Democratic (Party) Direction

For months, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a good soldier for the Democratic Party and Joseph R. Biden Jr as he sought to defeat President Trump.

But on Saturday, in a nearly hourlong interview shortly after President-elect Biden was declared the winner, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made clear the divisions within the party that animated the primary still exist. And she dismissed recent criticisms from some Democratic House members who have blamed the party’s left for costing them important seats. Some of the members who lost, she said, had made themselves “sitting ducks.”

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

We finally have a fuller understanding of the results. What’s your macro takeaway?

Well, I think the central one is that we aren’t in a free fall to hell anymore. But whether we’re going to pick ourselves up or not is the lingering question. We paused this precipitous descent. And the question is if and how we will build ourselves back up.

We know that race is a problem, and avoiding it is not going to solve any electoral issues. We have to actively disarm the potent influence of racism at the polls.

But we also learned that progressive policies do not hurt candidates. Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.

To your first point, Democrats lost seats in an election where they were expected to gain them. Is that what you are ascribing to racism and white supremacy at the polls?

I think it’s going to be really important how the party deals with this internally, and whether the party is going to be honest about doing a real post-mortem and actually digging into why they lost. Because before we even had any data yet in a lot of these races, there was already finger-pointing that this was progressives’ fault and that this was the fault of the Movement for Black Lives.

I’ve already started looking into the actual functioning of these campaigns. And the thing is, I’ve been unseating Democrats for two years. I have been defeating D.C.C.C.-run campaigns for two years. That’s how I got to Congress. That’s how we elected Ayanna Pressley. That’s how Jamaal Bowman won. That’s how Cori Bush won. And so we know about extreme vulnerabilities in how Democrats run campaigns.

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet.

And I’ve looked through a lot of these campaigns that lost, and the fact of the matter is if you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders.

Well, Conor Lamb did win. So what are you saying: Investment in digital advertising and canvassing are a greater reason moderate Democrats lost than any progressive policy?

These folks are pointing toward Republican messaging that they feel killed them, right? But why were you so vulnerable to that attack?

If you’re not door-knocking, if you’re not on the internet, if your main points of reliance are TV and mail, then you’re not running a campaign on all cylinders. I just don’t see how anyone could be making ideological claims when they didn’t run a full-fledged campaign.

Our party isn’t even online, not in a real way that exhibits competence. And so, yeah, they were vulnerable to these messages, because they weren’t even on the mediums where these messages were most potent. Sure, you can point to the message, but they were also sitting ducks. They were sitting ducks.

There’s a reason Barack Obama built an entire national campaign apparatus outside of the Democratic National Committee. And there’s a reason that when he didn’t activate or continue that, we lost House majorities. Because the party — in and of itself — does not have the core competencies, and no amount of money is going to fix that.

If I lost my election, and I went out and I said: “This is moderates’ fault. This is because you didn’t let us have a floor vote on Medicare for all.” And they opened the hood on my campaign, and they found that I only spent $5,000 on TV ads the week before the election? They would laugh. And that’s what they look like right now trying to blame the Movement for Black Lives for their loss.

Is there anything from Tuesday that surprised you? Or made you rethink your previously held views?

The share of white support for Trump. I thought the polling was off, but just seeing it, there was that feeling of realizing what work we have to do.

We need to do a lot of anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country. Because if we keep losing white shares and just allowing Facebook to radicalize more and more elements of white voters and the white electorate, there’s no amount of people of color and young people that you can turn out to offset that.

But the problem is that right now, I think a lot of Dem strategy is to avoid actually working through this. Just trying to avoid poking the bear. That’s their argument with defunding police, right? To not agitate racial resentment. I don’t think that is sustainable.

There’s a lot of magical thinking in Washington, that this is just about special people that kind of come down from on high. Year after year, we decline the idea that they did work and ran sophisticated operations in favor of the idea that they are magical, special people. I need people to take these goggles off and realize how we can do things better.

If you are the D.C.C.C., and you’re hemorrhaging incumbent candidates to progressive insurgents, you would think that you may want to use some of those firms. But instead, we banned them. So the D.C.C.C. banned every single firm that is the best in the country at digital organizing.

The leadership and elements of the party — frankly, people in some of the most important decision-making positions in the party — are becoming so blinded to this anti-activist sentiment that they are blinding themselves to the very assets that they offer.

I’ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That’s also the damn thing of it. I’ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.

So I need my colleagues to understand that we are not the enemy. And that their base is not the enemy. That the Movement for Black Lives is not the enemy, that Medicare for all is not the enemy. This isn’t even just about winning an argument. It’s that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they’re just setting up their own obsolescence.

What is your expectation as to how open the Biden administration will be to the left? And what is the strategy in terms of moving it?

I don’t know how open they’ll be. And it’s not a personal thing. It’s just, the history of the party tends to be that we get really excited about the grass roots to get elected. And then those communities are promptly abandoned right after an election.

I think the transition period is going to indicate whether the administration is taking a more open and collaborative approach, or whether they’re taking a kind of icing-out approach. Because Obama’s transition set a trajectory for 2010 and some of our House losses. It was a lot of those transition decisions — and who was put in positions of leadership — that really informed, unsurprisingly, the strategy of governance.

What if the administration is hostile? If they take the John Kasich view of who Joe Biden should be? What do you do?

Well, I’d be bummed, because we’re going to lose. And that’s just what it is. These transition appointments, they send a signal. They tell a story of who the administration credits with this victory. And so it’s going be really hard after immigrant youth activists helped potentially deliver Arizona and Nevada. It’s going to be really hard after Detroit and Rashida Tlaib ran up the numbers in her district.

It’s really hard for us to turn out nonvoters when they feel like nothing changes for them. When they feel like people don’t see them, or even acknowledge their turnout.

If the party believes after 94 percent of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organizers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organized Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic Party is the John Kasichs won us this election? I mean, I can’t even describe how dangerous that is.

You are diagnosing national trends. You’re maybe the most famous voice on the left currently. What can we expect from you in the next four years?

I don’t know. I think I’ll have probably more answers as we get through transition, and to the next term. How the party responds will very much inform my approach and what I think is going to be necessary.

The last two years have been pretty hostile. Externally, we’ve been winning. Externally, there’s been a ton of support, but internally, it’s been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive.

Is the party ready to, like, sit down and work together and figure out how we’re going to use the assets from everyone at the party? Or are they going to just kind of double down on this smothering approach? And that’s going to inform what I do.

Is there a universe in which they’re hostile enough that we’re talking about a Senate run in a couple years?

I genuinely don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to be in politics. You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn’t even know if I was going to run for re-election this year.

Really? Why?

It’s the incoming. It’s the stress. It’s the violence. It’s the lack of support from your own party. It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy. When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you’re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.

I chose to run for re-election because I felt like I had to prove that this is real. That this movement was real. That I wasn’t a fluke. That people really want guaranteed health care and that people really want the Democratic Party to fight for them.

But I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same.

Why not? He's not a difference maker, the public is going to notice a four-year vacancy.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Saturday, November 7, 2020 10:28 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Breyer's not going to die January 30, 2021. He'll die in 2023 or 24 and you'll get the same bullshit all over again

Presumably he'd retire rather than die in office. Either doing it outright and making Mitch stall for 2-4 years (or Mitch's replacement when the gangrene takes him) or negotiating beforehand. The last two mattered for balance of power, but Breyer is a bonus at most.

thx Simon, that's a great interview, I want to hear her go into this stuff in even more depth

yeah I hope she talks a lot more openly like this during the brief post-election window where you can get into this shit in public and not get screamed at by libs

She's getting screamed at anyway, that window doesn't exist. You just have to not care.

I also get the impression that the Democrats' brand is just really bad in a lot of the states where biden won but they lost senate races -- that's why you'd see 50k or 100k vote differences -- people purely voting against Trump but not for a Democrat

McConnell will not let Breyer be replaced by Biden, you have to be kidding

― Dan S, Saturday, November 7, 2020 7:26 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Why not? He's not a difference maker, the public is going to notice a four-year vacancy.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Saturday, November 7, 2020

McConnell is not going to allow any supreme court replacement under the Biden administration

Why not, though? You're assuming that McConnell was obstructionist just out of love for it - it was a political weapon used for an important cause, they now have the Supreme Court for at least a generation. Why risk blowback for a 7-2 advantage over 6-3?

McConnell was open to deals with Obama on shit like entitlement reform but the House was too extreme for it.

Lol just remembered John Boehner.

And he'll be under pressure from Murkoswki and Toomey to give them "bipartisan" shots to look good before 2022.

McConnell is not going to be collegial now about the supreme court, you have to be kidding. and Breyer *has* been a 'difference maker'

There's also something called the future. McConnell thinks long-term, of course he'd like to further cement conservatives' advantage. You really think he's gonna say "We're good now, you guys can have one"?

You all make good points but actually the one who knows what’s going to happen is me

Who said collegial?! He'll enforce his will on making the nominee as old and moderate as possible.

Breyer isn't a difference maker now or in the medium-term future, it's a 6-3 court.

If Breyer announces his retirement on Jan. 22, McConnell now has to stall for four years with a 1 seat majority.

McConnell can't have his hands tied or they'll drop off completely

he will stall for four years. can't believe you think he will compromise

otm

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/05/biden-mcconnell-relationship-434524

I hope he can make deals with McConnell, honestly, but don't expect a deal over Breyer's replacement unless it is by another liberal justice. Don't see that happening. Hope Breyer can wait it out but we could have a 7 or 8 seat supreme court by 2024

I can see where Dan's coming from but I think milo is right - in the scenario where Breyer bounces early and the court ideological balance being what it is, McConnell risks more by stalling for that long a period that long than he does by briefly appearing "reasonable" (while not at all actually endangering the GOP's legislative agenda)

And where I'm coming from is about overall strategy - not an absolute certainty that Breyer would retire. But treating McConnell as just a kamikaze obstructionist is wrong - he walked in on Jan whatever 2011 to a President that had a staffed executive, had moved past the first part of the economic crisis, and had just been soundly repudiated in the midterms.

That's a very different scenario in using obstruction as a political tool vs. being able to force Biden to do your bidding from the very start during an ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis just to have a Secretary of State. He's in a better position to extract concessions, Biden's older than dirt so there's less leverage over costing him a second term, there's less risk of appearing to give in (on, say, a Breyer retirement) and the stakes are fundamentally higher in terms of blowback.

you sound like someone who would get conned by mcconnell

This stands as much chance of being the direction of the Democratic Party as anything involving AOC, though it might be tougher to insert white where it wasn't said if she's the interview (but not impossible) -

@ everyone who was in my mentions claiming leftists don’t push the “we need to focus more on the [white] working class” narrative https://t.co/XFqErrxAN0

— Bree Newsome Bass (@BreeNewsome) November 7, 2020

Hasn't this always been Bernie's line?

He needs to say it in a diner.

WWC voters are only ever to be communicated with in diners; I know this from my NYT subscription.

Just want to say thanks man alive for bumping this thread as a place for non-partying - it was getting heated and flaggy over on the main politics thread and I really didn't want to see people getting banned for healthy scepticism (while understanding that pissing on everyone else's chips is going to get people mad, obv). So basically, good call.

Every thread should come in threes: positive, negative, neutral.

Then again, the next four years will be (rightly) devoted to ragging on Biden. The truce is bound to be short-lived.

xpost Yes. It's amazing how much more cogent and hearable these discussions can be when the participants aren't thumbing their noses at others.

xp (and not xp) and thank god for that. there will be a fair amount of "better than trump would've done" until covid is under semi-control but i hope that blows past quickly and the new administration can be judged on their merit instead of against horse-in-a-hospital

The AOC interview is (as always) righteous and confirms something I was discussing just yesterday (i.e. my belief that, as nice as it would be, AOC might never actually run for president, if only because she doesn't seem broken in the way that pretty much everyone who runs for president has to be in order to think that they in particular are special enough to run the entire US).

A damn impressive interview.

if they box her out (and they will), they deserve to lose

Every thread should come in threes: positive, negative, neutral

No, you need nine: chaotic positive, chaotic neutral, chaotic negative; lawful positive, lawful negative, lawful neutral...

I’m not sure we need to concentrate on the next four years as much as the next two, before the midterms

I’m not so deluded as to think sad republicans are going to stay home and not vote in 2022, but it’d be nice! In reality, I’m hoping there’s a larger Justice Democrats slate encompassing more states.

xp don't tempt me…

not too belabor this, but imo you need 11: the 3x3 D&D grid, but with 2 additions:

10: absolutely perfect
11: absolute worst

I don't know if I've complained about this in this thread before, but let me just say, as a guy who did not vote for Bernie Sanders in either primary, the full-time anti-Bernie retweet brigaders are some of the most unhinged people on Twitter. Like, why? Your guy is going to be President! The guy you hate just spent six months doing everything he could to help your guy get elected President! Why NOW is the thing you feel most has to be said in public is "Bernie would have lost, suck it?" I truly... do... not.... get it. Like why RIGHT NOW is the highest priority of your life to go around angrily quote-tweeting anybody who thinks the Democratic party should be a tick more progressive? Why aren't you, I dunno, talking about what Cabinet position you think Mayor Pete should get? (Remember, I really like Mayor Pete. *I* would be happy to talk about what Cabinet position Mayor Pete should get.) Anyway I just have been finding this consistently annoying and needed to share.

Because the left is threatening to them and they want to squash it.

There are sore winners on both sides ...

Yea that’s always been Bernies line and I heard plenty of griping during the primary about his “disdain for identity politics” as one person put it. It’s amusing and maybe troubling that we could see three fissures in the party; moderate and conservative dems, groups pushing for more racial justice, and groups who are more concentrated on the white working class. Now in a functional party this just means three factions to craft the same message to, but in the dem party it probably means internecine warfare.

The point of that tweet is that Bernie repeatedly refers to the working class and Bree Bass has added "white" and then gotten mad about it.

What he actually said in that clip:

you left this part out. "It's not going to solve all of our problems, not going to solve systemic racism..one of the ways we can bring people together, is around an agenda that works for farmers in Iowa, as well as low-income people in New York City...all of us need health care"

— Loot Every Walmart (@BethLynch2020) November 7, 2020

ie one direction of the party is going to be disingenuous left-punching. Claire McCaskill talks about the white working class.

The Bernie left grew exponentially due to Obama's second term, as pointed out by Lenin as far back as 1920.

Left-punching is going to happen but the left of the party isn't such an easy target this time out? Time to go on the offensive (after inauguration)

The U.S. Democratic Party fucking sucks. It is the party of superficial representational politics, wall street, and gradual deregulation, and the only reason I vote for it is because it's better than the party of racism, big oil, and rapid deregulation. And it's the party of smug shits who think they are "the smart people" and whose whole lives have been an exercise in resume building. I don't blame people for hating Democrats, because I hate Democrats even as I vote for them. They suck, and they only still exist because the other party sucks worse.

They're also not good at being a political party, or at seizing, holding or wielding power. They seem like they aren't even sure they want to govern. Again, their existence is only justified by the other party being worse.

Bringing this informative twitter thread over here - it was linked in response to AOC's comments on ground game in her NYT interview:

The comments @aoc is making about Democratic ground-game weakness are being dismissed. I have seen, up close, exactly what she is talking about.

— Richard Cooke (@rgcooke) November 9, 2020

and Soto commented :

I can confirm Cooke's tweet thread anecdotally. Three Thursdays ago, I drove to what I thought was Daniella Levine Cava's Coral Gables office. It wasn't -- it was an unfurnished office of a state senator. Taken aback, I asked the college-aged volunteer (the only person in the office) for correct directions. It took five minutes of her thumbing through her phone.

I mean this year in particular the Biden campaign basically BRAGGED about not having ground game. And I know COVID made for an exceptional situation, but it's not the first cycle where we've seen Democrats insistently over-rely on media buys etc. Honestly how fucking ridiculous is it that the REPUBLICANS ARE BETTER AT SOCIAL MEDIA THAN DEMOCRATS! How can that even be?

Honestly maybe Democrats should listen a little more to the person who came out of nowhere to dethrone their presumed successor to Nancy Pelosi. Maybe she does actually know what the fuck she's talking about re ground game. And I know she does, because I witnessed it first hand, her operation was incredible.