Democrat from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has warned that America is entering an era of ‘fascism and authoritarianism’ after the 2011 elections Donald Trump to the White House on Tuesday.
The House representative made the comment Wednesday during an hour-long conversation with supporters, which she broadcast through her official Instagram account.
Trump was elected president with at least 295 Electoral College votes, according to The Associated Press. The news agency also reported that he was leading in Arizona and Nevada, the only two states it has yet to call. He is also on his way to winning the popular vote. Harris conceded defeat in a speech Wednesday in which she said Americans “must accept” the election results.
On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez saidI believe that we are in a time when, let’s say equals, in history there are mass movements of people mobilizing to protect each other in times of fascism and authoritarianism. And this is the era we are about to enter.
“Donald Trump has spoken about using the military against American citizens he considers his domestic political enemies. Authoritarians and people with whom he has close ties and strongmen abroad – in such regimes it is not uncommon to jail political dissidents or legislative opponents. This is the world we can very realistically enter.”
Newsweek contacted the Trump campaign and Ocasio-Cortez’s office via email outside of regular business hours.
In October, Trump said the presidential election could be under threat “the enemy from within” during a Fox News appearance.
“I think the bigger problem is the enemy within,” he said. “We have some very bad people, some sick people, radical left-wing lunatics. And it should be handled very easily by, if necessary, by the National Guard, or, if really necessary, by the military.”
Ocasio-Cortez then defended the vice president’s campaign performance Kamala Harris and to suggest that her defeat could have been the result of ‘misogyny’.
She said, “I think it’s important to also state here that Kamala Harris has been given an assignment that no other person in American history has been given. To build a presidential campaign in 90 to 100 days… huge fascist threat that had been campaigning for eight years and primed the pump…
“This race may not have been decided by any individual factor, but misogyny is very real in this country. If Kamala Harris was Tom Harris, we might have a different outcome today, I don’t know.”
The New York representative, who was reelected on Tuesday with nearly 70 percent of the vote, added that her party must “get back to our roots as champions of the working class.”
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Wednesday also saw Senator Bernie Sandersan independent affiliated with the Democratic Partyreleases a statement suggesting that Harris’s defeat in the presidential election was the result of her party losing the working class ‘abandoned’.
He said: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party that has failed the working class finds that the working class has failed them.
“First it was the white working class, and now it’s also Latino and black workers.”
These comments sparked an angry response from Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison who she described as “straight up BS.”
Harrison added, “Biden was the most pro-worker president of my lifetime: He saved Union pensions, created millions of good-paying jobs and even marched in a picket line.”