Future President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez* ruffled some feathers in a recent interview with this quote:
I asked her what she thought her role would be as a member of Congress during, for instance, a Joe Biden presidency. “Oh God,” she said with a groan. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.”
I thought in the spirit of Splinter (may it rest in hot takes), we could discuss it in our own newborn community.
She says literally anything true, and feathers get ruffled. She and Biden absolutely do not belong in the same party, and anyone in the center left will tell you so!
Of course, it’s not Biden saying that, right? If he was saying it, it would be more fuel to the “GET OUTTA OUR LANE, AOC” fire in the establishment Democrats. They’d flat out agree.
But it’s AOC rejecting Biden and the establishment, not the other way around, so of course they infantilize her and try to silence her. I mean, when will this broad shut up, amirite?
*Look, Ma, I’m trolling!
I’ve hit age 60, so I remember when all the bosses were men, and they each “had a girl” to do work for them. We women who struggled – and rose – in the workplace ranks in the 1970-2000’s had to juggle doing better than everyone else to get a lesser raise/promotion, stepping around patriarchy egos, and shouldering the most responsibility for a home and family. I LOVE these fierce young women who are moving past, well, the past. I want to tell them, “Hey, I’ve got your back. I vote. I contribute. And I am on your team.”
I am not old enough to remember that explicitly, but being closer to AOC’S age (still older though), it feels very much cathartic to me to watch her rile them up. Like every time they call her a child and she just shoots back and they get madder….it fuels me.
Middle-aged, straight, cis, white man here, and I’d vote AOC for president TOMORROW if I could. She is the future of the party, whether the corporatocracy likes it or not, and I hope she never shuts up.
Pressley/AOC 2024!
Lol I’d vote for her in a few more cycles just so she got some legislative experience under her belt. But yeah. Be my president please.
Warren/Castro 2020!
Warren/Castro 2024!
Castro/Pressley 2028!
Castro/Pressley 2032!
Pressley/AOC 2036!
Pressley/AOC 2040!
AOC/…uh…WHOMEVERTHEFUCK 2044!
As pointed out, she is factually correct.
The Democratic Party as a whole controls her fate as a politician (or at least…80% of it) so the roles she’s assigned in government come from on high. Pelosi and Biden already have no concern for “Left” issues, simultaneously ignoring them and viewing them as an active threat. If Biden wins the presidency, the Democratic Party is going to take it as a mandate from the American people that no one cares about that “hopey-changey” nonsense.
As long as we have a two party system, being a Democratic or a Republican is going to mean that ideology is all over the place, ex. Joe Manchin to AOC. There won’t be any consequences for not towing the party line, there won’t be any need to form coalitions and make concessions. AOCs and Bernie Sanders will be accused of not being “real” Democrats so they shouldn’t be listened to or use the system to their advantage. But DINOs will keep getting away with their own schemes.
I can’t wrap my mind around why the establishment Democrats thinks it’s a good idea to tell 25-30% of their voting base to fuck off.
In general, one thing that annoys me in this conversation is that, numbers- wise, we need BOTH the left and the centrists. So there is no one way forward. The establishment is lucky that AOC is playing for their team.
Because that’s what their corporate overlords want them to do.
Oh sure – but they never outright tell other voting blocs to fuck off, even if they don’t plan on doing anything for them (like black voters!). They listen and pretend they’re going to do things and try to win those people over. Not yell at them and threaten them and then demand votes (I mean I know some people do that to black voters, but it’s not like party leaders saying that shit like they do with progressives).
Troodat, although I’d argue that they’ve probably never felt as threatened before as they do by AOC and what she represents. In fact, I…
Wait a minute. What is this feeling inside of me? I feel something in the cold shriveled black mass in the center of my chest. I felt this once before, in 2008, but it turned out to be nothing…
I’ve been fighting that feeling too hahaha. Ever since the emergence of The Squad (ugh fuck that name).
Telling the Left off worked so well in 2016! Who else to blame for Hillary’s lost but Leftists?
It has been completely baffling for the Dem strategy be NOT to court the left because they are so sure that they got “this” and “this” is working out so well for the people that matter. We’ve speculated all year why Pelosi feels the need to chide/dump on members of her own party in a way that is not in service of whipping votes. Why come after the freshmen? Why go after Jerry Nadler? Is this the tough unity that the Dems are aspiring to, versus actual unity? The GOP may be a soup of unusuals but they’ve been getting things done for 10 plus years because they don’t give an eff.
It’s just mystifying that there’s some numbers guy political consultant being paid large amounts to advise the Dems that the energized base post 2018 is not where they should be aiming their focus.
You’re absolutely right – it’s the same people constantly harping on people for not being “unified.” It is mystifying.
No matter who wins, at least AOC is the voice of the true left. I love that she’s brash and vocal and gives zero fucks about what anyone thinks. I love that she’s a young woman of color and pisses off the rethugs with every single thing she says. It’s about time the dems had someone with some balls.
Agree. I really want to see a progressive president but we have tremendous opportunity to multiply AOCs around the country in blue districts (and then move the Overton window to help the purple ones and red ones eventually). She should never shut up.
“then move the Overton window to help the purple ones and red ones”
…can I get an amen?
…or possibly an “eh, men?”
Ay, man!
i’ve got an “oh, you men”
For me it’s equal parts bravery and intelligence.
The line of attack on her from the DC club is a patronizing combination of her being naive, uninformed, and unintelligent. You saw this in full force when she helped fight off the Amazon in NYC plan. But time has shown that she wasn’t just brave to take on the usual forces of corporate-government back scratching — she was smart.
One of the battles the left needs to win is not just establishing how degenerate the right has become, but how stupid they are. A huge opportunity was lost during the past decade in degrading the intellectual credibility of the GOP on economics and foreign policy, which has led to their renewal in the wake of their disasters of Iraq and the great recession. AOC helps because she raises issues where the GOP (and establishment Dems) aren’t just wrong on moral grounds but on the facts and reason.
Yeah I think that’s true. And it’s smart intellectually and politically. People are hungry to counter the establishment and while there is no use in courting the right wing ones, there is also no downside to establishing that the elites don’t have people’s backs.
If some voters can be reached past their “Dems=socialists!” brainwashing, I think AOC has been a great example of how to show that liberal policies can be a much more real net benefit to the vast majority of the population versus allowing the worst aspects of unfettered greed/capitalism to continue. Her questioning of a defense contractor over these clutch discs was a fantastic way to say, “This is how we can pay for the policies proposed in the Green New Deal, and the citizens would benefit from spending millions of dollars on aiding people rather than getting gouged by weapons manufacturers and other greedy assholes.”
This was good Splinter.
Biden stated back in July that AOC is more liberal than what he expects a lot of American congressional districts would elect; that congresspeople like AOC are “the exception rather than the rule”. He’s … possibly right, although it’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy because the DNC often encourages/promotes/endorses moderate Democrats, even in the primary stage of elections, and is inclined to support moderate incumbents rather than try to push for more liberal candidates in subsequent primaries.
Republicans have almost certainly become more conservative since the 2000s but they still win elections; there is almost no “too-far-right” for a candidate to be. That sounds like it’d result in Democrats being able to win by creating a left and center coalition but oh wait they basically have created that coalition and it’s just really bad at beating a much more united Right.
Couldn’t agree more. I think Biden is right – but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to move the window. The conservatives have pushed right. We can push left.