THE O
The newest members of the Squad, in their own words By Alexander Sammon
One of the most consequential developments in the last two years of Democratic politics began on Instagram. Shortly after the 2018 midterm elections, Congresswoman-elect Alexandria OcasioCortez (D-NY) posted a photo of herself at a new-member orientation seated alongside fellow freshwomen Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), with a caption: “Squad.” A new locus of Democratic politics, a shorthand for a youthful left-wing electoral force, and a fresh archenemy of the Republican Party was born. Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib, and Pressley were not a fully formed progressive phalanx before arriving in D.C. They ran on different priorities and won their elections in different ways. Pressley and AOC dispatched old white machine incumbents with decades of seniority in the Northeast; Tlaib and Omar triumphed in contested primaries for open seats in the Midwest. But they were all young women of color, who had campaigned on progressive issues and brought with them a fearlessness and a proximity to movement activism that wasn’t common in Democratic politics, even among progressives. One month later, that tendency was on display when AOC joined a peaceful sit-in
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in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, demanding bold movement on climate. The Speaker was not amused. “AOC and her group,” Pelosi later told 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl, is “like, five people.” AOC’s response: “All right, let’s go get more.” Now, just over two years later, reinforcements have arrived. With the election of Missouri’s Cori Bush, New York’s Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones, and Illinois’s Marie Newman, all progressives with activist ties who either felled moderate incumbents or pushed them into retirement, the 117th Congress’s freshman class features four more Democrats with a similar mission as the Squad. All four ran on Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and a $15-per-hour minimum wage. Bush and Bowman are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. While the original Squad entered with a wave of new Democrats, many of them moderates, and swept into an undisciplined Congressional Progressive Caucus, this year’s freshmen supplement that progressive bloc, with a reformed and more militant CPC. After several moderates lost re-election, progressives now account for a larger number and even larger percentage
of a party with a razor-thin House majority. As it stands now, just five courageous progressives can derail any unfavorable Democratic proposal. The CPC is now the largest and most powerful caucus within the party, sporting 94 members in total. Still, progressive legislation remains a difficult climb, for various reasons. Speaker Pelosi maintains control of the Chamber with a historically unilateral grip. Just as five progressives can stop legislation in the House, so can five of the surviving moderate Democrats. A surprising Senate majority will give Democrats a shot at real legislative advances, but a 50-50 Senate (including intransigent Democratic centrists like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin) is likely to frustrate the big-ticket policy commitments these reps ran on. And progressive voters, after two years of optimism, are getting antsy, and want to see some results, which has resulted in some ill-gotten factionalism and a confounding push for a Medicare for All floor vote. This means that these new reps, like the Squad before them, will have to find ways to fulfill their goals, with different tactics and approaches as politicians than they had as
