s an election, whether it is a primary or regular election. There are 9 early voting days and a 15 hour Election Day, so there’s no excuse to claim that you can’t/dodon’t have time to vote, merely because you don’t want to make the effort to show up in person or request an absentee ballot to mail in/or drop off within the time period. Voting should not be a spur-of-the-moment activity. And voting turnout of less than 1/4 of the registered voters should not determine the results, especially if those who show up have been bribed in some form or deluded by empty promises of the Democrats. Choosing the person for an elected position should be based on facts, not promises or words, and nor should it be based on how popular they are on social media.
The Squad solutions:
Own Caucus
Take over The View once they leave office
Miscl media after office
Maybe we need another “squad”, a firing squad…………
The Squad is NOT the cause of the Democrats’ problems, as this article suggests. They are merely the end result of decades and decades of the Party stoking hate, envy, victimhood, repression, and government dependency as the answer to all things. At some point, it was inevitable that people like the Squad would rise up and be elected by a Democrat voter base, that has been indoctrinated to despise American values and demand that everything be given to them for free. Think of it as the natural evolution of the Democrat Party and their decades of anti-American, anti-capitalist policies.
AOC and the rest of the Squad are merely the faces of what now makes up a majority of the Democrat voter base today. They also have the financial backing of all the heavy hitters that control which candidates get the money for their campaigns. Thus all the Democrat members of Congress, that have chosen to retire after this term, have come to the realization that neither their voter bases nor their financial backers want the old style of soft-peddled socialism anymore. They want the hard-core radicals that demand the destruction of the current American economic and societal system, so socialism, which they have been taught will give them unlimited free stuff, can take over.
Are politicians like Maxine Waters, Elizabeth Warren, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the rest of the old guard of the Democrat Party really all that different from the Squad? No. They are for the exact same policies being pushed by the Squad. Just at a somewhat slower pace. They just are a little bit more subtle in tone about it and try to hide their ultimate intent a bit better from the general public. Enough so, that the average Democrat voter thinks of them as “moderate”. Which the MSM echoes as “the reasonable adults in the room” on a daily basis. Even though they are really far from that. The Squad on the other hand are about directness and screaming for they want in your face. Demanding you give it to them now or else they will unleash whatever they have to in order to get the public to submit to them. That latter style appears to be what the modern Democrat Party voter base wants, which again is why so many old guard Democrats are retiring.
As for the question of how do you get rid of the Squad? The unfortunate truth is that every member of the Squad has consistently won re-election in their districts by wide margins and will continue to do so. The Democrat voters in their districts overwhelmingly support them. The big money donors all support them. The real question you should be asking is how do you reverse the problem of a significant portion of the American public supporting social and economic policies designed to undermine and transform the country on multiple levels? There are solutions, but many would involve more direct involvement of the general public. Which due to wide-spread apathy and a general unwillingness to get personally involved, would never garner the level of support to be successful at this point. This problem should have honestly been addressed decades ago, when it would have been much simpler and straight-forward to address overall. Now it is nearly impossible to reverse with at least two full generations almost fully indoctrinated to prefer a socialist form of government and all that it entails. Apathy and wanting “someone else” to do it all does have its consequences and unfortunately, we’re living them today.
The MSM is guilty of giving the squad speech and face time to build their egos and spread their hate.
OUR GOVERNMENT IS SADLY BROKEN BEYOND REPAIR AT THIS TIME!
The way to defeat the radical left is to first make the ecessary changes to the legal system that allows radical left judges and prosecutors to make thier own laws when dealing with the worst criminals, we need to define ” this is the crime, this is the punishment”, and any judges or prosecutors that fail to adhere to the laws should becharged with criminal acts and punished.
We need to make clear to ALL politicians, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement, employees of alphabet gov. Agencies up to and including our braindead resident that there ain’t NOBODY ABOVE THE LAW!
It’s amazing to look at the history of these four people, their past being checkered and bent.
It’s amazing they ever got elected, considering their radical, leftist mindset that seems so far afield of any norm. It’s amazing how they have managed to wield such power……one has to wonder what kind of leverage they have over others in their respective arenas of political operation. One has to wonder just what kind of “blackmail” they seem to be able to apply and get their way over and above the majority of representatives who do not appear to be of their ilk. Why are so many “afraid” of them? Why are so many willing to let them run rampant? I don’t get it…….is this the demonic powers at work?
Same thing you do with any other scoundrels…tar and feather them, and run them out of DC on a rail!!
We need to make it illegal for people who live outside a city or state to get involved in local politics, that nullifies local voters rights to choose thier OWN representatives, we need to send them to prison and heavily fine them to the point they will shut up or go broke!
People have had enough of these Marxists. Former NBA basketball player, Royce White and Shukri Abdirahmanan, an army vet originally from Somalia are challenging Ilhan Omar. And more Patriots are challenging the others. Let’s hope the “woke” have regained their senses and vote these America haters out of Congress!
Encourage them to keep talking. They are their own worst enemy.
Throw the marxist democrat traitors out of office!
The destruction of America, attempts to remove Our God given rights, gender stupidity,green new deal fleecing of Our Country, de-funding our police, refusal to prosecute criminals, allowing illegal people,drugs and disease to enter Our Country,are ALL offenses against the Real Citizens!!!
This type of anti American slime MUST GO !!!
Easy, they have gone against the Constitution which is considered Treason and Treason is punishable by death. Go back to the old days by arresting them, try them in front of a Military court then execute them. Period. It’s long past time to go back to the old court days. Doing that may wake these traitors up or thin out the abundance of Anti-America scum. Enough is Enough this is our Country and not Islams, the U.N’s, Chinas or the Liberal Socialist CRoaches.
Denise, your summation is so on point, you leave me nothing left to say! Very well said!
Its real easy for these scuz balls// send them to Russia or China and let them shoot their mouths off to Putin and Chi// First word that they utter a bullet goes between both ears// Maybe they will umderstand this is the real world in Communist Regimes///////////////
These are evil people..
You’ve got Captain Airhead, two muslims who’d love to see America go Sharia law and a dingbat who’s too stupid to see that defunding the police has increased crime. Impeach them for treason. Send them to prison for about 40 years, no parole.
Insert “firing” in front of their name.
I’d like to know who’s voting for them to keep them visible
The Squad must be eliminated. They are only few in number and are given power only by that held by the Leftist Progressives. Huge moves must be made to defeat them in upcoming elections. Can we honestly allow 6 people to rule the USA? It is beyond absurd. If a plan is developed, and a plan needs to be developed, it must be followed through until these women are gone. Are we so weak as a nation that we ill tolerate being ruled by someone like AOC? Pelosi is another woman who needs to be gone – sooner rather than later. Age and dementia will take her eventually. The process has already begun. Watch her. Listen to her. She is batshit crazy. Our country has been taken over by a few loss maniacs and We the People have allowed it. No more!
Congress needs to call them out for what they are; Marxist domestic enemies of the Constitution, who are committing treason!
Eventually the Voters will wake up and flush these turds with one exception. Because of redistricting by Obummer, Omar is surrounded by her own people and they will vote for her again. She is a disgrace ( as are the others) to America, our Constitution and the American way of life. She is not an American and will never be an American. We have the Divider in Chief (Obummer) to thank for bringing these radicals here to poison us from within!
How about building a “hit-squad” of highly “capable” individual to go after them..? Just “disappear” them. Nothing messy, just “capable…
Great piece! Americans have to rise up with a unified message to take back our country by ANY means necessary. Nice talk and lawsuits won’t solve the problem. Being afraid to speak the truth, being PC, is what got us here!
These four women are a disgrace to America and I suggest they go back to the country or state they came from and find a deep cellar for permanent residence. I surely hope Americans wake up to the midterm election as we can not take another year of the insanity in Washington. My concern is can we have a fair election? The communist democrat party is trying to get illegals the right to vote and soros and zuck are willing to pay millions of dollars to throw the election. We all must be alert and voice our opinions if we hope to change these crooks in Washington.
Denise – It sounds like you’re ready to lead the charge. Where do I sign up?
The title of the article is “What Do You Do With a Problem Like the Squad?” Well, I read because I want the answer, but I don’t see a solution… What can an individual actually DO?!
ONLY ONE SURE WAY TO TAKE ELIMINATE OF them FROM OFFICE AND IT’S NOT ELECTIONS…….
You make them irrelevant. You continuously point out the stupidity of their ideas. You constantly show the consequences of their policies and how it impacts the people the supposedly care about. You keep pointing out that their kind actually hate Americans, think their stupid, and only care about themselves. You constantly remond people that they want to turn this country into a socialist/communist nation and the terrible consequences of that.
Its not something that happens overnight.
As far as I’m concerned ‘the squad’ is a group of anti-American, non-patriotic, good for nothing a$$holes who do not belong in our government on any level. Their goal is to change our country into something they think is better. If they’re allowed to reach their goal ‘We the People’ will no longer recognize our great nation! They all need to GO!
The death “squad” are the living embodiment of the ghosts of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler. Each of them egotistical, self-centered, racist bigots who believed they are held back by the individual freedoms granted by this country. These current socialists/communists (need to include Bernie) feel they can only achieve their stupid goals by destroying the United States, and by doing so each of them believe they will inherit the top rung!
In reality, these five mentally derange individuals only represent evil to this country, in everything they do and say. Their brand of speaking is only to invoke destruction, sedition and insurrection; by enticing riots, unrest and destruction with the freeing of convicted criminals, allowing them to mingle with the growing numbers of illegal aliens; infiltrating and destroying the law-abiding citizens and defunding the police, their only real enemies!
They claim it is their freedom of speech to advocate the insanity, however, it is only form of speech to incite the “supposed” downtrodden and invoke the overthrow of the United States government. Their actions and words can only be described by one word, “TRAITORS”! If this country has the courage, there is a legal means to eradicate “TRAITORS” and this means needs to be used against this contemptible individuals. Not only as a means to eliminate them, but to discourage other morons yet to come. It is time we take back our country from ungrateful mental midgets like these!
The Founding Fathers explicitly stated “no Muslims” in Congress, but some “wiser” guys decided it would be good for our country. This is what came about from that. Get them out, impeach them for treason! They don’t have Americans in their best interest, only themselves. Closing prisons and releasing convicts into the general citizenship is idiotic and insane!