‘Total s***show’: ‘Arrogance’ behind AOC’s Green New Deal rollout slammed in new book

A new book detailing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s (D-NY) breakaway from her party focuses on the New York liberal’s tense relationship with fellow Democrats and claims her championed Green New Deal failed due to “overconfidence.”

The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution, written by Intercept journalist Ryan Grim, comes out on Tuesday. It explores the ways Ocasio-Cortez’s “arrogance” alienated her from her party and generated “hostility” from people such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) right out of the gate when Ocasio-Cortez was first elected to the House in 2018.

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Grim says the Green New Deal, a program focused on climate change and green energy policies, was a “total s***show disaster” — despite Ocasio-Cortez entering Congress with a bang as part of a wave of progressivism stemming from former President Donald Trump‘s election in 2016. Grim wrote that, while Ocasio-Cortez was embraced by the “Squad” Democrats, she quickly established herself as an outlier and possible champion within the Democratic Party.

The rollout of her token green energy policy, however, failed because “overconfidence had crept in” among Ocasio-Cortez and her followers, according to Grim’s book. Evan Weber, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, which worked with Ocasio-Cortez on the Green New Deal, told Grim the “Squad” had become the “It Kids” of Washington but that arrogance led to their downfall.

“I think we had done such a good job up until that point of massaging the language that there was a kind of arrogance of like: ‘We can actually appease everyone here’ instead of sticking to our guns and making a real choice about charting a different direction,” Weber said in the book via the Daily Mail.

Weber added that the plan was “haphazardly” put together and came out with several mistakes, noting that journalists got the first draft of the FAQ on the Green New Deal instead of the final version. He also pointed to a line that discussed the methane produced by cows, which quickly led to criticism and jokes from conservatives.

The mistakes gave the Green New Deal to Ocasio-Cortez’s critics “on a silver platter,” Weber said.

Grim also pointed to instances when Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi clashed over the New York congresswoman’s use of “Abolish ICE” and her participation in a sit-in to push for Democrats to focus more on climate change — two things the journalist said led to “irreconcilable” differences between the Democratic leader and one of the party’s youngest members.

“While somebody like Obama wants to be seen as being all things to all people, Ocasio-Cortez actually thinks she can be all things to all people while leading a political revolution,” Grim wrote.

Grim also claims Ocasio-Cortez and Jayapal had a rough start to their relationship, as Jayapal was “firmly usurped” by Ocasio-Cortez as the most prominent pro-climate change Democrat. Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, told Grim in an interview that he and his member were called into a meeting with Jayapal, who said she “needed to keep her staff in line.” Chakrabarti said the meeting felt like they “went to the principal’s office” and that the Washington Democrat was “so annoyed” with Ocasio-Cortez’s antics.

Jayapal also complained to colleagues that Ocasio-Cortez had “very little track record of actually organizing” despite touting her record as an organizer, Grim claims.

Ocasio-Cortez’s steps to break away from her party began on day one. On her first day in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez and two other Democrats voted against their party on a rule that required new spending for tax cuts or entitlements to be offset by budget cuts or revenue increases.

“The gap between AOC’s power outside the Capitol and the display of it on day one inside could hardly have been greater. To reshape that landscape, she was rapidly sacrificing her relationships with colleagues,” Grim wrote, adding that Ocasio-Cortez had already “alienated” Pelosi and Jayapal and her vote on spending had “done it again with both.”

Grim said that Ocasio-Cortez attempted “personal warmth” toward colleagues in Congress, but it made them “more suspicious of her.”

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“Ocasio-Cortez’s curse was her desire to win consensus that she was there to help, coupled with her radical politics,” Grim wrote. “She wanted to remake the system and to be thanked for doing it.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment.