“In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.”
But being serious: AOC and politicians like her ARE us “doing it for ourselves.” For a very long time, the vast majority of politicians elected in the US have gotten there by getting the backing of wealthy capitalists. They don’t say “common sense things” because those things aren’t good for the people who helped them get elected. If they did say those things, those capitalists would not only stop funding them, but fund their opposition more. The result is a government comprised of politicians who very rationally don’t represent us. (That’s not to say some of them aren’t crazy on their own, but them being there is a rational outcome of self-interested actors.)
In order to get a politician who does and says things that are good for people, you need an absolutely massive grass roots effort to win an election against the might of rich donors. AOC was one of the notable times when we managed to do that. But this shows the limitations of that strategy within our current electoral system. For every AOC, Illhan Omar, or Mamdani, there are literally hundreds of more races which are still dominated by big money. It took not only a massive on the ground organizing effort locally, but also a lot of support from engaged people across the nation. And it’s way more costly for the average person to contribute to a campaign than it is for a billionaire. So even if a lot of us want this, it’s going to be really difficult to get a critical mass of wins to actually make an impact.
So that’s why they’re a big deal. They might be basic social democrats in some less corrupt countries, but here they are the few who are unbought. What they say is less relevant than the fact that they are able to say it at all.
Like it or not, people need political leaders to follow.
Also, AOC has the advantage of representing a district in New York City, the media capital of the world. She probably wouldn’t be as well known if she was the Congressmember from Topeka
These little town bluuues
Ain’t melting awaaay
I’m gonna be as bored as shit
In Topeeekaaa!Who knows who Joseph Crowley was?
Me: Ozzy sang about him!
Satan: It’s okay, Aleister, the moron didn’t mean anything by it. Look what you’ve done to my boy!
The Shadow knows…
yes
Because shes a populist who seems to fight for the things she preaches so people have built their hopes around her.
Lately she’s not been impressing me. When she first came on the scene, I was highly in favor of her. She’s slowly been worn down by Mama Bear Pelosi and that ilk.
It took her forever to find the right language for the genocide in Israel. She’s been slow or absent to speak up about what matters.
Nobody knew the threat of Hitler better than FDR. He wanted to start arming Britain and France the day the Nazis went into Poland, if not sooner. He had to wait for the right time.
Another example. Frederick Douglas was an escaped slave. He had suffered the horrors not just observed them. When the 1860 election came around, Douglas stepped away form the candidate who wanted instant Abolition and backed Abe Lincoln, who said he would keep slavery if it meant saving the Union.
Douglas decided it was smarter to back the winner and have the ear of a sitting President than it was to back someone he might have agreed with much more.
Politics is a game, learn the rules
Teach me.
Frederick Douglas was an escaped slave. He had suffered the horrors not just observed them. When the 1860 election came around, Douglas stepped away form the candidate who wanted instant Abolition and backed Abe Lincoln, who said he would keep slavery if it meant saving the Union.
Another good lesson is Obamacare. Even with majorities in both Houses, Obama barely managed to get the ACA passed. He thought that because he’d based his bill on Mitt Romney’s plan the GOP would embrace it. Instead they attacked full force. How Obama got it done is a master class in politics.
Black men are magic, got it.
I am sure if you try you can find a White politician somewhere in america.
And apologize deeply for scaring you by foring you to read about Black people outside of February.
Mamdani has set the standard. Read the room.
Mamdani literally, strategically avoided a fight with Hakeem Jefferies (as well as the NYPD) because it’s not the time.
When is? After Trump fabricates an emergency and subverts elections with some rebranding of martial law?
I wholeheartedly agree that “It’s not politically wise” is often a bullshit excuse.
However, when you are an openly socialist mayor in the process of overhauling numerous aspects of city laws and regulations, opening a war on additional fronts is risky. The US public is tired of more of the same, but that doesn’t mean we live in a post-Red-Scare society.
From what I understand, he’s focused on improving conditions in NYC to demonstrate that the policies and theory are effective and accumulate some public wins. If he doesn’t play nice in the meantime, national Democratic leaders might find ways to prevent him from getting many victories in NYC.
Similarly, going to war with the NYPD would likely lead to them purposely doing a shit job to make him and his policies look bad. Police unions have done it multiple times. Again, he’s looking accumulate good will first so that the public will stay on his side when the NYPD pulls that bullshit.
Normally, I’m in favor of organized labor… but using that power to protect corruption, racism, and the capital class basically makes them class traitors so get no sympathy from me.
No, no. When the country is even more in shambles, that’s when we’ll have the right where we want them. In this day and age of nearly instant information and social isolation you really gotta look to a time when newspapers, word-of-mouth, and rumors were the glue to a social hierarchy that was barely trying to remove slavery from its scaffolding. That’s what you really need to imitate, the past where brown people paid the heaviest price for not rocking the boat too much. Remember: Think of how much it upset the 1800s popular white vote, pay no attention to the popularity of progressivism, and don’t. rock. the boat.
Spoiler
/s
I live in New York and voted for him.
Mamdani barely squeaked in. He got 51% of the vote running against a known molester and a radio host in a funny hat. Harris got 65% of the NYC vote and Biden got 80%.
Don’t confuse one battle with winning the war.
And don’t confuse barely winning with what I intend: he’s running his government in a way that they should be trying to emulate and copy.
A while ago jacobin had some stats showing how often she would mention Medicare for all, and it decreases by a lot as time went on
AOC is not the only one who speaks common sense and calls out absurdity; she’s one of the very short list that does it, no matter who’s watching. She appears not to be owned by AIPAC and other ventures. It’s also why they’ll keep her out at all costs.
Because a lot of you are cowards and hid away instead of helping to shape public opinion. When these leaders like AOC and others do not have people creating content on popular platforms then it leaves a runway for the opposition to create any narrative they want. It’s a numbers game at this point. The opposition convinced supporters to run away and hide and they did willingly.
Imagine the most average intelligence person around.
Now recognise the fact most yanks are far below that
No, the problem is that the dumb fucks have hugely outsized representation in elections due to a corrupt, broken system.
Time to stop falling for tokens and politicians. They lie. Stop falling for it. No strongman (or woman) to save us. Every little bit of do-ocracy helps ease and inspire more do-ocracy clawed back from the purple party and its two punch tactic to keep us down.
She’s a big deal because fox news made her one. She’s the new target after Hillary stepped out of politics.
Pretty much. She’s currently in their crossfires.
Which honestly, is good. AoC is tough. Shes been doing this for a few years now, picking up the torch that Bernie Sanders lit three decades ago.
And behind her are hundreds of politicians who are empowered by people like her to rise up. AoC (and Bernie) walked so these new folks can run.
Young, female, Latina, everything MAGA hates.
Chalking it up to racism etc. doesn’t give her the credit she deserves - typical superficial social media thinking.
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If you only define AOC in MAGA’s terms then neither have you. How MAGA leaders think vs how they convince their flock to think are distinctly different.
Don’t forget smart and assertive
Don’t forget she was a bartender in college, which they hate.
Meanwhile boebert was very literally an escort, which is how she got into politics. Yet nobody cares
This country will never, ever vote a woman in as President. The “What I see as a leader” (sexism) runs too deep.
They said the same thing about a black man being president. We are obviously not ready yet but we will get there.
Quite frankly, Democrats just aren’t going to rally behind a candidate the way Republicans do. Republicans can promise much less and still expect a decent turnout.
The first female president will be a Republican, a nightmarish ghoul, and the source of a significant amount of right wing deflection. Everything liberal women are saying now, justifiably, will be twisted in to an evil, disingenuous retort. And that will only be a distraction from the nightmare president this woman is going to be.
The first female president will have no way to climb the ladder without being horrifyingly competent. Savvy enough to know when to look like an idiot without ever being one. Manipulative enough to not only work a crowd but work a room of powerful people.
Men can get by knowing the right people and being charming. Women have to know the right people, be charming, and absolutely crush any opposition to their ascent.
I think they did a study in Australia about this. People who voted for a minority candidate were less likely to vote for one in the future because voting for that minority candidate was there “get out of jail free” card for any future racist voting patterns.
Obama was a once-in-a-lifetime candidate and also almost engineered in a lab to make white people comfortable.
Likely the first woman president we have will be conservative --someone who woman might vote for because she is a woman, but also someone who men might vote for because she advocates patriarchy… example: Margaret Thatcher. Though, to be honest, the current crop of Christian Nationalist wouldn’t allow it, I don’t think…
Republicans are in an echo chamber and fixated on like 3 incorrect things she’s said
They’re terrible, stupid people
Common sense? She’s as intelligent as your average bartender, which is what she was when she was picked by the DNC to be pushed up the flagpole.
She’s as dumb as a doornail. She routinely makes a fool of herself when she’s asking people questions, sorting she doesn’t have the faintest clue what she’s talking about.
“… average bartender…” ?
I’m massively intrigued that you believe this construct exists. Where do you socialise; and are outsiders welcome? I’d like to meet a default bar tender, just to see what they’re like.
Where is your average bartender a dumb useless-degree-having woman who thinks she’s super intelligent? Try any bar around a university in any city.
Wahmen, hey? Shrug emoji. Eye roll emoji.
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Making drinks is fairly easy, dealing with customers is the difficult bit…
I assume you live somewhere where all further/university education, accommodation and sustenance is provided freely by the state. Lucky you.
Most of the places I’ve lived you have to pay real actual money to further your formal education and if mommy and daddy can’t financially help their brave little soldier than that brave little soldier would need to get a job. Maybe something in the evening; or the weekend. So it don’t interfere with class time…
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That’s ok.
Asking questions when you don’t know a thing (AOC) is smarter than pretending you know the thing (the vast majority of old congresspeople, especially in the GOP).
She’s not asking questions to learn though, she’s asking questions to try and catch people doing the wrong thing in these senate hearing sessions or whatever they’re called. She then frequently gets made to look like an idiot because she’s trying to ask “gotcha” questions without realising that her questions make no sense and/or are based on her incorrect understanding.
Didn’t she defeat the Democratic incumbent to get on the ballot for her seat? Oh that’s right, she defeated the Democratic caucus chair, so hardly “picked by the DNC”.
You’re just wrong, she’s quite intelligent and if you can’t see that you have something else going on.
https://snugfam.com/top-25-aoc-dumbest-quotes-that-went-viral-and-sparked-endless-debates/
This was literally the first result for “AOC dumb quotes”. There are hundreds of other results.
She has repeatedly shown she is not an intelligent person. Most politicians aren’t. She was chosen by a Democrat PAC as a candidate to be pushed, she wasn’t an up and coming politician who got there on the back of her hard work and intelligence.
Well i fully agree with her on like 22 of those and about 3 are forgiveable slips, but i guess if im a liberal it’s because I’m stupid
If you fully agree with her on any of those then yeh it probably is.
Yeah, people that had to work during/after university are inherently idiots, and everyone knows that bartenders are morons that should never aspire to anything greater than cracking beers and making cocktails for actual smart people. /S
She obviously doesn’t know anything about governing. A degree in international relations and economics is totally useless to governing. And why would she have bothered with an internship with Senator Ted Kennedy when she was going into the House of Representatives‽ Total idiot
If you think everyone that has degrees is intelligent you clearly haven’t spent much time with many people who have degrees.
Not to mention that degrees in international relations and economics are fluff degrees. May as well be an arts degree.
I bet the Republican politicians you think are idiots have degrees.
Fair enough, though her degree does counter the “just a bartender” narrative
Disinformation is so widespread, largely because of O&G marketing firms, that speaking common sense has become a big deal.
Have you been watching any political discourse? Literally no one off the Epstein list has been arrested.
