Haven’t seen any diaries about this and am curious to know the community’s reactions. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez participated in protest outside Nancy Pelosi’s office this week. The motivating issue was climate change and Democratic Party’s apparent lack of a plan to save humanity. Some of the protestors felt strongly enough about what they were doing to get arrested (which is unsurprising given the IPCC’s warning that we’ve only got 12 years to deal with this) and Ocasio-Cortez took the opportunity to talk about the need for a “Green New Deal”. Pelosi’s response was to praise the protestors for their activism (because she’s not a dissent-fearing fascist) and to say she’s going to recommend formation of a committee to address the climate crisis.
This story seems at least tangentially relevant to the debate over whether Nancy Pelosi should remain House Speaker which has gotten pretty heated in the comment sections of other diaries. It also seems relevant to bigger questions about the Democratic Party’s priorities and future that people often frame as either “Establishment vs Progressives” or “Pragmatism vs Idealism”. Personally, I’m OK with Pelosi being Speaker for one more “transitional” term despite having been very critical of her but that’s only because other Kossacks have pointed out strengths of hers I hadn’t noticed. That’s a big part of why I want to know the community’s reaction to this story — it’s hard to see outside our bubble and we can learn a lot from each other. I’m also very interested in what people think about Ocasio-Cortez participating in the protest — is it “divisive infighting” or “healthy discourse”?