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Jen Psaki, President Biden’s former press secretary who now pontificates from her perch at MSNBC, complained that Democrats missed a “big opportunity” to apply lessons they should have learned from their 2024 election loss. Was Ms. Psaki upset that her party was not internalizing how out of touch the Democrat elites proved to be with ordinary Americans’ needs and priorities? Was she urging her party to reject left-wing, progressive ideology and identity politics and move more towards the political center instead? Not a chance.

Jen Psaki was upset that the House Democrats rejected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., whom Ms. Psaki called “one of the youngest, most media-savvy members of Congress,” to fill the top Democrat seat on the House Oversight Committee. Instead, they chose Congressman Gerry Connolly, whom Ms. Psaki described as a “much older member who was backed by Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.”

“Why does that matter?” asked Ms. Psaki, who recently accepted a five-year deal with MSNBC worth $30 million. “This is one of the few committees in Congress that actually generates national attention or media coverage. Under Jamie Raskin, it became a critical platform for countering Republican misinformation. And while I have deep, deep respect for Speaker Pelosi… and nothing against Congressman Conolly at all, this felt like an obvious chance to apply some of the lessons we should’ve learned from the November election.”

Other ultra-liberal media personalities and politicians agreed with Jen Psaki’s assessment, but they are all way off base.

Rewarding AOC with such “a critical platform” to broadcast her left-wing, progressive dogma is precisely the wrong lesson for the Democrats to glean from the November election if they want to win future elections. Following this Democratic-Socialist’s positions on such issues as open borders, climate change, anti-capitalism, defunding the police, censorship, and transgender activists’ demands is a prescription for more disasters at the polls.

Here is a sampling of AOC’s far-left opinions that clash sharply with what mainstream Americans believe:

Pro-open-borders AOC called the border wall that President-elect Trump was seeking money from Congress to build during his first administration “a monument to white supremacy.” She denounced detention centers  housing some illegal immigrants on the southern border as “concentration camps.”

Green New Deal fanatic AOC said in response to concerns about how to pay for the drastic actions that she was demanding to address climate change: “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it? This is the war — this is our World War II.”

Democratic-Socialist AOC declared: “To me, capitalism is irredeemable.”

Anti-police AOC dismissed proposed cuts to the New York Police Department as insufficient, proclaiming: “Defunding police means defunding police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math. The fight to defund policing continues.”

Self-appointed arbiter of truth AOC urged a clamp down on free speech: “We’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation.”

Trans justice advocate AOC posted on X her support for allowing biological boys to play in biological girls’ sports based on their gender identity: “Targeting trans children for playing sports makes all women, whether trans or cisgender, less safe.”

The Democrat establishment in the House won this skirmish against the left-wing base of their party by choosing an experienced, moderate Democrat over the base’s young star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the party’s House Oversight Committee leadership position. But as the old guard fades away, time and energy are on the side of the left-leaning activist Democrats who are pushing their progressive agenda. They will primary those Democrats they consider too moderate and strive to take over as many congressional leadership spots as they can.

The centrist Democrats who are trying to warn their party not to veer too far to the Left are viciously pilloried for their efforts. Congressman Seth Moulton from Massachusetts, for instance, has been the object of the Left’s ire for expressing common sense opinions that most Americans agree with but that do not adhere to the left-wing progressive ideology.

“We’ve worked so hard at becoming tolerant that we’ve become intolerant,” Rep. Moulton told Peter Savodnik, senior editor of The Free Press. He cited as one example the intolerance that trans activists and their advocates display towards anyone who questions the dogma that biological boys who identify as girls must be allowed to play in biological girls’ sports. Two-thirds of the American people oppose trans girls competing in biological girls’ sports. But self-righteous left-wing progressives do not care what the American people think. They care only about imposing their extremist ideology on everyone else.

For simply raising the trans athlete issue as a legitimate subject for a reasoned debate, left-wing progressives have smeared Rep. Moulton as a “Nazi cooperator,” “transphobic,” and “offensive.” There have also been demands for him to resign.

The Left’s intolerance of any point of view other than their own also extends to other major public policy issues. “Certain members of our party preached defunding the police, and it turns out a lot of Americans want the police well funded to keep them safe,” Rep. Moulton said. “There were members of our party saying there were no problems at our southern border when, in fact, there was. Trying to wish it away wasn’t effective either.”

These are the sorts of lessons that Democrats should have learned from their crushing losses in the November election. Some Democrats do realize that their party is out of touch with the American people. But they are being outflanked by leftist progressive politicians and their friends in the media such as Jen Psaki who are determined to move the Democratic Party further and further leftward.