If New York Democrats don’t gerrymander the seat held by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., into oblivion in 2020, they’ll pit her against a serious primary challenger, and all because she helped torpedo the Amazon HQ2 deal.
The freshman congresswoman may be enjoying a victory lap now following the online retailer’s announcement that it will no longer build part of its second headquarters in the Big Apple, taking with it an estimated 25,000 jobs, but it has come at a serious personal cost for her. Ocasio-Cortez’s anti-Amazon activism has put her at odds with powerful Empire State Democrats in both the establishment and progressive camps; the sort of people who won’t hesitate to mount a well-funded primary challenge or eliminate her seat altogether when district lines are redrawn following the 2020 census.
“[A] small group [of] politicians put their own narrow political interests above their community — which poll after poll showed overwhelmingly supported bringing Amazon to Long Island City — the state’s economic future and the best interests of the people of this state,” Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday.
He added that the “small group,” which includes Democratic state Sen. Michael Gianaris, whose opposition to HQ2 was rivaled only by Ocasio-Cortez, “should be held accountable for this lost economic opportunity.”
Considering Cuomo has an infamously vindictive mean streak, his threat may actually mean carry some weight.
On Thursday, after Amazon announced its withdrawal from the deal, citing hostility from state and municipal leaders, the representative from New York’s 14th Congressional District took credit for the proposal’s demise.
Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world. https://t.co/nyvm5vtH9k
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 14, 2019
One day later, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who also has a reputation for being vindictive, tore into the congresswoman’s remarks, expressing his disdain in no uncertain terms.
“I came up watching the mistakes of progressives of the past, unfortunately, what happened in this city when it almost went to bankruptcy in the 1970s,” the self-described progressive fumed. “I saw all the times progressives did not show people effective governance and all the times progressives made the kinds of mistakes that alienated working people.”
He added, “Working people are very smart and very discerning. They want jobs, they want revenue, they want the kinds of things that government can do for them. They understand they have to be paid for.”
Another Democratic progressive, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who represented the 14th District for 20 years before taking over New York’s 12th district, also hit Ocasio-Cortez Friday for opposing the Amazon project.
“My constituents want jobs. [25,000] minimum. It would have been many, many more. 25,000 jobs at $150,000 minimum for the job. Many entry-level jobs would have been many, many more,” she said in a CNN interview. “It used to be that we would protest wars. Now we’re protesting jobs? People are complaining about jobs coming to your – this is the best – let me tell you … if this had gone through, it would have made overnight New York City the high tech capitol of the east coast. The most important job center for tech jobs.”
Then, there are the old guard Democrats and pro-Democratic voices in news media and politics who’ve added to the chorus of anti-Ocasio-Cortez criticism.
Former Obama adviser and New York financier Steven Rattner, for example, tweeted in response to the congresswoman’s football-spiking tweet that “This may be the most economically ignorant statement I have ver [sic] read.”
This may be the most economically ignorant statement I have ver read. https://t.co/6iURWXEaq9
— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) February 15, 2019
Over at MSNBC, the network for Democratic consensus, contributor Donny Deutsch claimed the congresswoman is “extremely dangerous,” adding that, “We are in a dangerous place. And if people in the party don’t start to speak up against people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is young and dynamic but does not know what she’s talking about … they’re going to hand the presidency back to Donald Trump.”
Whether Ocasio-Cortez’s opposition to the deal was more meaningful than Gianaris’ is debatable. What’s not debatable, however, is that the congresswoman made herself an extremely visible opponent of the HQ2 proposal, meaning she also put an extremely visible target on her back.
There will be political payback for the Democrats who broke ranks to oppose the Amazon headquarters, and it will almost certainly involve vindictive lawmakers coming for Ocasio-Cortez’s seat. How they’ll choose to do that is anyone’s guess. It could look like a primary challenge from a candidate with the full backing of establishment and progressive Democrats looking to reassert their place at the top of the state’s Democratic Party. It could also look like the elimination of Ocasio-Cortez’s district following the 2020 census. It will all depend on what her intra-party enemies believe they can get away that won’t also enrage and alienate her loyal base.
Whatever the method they choose, the one thing that seems clear is this: The Democrats who went to extreme lengths to court Amazon are not going to take the deal’s failure lying down. It’s not their style. Also, they don’t have much of a choice. It’s either retaliation against the loudest and most visible opponent of Amazon deal or slink away quietly to await yet another public humiliation from a 29-year-old freshman congresswoman. Now, it’s possible the pro-Amazon Democrats refrain from moving to have Ocasio-Cortez’s voice eliminated. It’s possible she and like-minded progressives go on to stage a successful takeover of the Democratic Party.
Personally, though, I have money on the likelihood that New York lawmakers who’ve been in politics since before Ocasio-Cortez was even born stage a retaliatory response to her helping to kill their multi-billion-dollar deal with Amazon. She may ultimately hang on to her seat in 2020, but she’ll have to fight like hell to keep it.
