After a disastrous election for Democrats that saw Republicans secure the presidency, House, and Senate, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is urging her party to change course, including moving away from “Obama-era insiders” who may be brought back to unify the party.
In a post on X Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez said, “A lot of people want to bring Obama-era insiders back for party building purposes. While those folks ran successful presidential campaigns, they also oversaw some of the largest downballot losses in modern times. Party building is different. Look to people w/ recent successes.”
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been close to the Trump transition process, said in a reply to the post, “Good idea.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s comments are in response to Democratic strategist David Axelrod floating Rahm Emanuel as a potential chairman of the Democratic National Committee as the DNC is seeking a rebranding and a new chairman since current Chairman Jaime Harrison is not expected to seek a second term.
Speaking on his podcast Hacks on Tap, Axelrod said, “If they said, ‘Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?’ I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee.”
Axelrod and Emanuel both served in the first Obama administration, with Axelrod as senior adviser and Emanuel as chief of staff for two years. Emanuel is currently the U.S. ambassador to Japan.
In an earlier post on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez linked to a report of the Axelrod comments, characterizing them as a “disease in Washington of Democrats who spend more time listening to the donor class than working people. If you want to know the seed of the party’s political crisis, that’s it.”
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“The DNC needs an organizer who gets people. Not someone who sends fish heads in the mail,” she added, referencing how, early in his career, Emanuel once sent a message to a pollster via a dead fish.
The House Democrat’s criticism of various prominent figures of the first Obama administration also follows many appearances by both Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama on the campaign trail for Vice President Kamala Harris, which ultimately ended in disappointment as Harris was routed by President-elect Donald Trump.