Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used the one minute she was given to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday to celebrate a “mass people’s movement” that was “striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny and homophobia.”
“A movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many,” the progressive congresswoman from New York said in a video as the convention was held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. “In a time when millions of people in the United States are looking for deep, systemic solutions to our crises of mass evictions, unemployment and lack of health care, en el espíritu del pueblo and out of a love for all people, I hereby second the nomination of Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont for president of the United States of America.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s DNC speech served to formally nominate Sanders as a Democratic presidential nominee ― a nod to the over 1,000 delegates Sanders won during the primaries.
Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most prominent voices on the left wing of the Democratic Party, was given just one minute for her taped remarks. Her appearance at the DNC was likely meant to help fire up support for presidential nominee Joe Biden among younger, more progressive voters.
She had initially endorsed and campaigned for Sanders in the Democratic presidential primaries, but after the senator dropped out of the race in April, she said she’d vote for Biden. The following month, Ocasio-Cortez — a vocal advocate for a Green New Deal — was appointed to co-lead a Biden-Sanders joint task force on climate policy.
Sanders submitted two people to speak on his behalf for the DNC nomination Tuesday: Bob King, former president of the United Auto Workers union, and Ocasio-Cortez.
Ocasio-Cortez, who is Latina, spoke Spanish in her remarks, greeting people with “bienvenidos” (“welcome”) and ending by nominating Sanders “en el espíritu del pueblo” (“in the spirit of the people”).