Former staffers of the radically progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have launched a political organization whose goal is to target moderate Democrats in the hopes of clearing the way for far-left legislation.
The No Excuses PAC was founded by Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, and by the congresswoman’s former communications director Corbin Trent. The third founder of the PAC is Zack Exley, who also co-founded Justice Democrats with his two political partners.
No Excuses has explicitly stated that one of their goals is to replace Democrats Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona with far-left politicians who will help them bring about their radically liberal agenda.
Manchin and Sinema have broken with Democrats on a number of issues, stopping them from passing legislation that Republicans object to. They have also been keeping the legislative filibuster alive, much to the dismay of their fellow Democrats.
“The only real way to pressure any of these folks and hold them accountable to their promises is to threaten their power, and threaten the seat that they hold and threaten their re-election,” Chakrabarti told Politico.
“We sort of have this theory that the voters in Arizona and the voters in West Virginia would care more about action,” he continued, “they care more about jobs and their community and money in their pockets than they do about an arcane Senate rule called the filibuster.”
Manchin and Sinema aren’t up for reelection, but Chakrabarti thinks the group needs to start focusing on unseating them now, since it will take time to successfully do so.
“Finding and training good candidates takes time,” said Chakrabarti. “Doing that in two years when you already need a campaign started is very hard.”
On Tuesday, No Excuses sent an email to supporters calling on them to “Help us find the next AOC to replace Manchin and Sinema.” It went on to ask their followers to “run ads telling Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema that they will be primaried and replaced in 2024 if they join with Republicans to shrink their own party’s pandemic, climate, and economic plans.”
Both Manchin and Sinema’s offices refused to comment on the situation.
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