As Kamala Harris masks her radicalism, AOC’s speech showed Democrats’ true face

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the stage at the Democraﷺtic National Convention a little af🎐ter 9:30 p.m. Monday, smack dab in the middle of primetime.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, was relegated to a speaking slot outside of the coveted broadcast window nearly two hours later.

The striking contrast of their scheduling said a lot — not just about Biden’s and AOC’s personal trajectories, but about the ideological course of the Democratic Party.

In the days since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the Democrats’ presidential nominee, we’ve seen a concerted effort to recast Harris as the kind o♔f candidate that moderates can unreservedly pull tꦑhe lever for.

Within hours of Biden stepping aside 🍒and endorsing her, The New York Times publish🥃ed a puff piece explaining “How Kamala Harris Rose as a California Moderate.”

Harris’ communications team has been hard at work slowly recanting the radical platform she ran for the White House on back in 2019.

And her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has had his far-lef♐t record papered over by hi🐭s Midwestern affect.

But the optics of Monday night betrayed the true nature of both the Democratic Party a🦩nd its standard-bearer.

This is not a party trying to persuade mode൲rate voters, appeal to them or make concessions to their values.

Instead, it’s trying to dupe them.

Ocasio-Cortez was treated to a hero’s welcome on the stage Monday, and her speech — which featured plenty of her signature economic demagoguery condemning “two-bit union busters” and lauding “working people,” but also saw her tout Harris’ “tireless” work toward a euphemistic “cease-fire” in Gaza — received rave reviews from the media chorus.

“Once an outsider, AOꦉC now 𝐆has the entire DNC hall chanting her name,” HuffPost’s Daniel Marans .

At The Nation, that she had cemented herself as part of “th๊e future of the Democratic Party.”

“I think the young congresswoman from New ꦯYork, Alexandria Ocasio-Cor🗹tez, may have a prominent future in American politics,” in what was meant as a wry understatement.

“AOC is the closest thing to Obama level speechmaking talent in Democratic politics toda𓃲y,” .

“Damn,” o🌳ffered O✃bama alum and Pod Save America bro , “AOC knows how to give a speech.”

O🐻f course, the fact that Ocasio-Cortez is enjoying a coming-out party of sortsꩲ at a convention celebrating Harris’ ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket should come as no surprise.

Five years ago, Harris campaigned for the🧜 presidency as an AOC-style Democrat, endorsing Medicare-for-A𓆉ll and the Green New Deal, flirting with the Defund the Police and Abolish ICE movements, and showering Ocasio-Cortez herself with praise.

Asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s support for income tax rates of up to 80%, Harris gushed that the congresswom🍷an was “challenging the status quo,” calling the effort “fantastic.”

Even after her own White House hopes had gone down in flames, Harris kept up the bit, urging Americans to send their hard-earn♉ed cash — in the midst of a pandemic — to a bail fund that later sprung murderers and rapists from prison.

It’s been this new Harris campaign’s operating theory that it can put all of the veep’s past leftist foolishness behind her by ne💫ver letting her be pinned down about the kinds of policies she would implement from the Oval Office.

That’s why nearly a month after becoming the presumptive nominee, her website still says nothing about what she hopes to accomplish as president, and why she’s yet to sit down for a single major interview or stand fꦕo🉐r a single press conference. 

But ꦓAOC’s address — and Democrats’ celebration of it — has betrayed the party’s true direction with Harris at the helm.

That the proud socialist’s shi👍ning moment came at the expense of Biden was doubly symboli🔯c.

In 2020, Biden was the only viable non-radical can𒅌didate to seek the Democratic nomination.

Four years later, his presidency and his legacy have been undone — in no small part because🌃 he embraced an unpopular progressive agenda that has produced chaos abroad and suffering at home.

And as a final indignity, Biden was kept off the sta🔜ge until everyone but the true Dem diehards had turned off their TVs, so that his party could begin to lay the groundwork for their new, far-left wing to take the reins.

The o𝄹nly question that remains is whether Americans will heed the warning signs before their eyes — or let Democrats off the hook for hiding their r🤡adicalism behind a smokescreen of platitudes.

Isaac Schorr is a staff writer at Mediaite.