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Why AOC Needs to Apologize For Her Infamous DNC Speech

She has the potential to unify the left in 2028—if she addresses her decision in 2024 to carry water for people committing the most severe crime of the 21st century.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks on the first day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 19, 2024.

The failure to field a genuine left-wing challenger to Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary was one of the greatest strategic missteps from the organized left in our lifetime. We did not have a positive, unifying vision for our movement going into an era-defining election. Instead, we set ourselves up to stumble blindly through an election between a rudderless, impotent Democratic administration unflinchingly supporting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, and a Trump administration that promised to strip the copper wire out of our country on behalf of the capitalist class while terrorizing and deporting workers. With no viable alternatives, the organized left struggled to find its footing between impossible options. Some called for an outright boycott of the elections, while others tried to find ways to support Kamala Harris in hopes of preventing Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Perhaps the highest-profile intervention from the pro-Harris wing of the left came when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke passionately in support of Harris at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The speech, which was rapturously received by the crowd, was a potent symbol of AOC’s newfound power within the party. But it also contained a moment that still haunts AOC to this day—her infamous and false declaration that Harris and Biden were “working tirelessly” to end the genocide in Gaza.

I wrote about my feelings of shock at the time, and I was not alone in having a strong reaction to AOC’s speech. While reasonable minds could (and did) disagree about the strategy of endorsing Harris, it was a betrayal for a politician widely seen as the standard-bearer for the democratic socialist bloc in Congress to lie to the public and claim that the very people perpetrating a genocide were actually “working tirelessly” to stop it.

To this day, this is probably the single biggest black mark on AOC’s otherwise solid record on Palestine. According to IMEU, she is rated among the highest in Congress in taking positive actions for Palestinian rights, making her choice to carry water for Biden/Harris in this way even more baffling. And, amid increasing hype for a potential AOC presidential run in 2028, it is a moment that has proven very difficult for many on the left to forgive. AOC has never addressed or apologized for her decision to cover for the pro-genocide wing of her party. For her sake, and for the sake of the left’s political future, she needs to do both.

I am one of the many people who hope that AOC will run and win in 2028, but it does not do anyone, including her, any favors to sweep this lingering sense of betrayal under the rug. One of the reasons she matters to us so much is that when she speaks, people—including, crucially, people beyond the left’s current base—listen. The reason they listen is that AOC is willing to speak truth to power and be a firebrand on behalf of working people. But in her DNC speech, she weakened that connection by carrying water for the people committing the most severe crime of the 21st century.

With the 2028 election coming up, it is urgent that AOC make this right. Palestine is the defining issue of........

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