U.S. Rep Tom Suozzi (D-Long Island/Queens) called on far-left socialists to form their own party so that the Democratic Party can stop caving to their demands and go back to their center-left roots of helping people while supporting capitalism.
Suozzi made his remarks during a zoom press call yesterday where he announced he will decide by month’s end if he will run for governor next year.
“There’s no question that there is a well-organized, broad-based Democratic Socialist wing, far left-wing, whatever you want to call it that exists. I would ask them to form a new party instead of trying to change the Democratic Party from its tried and true proven, time-honored values,” said Suozzi.
“The bottom line is we have to be willing to stand up to the far left because that message from the democratic socialist wing of the Democratic Party is destroying the party. It’s not what the American people want. And it’s bad for America. And it’s not a winning message, but it’s not going to go away. We’re gonna keep on, you know, suffering the death by 1000 cuts, unless we stand up and speak out against those policies and those tactics,” he added.
Suozzi, the only mainstream Democrat to endorse Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in his successful write-in reelection campaign against democratic socialist and Democratic Party nominee India Walton, also took on Gov. Kathy Hochul and other gubernatorial candidates.
“As far as the people that are currently out there, or could potentially be out there. I’m not going to comment about anyone individually, but no candidate, none of them has stood up to the far left. They’re either outright embracing the far left or they’re playing footsie with the far left. Democrats are going to lose unless we stand up to the far left,” said Suozzi.
Suozzi, the former mayor of Glen Cove and Nassau County executive before being elected to Congress, said the fact that so many Republicans won in his district in Tuesday’s election is because of anger at the overreach policies of the far-left on such issues as bail reform.
“As a county executive, we had people in the jail who you know, had like $50 bail or $100 bail or $200 bail, they couldn’t afford to pay it. We actually got people who actually put the money up to get people out on bail. So that, you know, it doesn’t make sense that people should be in jail for that low-level offense because they can’t put up $50 or $100 or something. So there should be some type of bail reform, but it got too far. You can’t take away the authority from judges and you have to encourage the judges to do their jobs,” he said.
This story first appeared on PoliticsNY.com.
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