In March, six days after Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and nine of his colleagues voted with Republicans to keep the government open, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vented their frustrations in Las Vegas before thousands of people.
“This isn’t just about Republicans. We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us too,” Ocasio-Cortez said then. “But what that means is that we as a community must choose and vote for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class.”
Seven months later, their position has become the party’s consensus.
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps the two most high-profile voices in the progressive movement, have mobilized their supporters to keep up the pressure on Democratic leaders. It was, in part, because of that highly visible groundswell from the left that led Schumer to change course this September and jump with both feet into the current shutdown fight.
In one
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