Whoever wins the Democratic nomination next summer, President Donald Trump has already made it clear that his real opposition is the Squad: an informal clique of four freshman congresswomen who have become an avatar of the progressive resistance in Washington. “The ‘Squad’ is a very Racist group of troublemakers who are young, inexperienced, and not very smart,” the president tweeted earlier this summer, after telling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley to “go back” to the “crime infested places from which they came.” (All but Omar, a Somali refugee, were born in the United States.)
It was a clarifying moment for American politics. Trump, with his ugly attack on four women of color, had exposed a vein of racism running through the Republican Party. But it also revealed the ways in which the idea of the Squad has obscured the distinctions between the women, their politics, and the ways in which they serve as a foil for the White House. “Do they share a common commitment to grassroots politics and a sense of being able to excite people outside the Beltway? Absolutely. I mean, they brought new energy and passion to Congress and a greater transparency,” Congressman Ro Khanna told me. “But in terms of their beliefs, in terms of their interests and in terms of their priorities, I think we ought to respect each of them as individual members with their own elected constituencies and their own perspectives.”
Trump has since zeroed in on Omar and Tlaib, both Muslims, even falsely accusing Omar of supporting al-Qaida. This week, he said the two congresswomen “hate Israel & all Jewish people” and encouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban them from entering the country. Netanyahu complied. Tlaib was later offered the use of a humanitarian visa to visit her grandmother in the West Bank, but she declined. (Trump aides have reportedly encouraged Trump to focus on Omar and Tlaib because they view the two as the most polarizing members of the Squad.)
Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley offered strong words of support for Omar and Tlaib. But the four do diverge on Israel—perhaps the most highly charged issue dividing the Democratic Party. At the end of last month, Omar, Tlaib, and Ocasio-Cortez were 3 of the 17 members of the House who voted “no” on a resolution opposing a Palestinian-led boycott of Israel, known as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. Pressley broke with the group, voting “yes” on the resolution, which overwhelmingly passed the House.
“No one on the Hill views them as the so-called squad. No one. Literally no one,” a senior Democratic staffer told me. “That’s only a media thing.” Instead, a second senior Democratic aide said, they are seen as “all very, very different, and they have different styles, different backgrounds, and they’re as different as people come.”
Those differences are evident in their biographies and identity, but also in the Squad members’ distinct legislative philosophies. Pressley, described as the most “establishment” member of the group, came up working for mainstream Democrats like John Kerry and Joe Kennedy II, and backed Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary. During her tenure on the Boston City Council, Pressley developed a reputation as an outsider who pushed for change from the inside.
Pressley “understands how to work within the system and use the levers of power,” a senior progressive staffer told me, describing the Massachusetts congresswoman’s approach as, “How do I get wins, piece by piece?” A number of sources I spoke with pointed to Pressley’s successful effort to get Congress to approve back pay for hundreds of thousands of low-wage federal contractors who went unpaid during the 35-day partial government shutdown earlier this year as evidence of her institutional savvy. And of the four congresswomen, Pressley has sponsored the highest number of bills.
Omar, meanwhile, has made foreign policy a key aspect of her congressional tenure. As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Minnesota congresswoman made news with her fierce questioning of Trump’s envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, who was embroiled in the Iran-Contra affair during the Ronald Reagan administration. “I fail to understand why members of this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful,” she said. When Abrams tried to respond, Omar sharply replied, “It wasn’t a question.” The moment distilled an acute willingness from Omar to challenge the foreign policy status quo in Washington.
While Omar’s tenure has largely been defined by her critics, who have accused her of perpetuating anti-Semitic tropes, she has also demonstrated political acumen in navigating Congress. A former Minnesota state legislator who is now the whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Omar was described to me by the first senior Democratic aide as a “pretty affable” member of Congress who “seems to go out of her way to build relationships with people.” She has sponsored 13 pieces of legislation since arriving on Capitol Hill, including her signature Student Debt Cancellation Act bill, which she introduced alongside CPC co-chair Pramila Jayapal and Senator Bernie Sanders.
Tlaib, who first made a splash with her call to “impeach the motherfucker,” just hours after she was sworn into Congress, has since struck a lower profile. Like Omar, Tlaib—a Palestinian-American—has drawn criticism for some of her foreign policy views, particularly on Israel. But many of the bills she has introduced have focused on issues pertinent to her district and constituents, such as legislation to overhaul the credit-reporting system—Michigan has some of the highest auto insurance rates in the country—and a bill to address concerns about the environmental hazard of petroleum coke, another big issue in her state.
If there were an outlier in the Squad, it would be Ocasio-Cortez. The New York freshman has introduced legislation to Congress, including her Green New Deal resolution, a bill, introduced with Sanders, to put a cap on credit card interest rates, and a fair-housing bill with Senator Kamala Harris. But there is also an impression that Ocasio-Cortez is operating under a different theory of change than the others. Ocasio-Cortez has held herself out as a national figure, using social media, interviews, and other appearances to leverage her star power.
“She is focused on changing the paradigm,” the senior progressive staffer explained. And in changing the national conversation around issues like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, Ocasio-Cortez’s impact has been undeniable. “I think that Ocasio-Cortez is very much wanting to use her bullhorn and talk about really changing the way we look at progressive issues in Congress, and not at all on the nuts and bolts of introducing things,” this person added. “It is super important and a super powerful theory of change, but it is very different from what Pressley is doing.”
Supporters of the “Squad” nickname, which Ocasio-Cortez brought into existence with a viral Instagram post last year, say the sobriquet has helped the four women to define and promote issues of importance to the progressive left. “They have been able to draw attention to critical issues when they have acted in concert; they have drawn attention to issues about the plight of children at the border, they have drawn attention to issues about climate change and the urgency of the Green New Deal; they have drawn attention to issues of racial justice,” Rep. Khanna told me. At the same time, he said, it’s a mistake to confuse them for some monolithic voting bloc. “I think it is important—just like press doesn’t lump in progressive caucus members all together, or the opponents don’t attack other members just based on a group identity that reporters dig deeper and that people treat each of them with the respect that they deserve—that they are individual members who represent important constituencies. I do think that that has been lost.”
Ironically the president’s attempts to divide and isolate them appear to have only made them stronger—and inspired them to have each other’s backs, even when they disagree. Trump’s attacks are “incidental to that original kinship, and Trump’s reaction only serves to strengthen their mutual support, meaning, and purpose they derive from their relationship,” a second senior progressive staffer told me. “I think that they see their very presence [in Congress] as representatives with unique backgrounds—and their very improbable ascents into this insular world—as important in why they connect with each other, and why they provide each other with support.”
Others say that after hundreds of years of white male hegemony in Congress, the media stardom of the Squad—a group of minority women—is overdue, and a necessary corrective to America’s attention-sucking president. “We really need their voices—though they are independent voices—to be amplified and showcased,” a Democratic congressional aide told me. “There may be jealousy, there may be pettiness, but they’re inspiring future generations of Americans who may not feel that they can participate in the Democratic process. That impression is starting to change because of the personas that they have individually cultivated.”