The Left has already turned on former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who recently renounced the Republican Party and endorsed Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden.
John Kasich, who did not deliver Ohio to Dems, is saying folks like @IlhanMN, who did deliver Minnesota, are the problem.
Please don’t take these people seriously and go back to celebrating and building power ? https://t.co/kXAv3UfmgQ
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 7, 2020
Kasich, who became a CNN analyst after exiting politics, found himself on the outs with many members of the party he just endorsed after blaming the far Left for the loss of several Democrat-occupied congressional seats last Tuesday.
““The best thing that’s happened to Joe Biden is the fact that the United States Senate is either going to be Republican or very close,” Kasich told CNN last week.
“The far left can push him as hard as they want—and frankly, the Democrats have to make it clear to the far left that they almost cost him this election,” he added.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., immediately hit back and pointed out that Kasich couldn’t even “deliver Ohio” to the Democratic Party.
The onetime battleground state, previously won by Barack Obama, was not considered a tossup this year, delivering strong support to President Donald Trump instead.
Ocasio–Cortez has been critical of the Democratic Party’s decision to embrace Kasich for several months now, blasting his speech during the Democratic National Convention.
She, herself, was relegated at the convention to the noticeably minor role of nominating losing candidate Bernie Sanders and was given only two minutes of airtime.
It’s great that Kasich has woken up &realized the importance of supporting a Biden-Harris ticket. I hope he gets through to GOP voters.
Yet also, something tells me a Republican who fights against women’s rights doesn’t get to say who is or isn’t representative of the Dem party. https://t.co/38h6JGpbMj
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 17, 2020
Similarly, a columnist for The Nation, a far-left publication, rebuked Kasich for trashing progressives and argued that Ocasio–Cortez has been far more effective at mobilizing voters than Kasich.
The former Republican governor is nothing more than a “Republican grifter,” John Nichols wrote, whose only accomplishment is landing “a prime-time gig at last summer’s Democratic National Convention.”
Nichols called Kasich’s criticism of the Left “nonsense,” and to support his case he quoted Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“I hardly think someone with experience only in electing Republicans, someone whose own state went for Trump, is the most credible source for explaining what happened in a presidential election where Democrats flipped Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania,” Pocan said.
Similarly, Barbara Ransby, a professor of African–American studies at the University of Chicago, expressed frustration that Kasich had even been allowed to appear on CNN, considering he has “no credibility or following.”
How dare @cnn give platform 2 John Kasich, who has no credibility or following, as he lashes out at the very people who offer the most excitement, energy/ hope 4the Democratic Party @AOC @Ilhan @RashidaTlaib @RepJayapal @RepPressley Biden did not win this, movement organizers did
— Barbara Ransby (@BarbaraRansby) November 8, 2020
Nichols went on to argue that Democrats need to spend more time listening to “the Squad’s” progressives and less time listening to moderates like Kasich.
“Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and the movements they work with made meaningful contributions—unlike John Kasich—to swinging the battleground states that elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Nichols claimed.
“They’re the ones media outlets and Democratic strategists should be listening to,” he concluded.
