Pritzker And Ocasio-cortez: A Billionaire And A Former Bartender Emerge As Trump Resistance Leaders

The billionaire heir and the former bartender.

Many Democrats have been in and out of the spotlight as the party looks for effective counters to President Donald Trump and his second administration. But two disparate figures, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have seen their national profiles rise by delivering messages that excite a demoralized and fractured party.

The governor, a 60-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, and the congresswoman, the 35-year-old with working-class roots, both won their first elections in 2018. Both have urged mass resistance and accused their party of not fighting more. Each has stood out enough to draw sharp retorts from Trump loyalists.

But as messengers, Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez could not be more different. And their arguments, despite some overlap, are distinct enough to raise familiar questions for Democrats: Should they make their challenges to Trump about threats to democracy and national stability, as Pritzker has done, or portray him as a corrupt billionaire exacerbating an uneven economy, as Ocasio-Cortez does? And beyond the message itself, what qualities should the best messenger have?

What links them, said one prominent Democrat, is "assertiveness."