Ayanna Pressley Calls Out Dems: ‘Do Black Lives Only Matter in Election Years?’

Rep.-elect Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) called out establishment Democrats and donors on Tuesday for only caring about “black lives” in election years.

BuzzFeed reported that Pressley, according to an audio recording the outlet obtained, said she was relaying concerns from an activists at one of her hearings on gun violence: “Do black lives only matter in election years when our votes are at stake?”

Black Democrats, especially black women who have made up the party’s spine, have often complained that Democrats take their votes for granted and ignore issues that matter to them even after the party’s most loyal foot soldiers deliver victories.

Their complaints are similar to those made by working-class conservatives against corporatist and establishment Republicans who use them for votes only to push globalist and Wall-Street-centric policies, like massive amnesty deals and increases in various guest-worker visas, that are against the interests of the party’s most loyal and reliable working-class voters.

Speaking to donors in Washington, D.C., Pressley reportedly pushed donors to work “together to make a lasting, transformative change.”

Like Rep-elect. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Pressley knocked off a longtime incumbent white Democrat (Rep. Michael Capuano) in a primary. And she reportedly told donors “that the party needs to figure out how best to support women candidates of color, like herself and other newly elected members of Congress,” like Ocasio-Cortez and Reps.-elect Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

“I know, given the new people that we engaged in democracy, that we have restored hope for many,” she reportedly added. “We have given hope to many and we must do everything we can to keep that hope.”

According to BuzzFeed, Pressley’s speech “garnered cheers and standing applause” while it also caused some people to sit “back with their arms crossed.”

“Those young people are demanding and expecting more from me,” Pressley said. “And I owe it to them. I ran to fight for the ignored, the left out, and the left behind. And that is not only true for the electorate. Together we’ll do that work beginning with our own party.”

Taking a page from Tea Party conservatives who successfully primaried moderate Republicans in safe red distcicts, the left-wing Justice Democrats vowed after the 2018 midterm elections to primary even more incumbent Democrats “who are demographically and ideologically out-of-touch with their districts” to elect more left-wing candidates like Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, and Omar to Congress.