Sen. Elizabeth Warren told Time this week that the future of America will be teeming with “millions” of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s supporters.
The Massachusetts Democrat contributed to the magazine’s list of 100 influential people on Wednesday by casting her colleague as the future of the party.
“Her commitment to putting power in the hands of the people is forged in fire,” she wrote of the New Yorker. “Coming from a family in crisis and graduating from school with a mountain of debt, she fought back against a rigged system and emerged as a fearless leader in a movement committed to demonstrating what an economy, a planet and a government that works for everyone should look like.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told Time national correspondent Charlotte Alter that although people talk about factions within the modern Democratic Party, the real divide is a generational one.
“The America we grew up in is nothing like the America our parents or our grandparents grew up in,” she said. “We were born after the Cold War. We were children — literal children — during the Clinton administration, so the prosperity of the Clinton administration and like the surplus and all this other stuff … it’s like right up there with like [the kid’s snacks] Dunk-a-roos or, whatever, fruit gushers.”
Ms. Warren, however, does not see the generational disconnect as an obstacle to her political success.
“A year ago, she was taking orders across a bar,” she said. “Today, millions are taking cues from her. She reminds all of us that even while greed and corruption slow our progress, even while armies of lobbyists swarm Washington, in our democracy, true power still rests with the people. And she’s just getting started.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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