AOC and Hillary Clinton lead the new and old guard of Democratic women on first night of DNC for Harris
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton represented the old and new guard of Democratic women to push for Kamala Harris on the first night of the party’s convention as the vice president seeks to become the first female president.
The dual speeches showed an effort to unite the party’s establishment with its progressive insurgent wing.
Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat and self-proclaimed democratic socialist, received ovation after ovation and chants of her initials “AOC” as she praised President Joe Biden, Harris, and her running mate Tim Walz of Minnesota as she lambasted former president Donald Trump.
Ocasio-Cortez sought to tie her own background as a bartender before she entered politics with Harris’s working-class background.
“I am here tonight because America has before us a rare and precious opportunity,” she said. “In Kamala Harris, we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class because she is from the middle class.”
Ocasio-Cortez, a supporter of Palestinian rights, also sought to assure progressives that Harris shared their concerns amid the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
“She is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home,” she said. Ocasio-Cortez also blasted for Trump for trying to make himself seem like a vanguard of the working-class.
“We know that Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing palms of his Wall Street friends,” she said. “And I for one am tired of hearing about how a 2 bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day."
Ocasio-Cortez’s star-turn comes four years after