What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

Teen Vogue has been explaining Marxism to its readers for like five years now.

I would dearly like to meet the person who was opposed to a wealth tax until they saw the nice dress on the red carpet.

is VHS on this thread

yeah the take that she's sticking it to the celebs at the Met Gala is weird, almost everyone there is left-wing and I don't think these are necessarily "the rich" she's talking about. tbh I if she did indeed get in free then yeah, by all means, have a good time. I think she's pretty cool

I think the MET gala dress may be AOC’s New Jersey

hot take: i like the met gala

some cute outfits

AOC is one of the most full-time advocates/activists of anybody in politics... i really would not interpret this in terms of her wanting to hang out with celebs first and foremost.

right she's one of the very few politicians you really should be giving the benefit of the doubt to

Again you miss the point. The audience for this gesture is not the billionaires at the party.

The audience is everyone who sees her. On that basis, what she did has some good readings and some bad ones, and they're both correct. There is no way to sum those readings and arrive at some objective answer of right or wrong because everyone is going to assign a different weights to different aspects of the act. It's also not fair to blame AOC for not solving that impossible calculation before she does stuff. I wouldn't have done it. She did. But I also have zero interest in going to a gala and meeting famous people and an attendant ignorance of the potential political benefits of doing so. I suspect there's a gendered aspect to how I interpret such events as well that makes me hesitate to forge ahead with my Capitalist Realism take. We're both still socialists and I'm gonna say she's better at it than I am.

only slightly related but i would read the hell out of a compendium of class traitors, i.e. rich/royal who supported working class interests.

If you don't think AOC's dress will advance the class struggle you're possibly not understanding social democracy correctly from a Marxist viewpoint.

— Agree to disagree 🍊 🍊 🍊 (@StefGotBooted) September 14, 2021

I got to go to a fundraiser at the Met (not the Met Ball) probably 10 years ago. Being able to walk through the mostly empty museum at night was v cool. I recommend it.

That last tweet Calzino posted is possibly the dumbest thing I've read all day.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_Q8Dz0WYAQg_tm.jpg

xp

"That last tweet Calzino posted is possibly the dumbest thing I've read all day."

it's a pisstaking reference to a legendary Paul Mason tweet that was extremely dumb and wrong, probably a bit too UK politics for this thread!

I would dearly like to meet the person who was opposed to a wealth tax until they saw the nice dress on the red carpet.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, September 14, 2021 10:10 AM (one hour ago)

that's a very simplistic way of evaluating the gesture. Here are some others:

1. a significant part of politics is raising the profile of an issue and keeping the issue in the public's mind. It isn't like the vast majority of people are going around on a regular basis thinking about a wealth tax, or the inequities of our tax system in general. It's not solely about "converting" people.

2. What if she went to this event wearing a fancy gown that didn't have a message? It's signaling that she is aware of the connotations of the event, the profile of the event, etc. It's like advertising during the Super Bowl.

Applying the logic of consumer marketing to politics doesn’t really work. All publicity is good publicity might work when you need to build market share for your energy drink but you’re not building a tax the rich brand.

ie “ It isn't like the vast majority of people are going around on a regular basis thinking about a wealth tax” - and no more people are thinking about it today than before the Met. The people who noticed and cared were already on her side already or already adamantly opposed.

right she's one of the very few politicians you really should be giving the benefit of the doubt to

― frogbs, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:31 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Its actually the doubt of the benefit here iirc

Applying the logic of consumer marketing to politics doesn’t really work. All publicity is good publicity might work when you need to build market share for your energy drink but you’re not building a tax the rich brand.

ie “ It isn't like the vast majority of people are going around on a regular basis thinking about a wealth tax” - and no more people are thinking about it today than before the Met. The people who noticed and cared were already on her side already or already adamantly opposed.

This is true. Ideas are entirely unmarketable; no one can be made aware of something they don't already know, or have their mind changed. That's why turnout never goes up from one election to the next, and why incumbents never, ever lose. Because it's impossible to change people's minds or get them to absorb new information when it comes to politics.

Mrs. Krabappel: Tonight's homework assignment is--
Bart: Oh, man, is it hot in here. I'd better take off my sweater.
Mrs. Krabappel: "Down with" -- [Gasps] "homework"? pic.twitter.com/ijPALWiwsh

— canwehaveapooldad (@cwhapd) August 4, 2020

idk I kinda thought all the "build the wall" and "Benghazi" and "critical race theory" shit was proof positive that repetitive, simple messaging does in fact work

It definitely works and the left is much worse at it

It definitely works and the left is much worse at it

― Clara Lemlich stan account (silby), Tuesday, September 14, 2021 12:04 PM (forty-two seconds ago)

silby otm

Yep, silby def otm.

It doesn’t work that well in a vacuum (Benghazi and the wall played to an existing base, CRT is a continuation of 50 years of textbook fights backed with the wealth of right-wing billionaires; “M4A” has been successful relatively speaking for the left and everyone who’s been pounding that line for years fell in step to vote for the guy who rejects it out of hand) but the Gala dress isn’t that anyway.

If you got every celebrity to wear ‘tax the rich’ maybe you’re talking.

The idea that this is raising consciousness demands that we believe there’s a mass of people who are simultaneously interested in AOC and unaware of an existing desire to ‘tax the rich.’

The idea that this is raising consciousness demands that we believe there’s a mass of people who are simultaneously interested in AOC and unaware of an existing desire to ‘tax the rich.’

Not necessarily, I gotta imagine there is a not insignificant percentage of people who don't give a shit about AOC but like scrolling through pictures of famous people in crazy dresses and see the message. Again, I think the needle movement is going to be super minimal, if at all.

If AOC looks cool in a cool place and she has a lefty slogan on the dress and it becomes a somewhat cooler thing to say as a result then that is probably worth a lot more than it is being given credence here because a sizeable percentage of ppl who care what is cool don't actually and never will actually read an entire article about any of this stuff

If AOC looks cool in a cool place and she has a lefty slogan on the dress and it becomes a somewhat cooler thing to say as a result then that is probably worth a lot more than it is being given credence here because a sizeable percentage of ppl who care what is cool don't actually and never will actually read an entire article about any of this stuff

― fix up luke shawp (darraghmac), Tuesday, September 14, 2021 12:24 PM (0 seconds ago)

this too is otm

And seriously -- it isn't like we are talking about a campaign that involved hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad buys and expensive consultants and focus grouped logos -- she got a dress, and wore it to an event. In terms of "impressions" and "engagement" -- idk, I think people who are marketing professionals would think this was good.

Agree

I feel like the people pooh-poohing this are the spiritual equivalent of people who automatically shit on bands when they sign to a major.

Wearing a DESTROY SONY RECORDS shirt on stage at the Sony Records label showcase would probably invite some commentary.

It doesn’t work that well in a vacuum (Benghazi and the wall played to an existing base, CRT is a continuation of 50 years of textbook fights backed with the wealth of right-wing billionaires; “M4A” has been successful relatively speaking for the left and everyone who’s been pounding that line for years fell in step to vote for the guy who rejects it out of hand) but the Gala dress isn’t that anyway.

so because biden won the election, everyone who talked about m4a was wasting their time and should not talk about it any more?

If you got every celebrity to wear ‘tax the rich’ maybe you’re talking.

is there any intermediate number of celebrities between 1 and every celebrity wearing a dress that says "tax the rich" where it has an effect?

No, I'm responding to the statement that "proof positive that repetitive, simple messaging does in fact work." We're further away from M4A than we were in 2016 so the left's pithiest, simplest messaging campaign has not exactly made an impact. In any case, ​"tax the rich" is a lousy, vague slogan if you were trying to turn it into messaging - Occupy did it better a decade ago but "we are the 99%" didn't seem to make much of an impact either.

is there any intermediate number of celebrities between 1 and every celebrity wearing a dress that says "tax the rich" where it has an effect?

For the one-off Met Gala? Probably not, no. Organizing a mass of famous people to promote a message would maybe get something into the ether.

idk if justin and hailey bieber really want to tax the rich

Literally no one will ever talk about this again three days from now

I'm quite happy with historical movements that decided that liquidating the rich was a far more effective action for fair wealth redistribution than melts turning up at high society events donning slogans that aren't even remotely radical. Taxing the rich isn't even a demand, it's the bare minimum. Anyway i'll stfu because I'm not American.

my understanding of "melt" is entirely based on the context of its use on ILE, but the idea that AOC is one seems.... very wrong?

^ ^ booming post imho

I meant Calzino's, btw

I'm responding to the statement that "proof positive that repetitive, simple messaging does in fact work."

I died right here lads

sigh, for a few brief seconds i lived in a world where my post was deemed booming

Now you just sit back and smoke a Camel Straight and ride your own melt.

kinda wanna a tuna melt rn tbh

you’re not building a tax the rich brand.

except she is and it rules? she is literally the coolest leftie politician in the world, she is better at this stuff than all of us combined x 10000 so the idea that you are giving her pointers on moving the overton window is, how you say, what is zee word i am looking for, booshit mang

i know you're going to come back for more though, i can feel it. hit me baby one more time with that unfiltered straight up milo z shit. I'M READY.

Stan culture is a terrible mistake.

This thread's gone cold
I'm wondering why
I got out of bed at all

i like aoc and all but coolest left politician in the world is a bit much

"coolest politician" is a bit much unless you mean LBJ and his schlong.