What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

honestly, i will gladly and happily work within established political institutions on the local and regional level. the democrats who are running for statewide office? the democrats running for the united states house and senate in my district? they have my enthusiastic support. there are certain problems that i would like to see the democrats in my area address that they haven't - taxing nike would be good, for instance, or modifying the quorum rules to prevent superminority republicans gridlocking the congress by walking out. i don't expect the former to happen, ever. i think the latter is going to be a practical necessity if oregon is to continue to be governable on a state level. but so far, none of these problems have reached a point to which i think participating in elections would be pointless.

it's not just that the national party doesn't represent my _personal_ beliefs, the national party doesn't seem to do a good job at giving more than lip service to the beliefs of typical mainstream democrats where i live. i live in the suburbs. i work for a health insurance company. how the hell is the democratic party to the right of us?

this is not about AOC unto herself

You speak of progressives or young people acting in concert as the remedy, but there is no locus of control or agreement in place that would allow them to act as a bloc and wield the sort of power a bloc acquires.

The accomplishments of progressives tend to cluster around ad-hoc coalitions of single issues. Young people have no recognizable organization, occasionally erupt into large scale activism, and have very few political wins to their credit.

People of color have considerably more organization than young people or 'progressives' and not coincidentally they have better defined goals, better coordination, and have a noticeable list of hard-won accomplishments, despite occupying operating from a minority position in numbers, major economic and educational deprivation, and a system rigged exclusively to keep them down.

there was some study recently in the UK that showed the views of labour mps and to a lesser extent labour party members both being to the left of the average labour voter on a whole host of issues (capital punishment and nationalisation of utilities are two that i can remember). is it accepted that that’s reversed in the US? (setting aside the party membership stat; no one is a “member” of the democratic party to my knowledge in the sense of paying monthly monies)

There's stuff like this

Legalize Marijuana

DNC Platform
vote: 106n, 50y, 3a
% support: 31/67 (-36) 👈

Polling – Pew 11/19
Public: 67/32 (+35)
Dems: 78/20 (+58) ←

Medicare for All

DNC Platform
vote: 36y, 125n, 3a
% support: 22/76 (-54) 👈

Polling – KFF 5/20
Public: 57/40 (+17)
Dems: 78/19 (+59) ←

— austerity is theft (@wideofthepost) July 28, 2020

People of color have considerably more organization than young people or 'progressives' and not coincidentally they have better defined goals, better coordination, and have a noticeable list of hard-won accomplishments, despite occupying operating from a minority position in numbers, major economic and educational deprivation, and a system rigged exclusively to keep them down.

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless)

and they have you to speak for them too! they are so fortunate.

Her power right now is in espousing ideas in a way that clearly excites people, and that sets her apart from most of the House members, who are as exciting as cottage cheese. If those ideas spread and are seen to help win elections, then yes I fully expect the Democrats to start supporting them. Because they want power.

The frustration in the last few days heightens one shown in the last month, and brings to a focus one exhibited across the primaries, wherein the Democratic Party appears to be aggressively signalling that they do not want these ideas to be espoused, and will squash them.

Restricting AOC to one minute's speech, and announcing mid-convention that your published platform support for reducing climate damage was "a mistake," and declaring that universal health care should only ever be for people suffering from a pandemic (when a million people are likely to have died by the time you're able to get universal healthcare to people infected by the pandemic), are astoundingly aggressive actions against inclusion and reactivity.

Standing by your declarations that police budgets should be increased, and cops trained to shoot protesters, when police are ignoring emergency calls about rape in order to roam cities and beat, as a pack, ordinary citizens walking home alone during the convention broadcasts, suggests a strong opposition to listening to grassroots activism, at a national level.

In case you didn't notice, milo speaks for them, too:

Progressives have loyally lined up to vote for Democrats for decades, alongside young people and people of color - their (all three groups) loyalty has bought them little or nothing.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z)

lol

sic, you are right about all of that. the only remedy I understand to have any effect on this is political organizing.

sic, you are right about all of that. the only remedy I understand to have any effect on this is political organizing.

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless)

my politics is no longer limited by what you understand

http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/matrixreloaded1.jpg

The Democratic Party of my lifetime -- since Reagan's inauguration -- was so institutionally cowed by the events of 1981 that, faced with the collapse of the New Deal coalition happening even if Carter had won a second term, courted Wall Street bread.

In the last four years, it has a different problem: it's the party of Anybody Not with Trump. It's the party of AOC and Kamala Harris, the party of Terry McAuliffe and, yeah, John Kasich because the piece of shit has no other party that will accept him. Therefore, a party this inchoate in a sense can't govern. It would take a political genius beyond FDR's to keep this coalition together.

And this conclusion does not make excuses for the elevation of Joe Biden. I'm just pointing out how the Dems have turned into Not Republican among its half dozen factions.

wait tracer hand are you saying you think i might be trans?

In the last four years, it has a different problem: it's the party of Anybody Not with Trump. It's the party of AOC and Kamala Harris, the party of Terry McAuliffe and, yeah, John Kasich because the piece of shit has no other party that will accept him. Therefore, a party this inchoate in a sense can't govern. It would take a political genius beyond FDR's to keep this coalition together.

And this conclusion does not make excuses for the elevation of Joe Biden. I'm just pointing out how the Dems have turned into Not Republican among its half dozen factions.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

i gotta say, i harbor different suspicions. these are suspicions, prejudices, not facts, and everything i'm gonna say right now needs to be colored by that

2016 was a battle for the republican party. on one side was more than a century of Tradition, an Intellectual Heritage, a set of beliefs that whether or not they were ever actually coherent were _presented_ as coherent, as coherent and as _universal_. on the other side was a ignorant racist piece of shit with no ties whatsoever to any political tradition. well, not any _american_ political tradition.

over the past four years it has turned out that the supposed Republican Intellectual Heritage was nothing more than a cobbled together bit of excuses designed to reassure themselves that the bunch of racist pieces of shit who constituted their "base" weren't _really_ racist in the same way that they themselves weren't _reallY_ racist. it has turned out that the principles and values Republicans claimed to have never really existed. all those values only existed because of the belief, the false belief, was that they were _necessary_, that they were things their voters wanted and needed to hear. there was only one principle, one value institutional republicans had: power at any cost, power at all costs.

i am not convinced that the supposed traditions of the national Democratic party are any more deeply rooted or supported than the alleged traditions of the Republican party. i am not convinced that the things the DNC believe we "need" to hear are things that very many of us want. i am not convinced that people vote for democrats for any reason other than they vote for republicans, that they have deep and unshakable allegiance to that particular institution, that what matters is not principles, but control. i suspect that the people currently charge of the democratic party know that, believe that, and that their greatest single goal right now is _not_ the betterment of the country, but on holding onto their oligarchical power, at any cost, at all costs.

but hell, i could very well be wrong about all this shit.

The Bidens, Pelosis and Schumers have more in common (in every way) with the Never Trumpers or the Bloombergs of the world than they do with almost all Democratic voters.

As with Harris stitching Biden up in the primary debate, most disagreement is about putting on a show.

haha kate just surfing your vibe there :)

both parties at the national level have been captured by high finance to an extent. yes in terms of their donor base - it all stems from there - but more broadly in how they conceive of the greater good. the objective is to preserve an environment in which the big dogs can eat (in which FDI can flourish, etc). i think there's a genuine belief among a lot of politicians that the conditions for high finance roughly coincide with a 'free' and 'fair' society with a predictable legal system and a government that's not going to start 'crowding out' private investment with its own big ideas, that's not going to nationalize anything, that's not going to hand too much power to unions because they'll negotiate wage deals that drive up inflation. this is all settled in their minds. and it's all based on 30-40-year-old arguments that were playing out when they were just entering their 20s.

anyway it feels like a pretty simple formula. if it threatens our current system of high finance, it's got to go. if it strengthens it, bring it on. democrats and republicans agree 100% on this. it's their ways of getting there that are different imo - which is not to downplay that - those differences are significant and consequential

there was some study recently in the UK that showed the views of labour mps and to a lesser extent labour party members both being to the left of the average labour voter on a whole host of issues (capital punishment and nationalisation of utilities are two that i can remember). is it accepted that that’s reversed in the US?

David Shor’s take iirc is that Democratic donors and staffers are to the left of the median Democratic voter.

i am not convinced that the supposed traditions of the national Democratic party are any more deeply rooted or supported than the alleged traditions of the Republican party. i am not convinced that the things the DNC believe we "need" to hear are things that very many of us want. i am not convinced that people vote for democrats for any reason other than they vote for republicans, that they have deep and unshakable allegiance to that particular institution, that what matters is not principles, but control. i suspect that the people currently charge of the democratic party know that, believe that, and that their greatest single goal right now is _not_ the betterment of the country, but on holding onto their oligarchical power, at any cost, at all costs.

but hell, i could very well be wrong about all this shit.

Probably true at the oligarchial level, not local.

unsurprisingly we all hated david shor’s redpill takes iirc

xp

yeah, out in oregon the local party is pretty good. the local party in indiana was fucking awful, as bad or worse than the national party, but out here there's actually some decent stuff going on.

David Shor’s take iirc is that Democratic donors and staffers are to the left of the median Democratic voter.

The donor class, apparatchiks and so on might still be to the left of the voters on “social issues” but they’re well to the right on economic and ‘law and order’ issues.

Socially liberal and economically libertarian remains the quadrant devoid of adherents outside of op-ed pages and think tanks.

and the twitter profile descriptions of pretty much every twat ever

i blame the Political Compass Quiz

what a fucking pernicious bit of propaganda

i am not convinced that people vote for democrats for any reason other than they vote for republicans, that they have deep and unshakable allegiance to that particular institution, that what matters is not principles, but control.

i don't really think this is true. the deep and unshakeable part. i think it's more just...this is the way things are and always have been. like you pull the level for one or the other. and most people are tired and engrossed in their own lives and don't really have the political imagination to think it could be otherwise. you grow up in the two party system and that's all there is...and...the democrats suck but it could always be worse, so you just pull the level for the democrat...

i guess i put myself in that category, i don't really know if i truly believe change is possible, deep down.

so, if someone says choose between a $5 applebee's gift card or a swift kick in the nuts you take the gift card.

not saying this is admirable but i think a sort of frazzled exhaustion or general pessimism or just a sense of being overwhelmed by the world has a hell of a lot more to do with it than some kind of unshakeable, passionate loyalty to the democratic party.

the one (1) good thing about the trump years is that it's shown a lot of longstanding precedents to be made of not very much at all, it turns out they actually just crumble given the slightest resistance. it would be nice if that turned out to apply to some bad things as well, imo it's worth testing...

I believe that change is 100% possible. I also believe that the more violent that change is, the more violence will be visited upon marginalized communities and, once the dust settles, the people who will be better off will be White.

(or White-approved)

This is why I don't trust revolutionaries; not because their end goals are things I disagree with but their methods will be used and warped to hurt me, my friends, and my family. Taking over the system and bending it into something better sucks, takes forever, is subject to backtracking, and will never satisfy the people who need the change most, but I believe it is ultimately less harmful than pulling the rug out from underneath everyone and creating a vacuum that will be filled by all of the people who already have all of the capital and all of the connections.

^^^ this explains why so many older POC voted for Biden over Sanders.

Thanks for calling me old

Heh. You're not alone!

creating a vacuum that will be filled by all of the people who already have all of the capital and all of the connections

history has tried to tell us over and over you can't both let those people keep breathing and also let them continue to have access to their money and friends

xp nina didn't live long enough to pen "old, gifted and suppressed"

... just to live it i suppose

I believe that change is 100% possible. I also believe that the more violent that change is, the more violence will be visited upon marginalized communities and, once the dust settles, the people who will be better off will be White.

― shout-out to his family (DJP)

i believe you are right. i believe violence is both cyclical, like abuse, and an political end in itself that consumes others.

i also see some of these qualities in capitalism, that peculiar quality of being both a means and an all-consuming end. and when i look at the history of capitalism, i see that it, for the entire time it has existed, has been specifically violent against Black lives.

it is as important to me that change be as non-violent as possible as it is that change depend on capitalist oligarchy as little as possible.

history has tried to tell us over and over you can't both let those people keep breathing and also let them continue to have access to their money and friends

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin#Judicial_executions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot#Purges_and_executions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini#Suppression_of_opposition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_the_Class_Ranks

What makes you think that this will stop at all of the people you think deserve to die, given how this scenario has played itself out in literally every society that's done it?

when i look at the history of capitalism, i see that it, for the entire time it has existed, has been specifically violent against Black lives

This is a copout to keep from admitting the culpability of White European societies for the violence they committed against the various nations of Africa and carried with them into their colonies. If you blame "capitalism", you can foist it off on an economic system and the people in that system are off the hook.

The problem is people. The problem will always be people. Every system you can think of will be bent to hurting the less-fortunate. That is the way humanity is.

seems like a false binary is being imposed here...people itt aren't proposing a revolution per DJP's examples. We are advocating radical changes from inside the system which are contingent on rejecting as "immoral" the liberal status quo.

xp how about “racial capitalism”

I love the "human nature" argument, it whips every time

I'm not surprised an ILX-level debate on the post-Marxist fallacy of separating race and class is happening again.

i think that very often, people on the left honestly don't know if they're ultimately advocating for change from inside the system or not.

look if we think these examples of revolutionary terror are bad are we obliged to support the former monarchies? if not why not

xp this is actually true

seems like a false binary is being imposed here...people itt aren't proposing a revolution per DJP's examples.

o rly

fuck reforming your genocidal slave state

― Your original display name will be displayed in brackets (Left), Wednesday, August 19, 2020 3:26 PM bookmarkflaglink

... you like it how it is?

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Wednesday, August 19, 2020 3:27 PM bookmarkflaglink

[...]

xxp of course not I want it gone

― Your original display name will be displayed in brackets (Left), Wednesday, August 19, 2020 3:31 PM bookmarkflaglink

I was saying boo urns

I’m one person

And?