‘Why do we listen to people who lost?’: AOC rips into McCaskill over election criticisms

It’s part of a larger conversation about where the Democratic party should head after a disappointing election

After a disappointing election night, Democrats in and out of power are arguing where the party should go from here. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had some harsh words when former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill said on MSNBC the party had focused too much on certain cultural and identity issues.

On Wednesday, Ms McCaskill, a relatively conservative Democrat who lost her seat in 2018, told MSNBC this strategy was letting Republicans pick off blue voters.

“The Republican Party very adroitly adopted cultural issues as part of their main theme,” she said. “Whether you’re talking guns, or issues surrounding the right to abortion in this country, or things like gay marriage and rights for ‘transsexuals,’ and other people we as a party have tried to ‘look after’ and make sure they’re treated fairly—as we circled those issues, we left some voters behind and Republicans dove in with a vengeance.”

The progressive representative from New York had some sharp words for the former senator. She argued that backing conservative positions, as Ms McCaskill occasionally did when siding with the president on certain immigration issues, cost her the Senate seat.

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The former senator later apologised for using the term “transexuals”—many prefer the term “transgender people” or “trans people”—and said her words had been misinterpreted.

The two have clashed in the past over how far left the Democrats should swing. During her 2018 campaign, Senator McCaskill had advertisements distancing herself from “crazy” Democrats, an apparent dig at progressive Senators like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. She also derided Ms Ocasio-Cortez as “a bright shiny new object” whose liberal proposals might turn off white working class voters.

Then as now, the New York representative felt Senator McCaskill didn’t have grounds to make those criticisms.

Heading into the 2020 election, Democrats felt they had a good chance to capture the presidency and advance their gains in Congress, amid a pandemic response from the Trump administration that left more than 233,000 people dead. After losing what could amount to six seats in the House, and likely failing to recapture the Senate, intra-party disputes are heating up.

Some have floated the idea of replacing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in favour of someone they believe could more effectively bridge the divide between progressives and moderates in the party.

Others blamed political experts who failed to predict the outcome of the election.

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