What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

Perhaps a lot of them are secretly attracted to her as well and they know she wouldn’t give them the time of day.

no male politician has to deal with that

so in other words, stop doing that

I get that and she shouldn’t just some of the shit you see posted about her comes from fucked up places.

Barack Obama had to deal with that from a lot of older white women who reallllllly fancied Johnny Mathis in their 20s.

This is some cold truth from @AOC. If NYC were in a swing state, its election administration would be a national outrage. pic.twitter.com/Hu7nNIR4G4

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 26, 2020

Here is a flaw: tweeting about packing the court now instead of waiting until after the election.

if every democrat follow that advice, they would have zero "mandate" or public support to _expand_ the court after the election. someone has to talk about it and socialize the idea. otherwise, when republicans inevitably make their attacks about the evil democrats springing a court expansion surprise on everyone, they would be correct.

don't get me wrong, i very much understand the thinking behind "wait until after the election" to talk about it. you may very well be right.

but i do think it's kind of absurd how cynically we and everyone else seem to operate. one of the most important issues in american politics is the supreme court and the wholesale theft of it by the republicans. that SHOULD be a huge topic, like a central debate question and one that everyone is talking about. biden SHOULD be talking about it, the people who are voting for him SHOULD know what he wants and what he really thinks. that's actually how things are supposed to work.

but here we are, instead, in a world where the politically strategic thing to do is say nothing and make no commitments. it makes sense, i guess, but it's cowardly and wrong and not how politics should work. and i think it's bad when that kind of cynical thinking penetrates down all the way to people like us who are nowhere near the decisions being made.

It would only be a flaw if she were currently the democratic presidential candidate. Which (double checks real quick) she is not.

(but at this point, yes, the die is cast - the campaign decided not to take a position on it, and most surrogates are following their lead. i still think someone needs to talk about it, though, and if anyone's in a position to do it in the democratic party, it's AOC)

xp

actually old lunch, you are wrong. AOC whispers in the ear of socialist joe biden

I like that it's her because she's good at framing issues like this. You need to shift the discourse from "Democrats are trying to pack the court" to "The GOP already broke all the rules to entire a Supreme Court supermajority despite never having a mandate, to not unfuck the court would be to ignore the will of the American people"

it's also going to be AOC and her crew of evil socialists who lead this fight in the next term, sparring not against the republicans, but against pelosi and everyone else in congress who used to ride bicycles with giant front wheels when they were kids. i'm happy to join her side early

Well, if we're going to talk about it, I think we need to work on the rhetoric, like instead of rage-tweeting "GRRR PACK THE COURT THEY ARE SUCH ASSHOLES" we should be talking about "restoring balance" or something like that. McConnell always correctly points out that everything the Republicans did to "steal" the court was actually very much within their power under law and the constitution. So is packing the court, thankfully.

xpost Yes, I look forward to all of the pursed lips and exasperated sighs she provokes among the democratic fossils who are just trying to maintain a little bipartisan decorum while the infrastructure crumbles around them.

she did say expand the courts not pack fwiw

is AOC "ragetweeting" anything close to that? here's what i see:

Expand the court.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 27, 2020

Republicans do this because they don’t believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they do. And for a long time they’ve been correct. But do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal but a response isn’t. There is a legal process for expansion.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 27, 2020

Yeah I've already seen #rebalancethecourt and #expandthecourt as the new messaging.

When I saw the expand the court tweet all I could think was "counterpoint: abolish the court" but I will NEVER be an aoc reply guy as long as I have my druthers

I don't think making it about "having the stones to play hardball" is the way to make the case

omg she's hysterical!

I liked this formulation better

Remember that Republicans have lost 6 of the last 7 popular votes, but have appointed 6 of the last 9 justices.

By expanding the court we fix this broken system and have the court better represent the values of the American people.

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 27, 2020

It's not personal revenge against McConnell, it's fixing the system.

keep following AOC's tweets on the issue. i think they will closely resemble Omar's

ever wondered what kind of terrible secrets josh marshall is posting behind the paywall at TPM? i broke in, and then they told me that they have a new link-sharing thing:

With this link recipients can read this article but will not have access to other members-only articles or benefits.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/see-the-corrupt-court-for-what-it-is/sharetoken/6shQBBNQnpej

If you needed to know anything more about Amy Coney Barrett – I didn’t, but if you did – she made her first act last night appearing at a splashy campaign event for President Trump. Once the Senate voted to confirm her on a party line vote, she had a lifetime appointment and literally no need for anything from President Trump. Indeed, she would quite likely have marginally improved the odds that the corrupt conservative Court majority would remain in place by declining such an appearance.

She did it anyway and that was a choice.

Meanwhile, Justice Kavanaugh, himself a former Republican political operative rinsed and rebranded as a High Court Justice, issued another ruling to restrict voting access in the current election. Critically and ominously he added what amounted to a threat to use the Court to block vote counting after election day or mail-in votes altogether. Kavanaugh laundered Trump’s tweet threats into SCOTUS-ese. But the message was the same. He aped the Trump’s line about “chaos” and uncertainty if there’s no definitive result on election night even though the election night result is purely a function of election calls by media organizations. No states publish or certify election results on election night. It always takes days and usually weeks to do.

We all understand that we’re used to knowing who won on election night and we’d all like this to be done. But Kavanaugh’s gambit highlights the fact that knowing the results on election night or halting the counting of votes on election night is purely a figment of press schedules and cannot have any legal or constitutional standing. He is simply part of the greater Republican corruption and its increasingly open program to use the power and legitimacy of the Supreme Court to engineer Republican election victories even its candidates can’t muster the most votes. It is a corrupt program; it is a corrupt Court.

There are people of good will who believe that saying such things out loud undermines the legitimacy of the Court. This is quaint and sad. Because the authors of the corruption rely on this fealty to a broken legitimacy to advance their corruption, to sustain a respect for norms, precedent and rule-following as they run roughshod over all of them. There are many critical policy priorities the current Court threatens: reproductive rights, climate action, health care provision, voting rights. But it is wrong to see the threat and challenge through any of these individual prisms. As we have discussed before, the larger, truer issue is the Republican retreat from majoritarianism, its increasing focus on rigging the constitutional system for sustained minority rule as Republicans see their ability to win majority elections come under greater and greater threat.

This is what voter suppression is about. This is what redistricting on steroids is about. This is why in states like Wisconsin Republicans now routinely retain state legislative super-majorities while getting fewer votes than their Democratic opponents. It’s not about any one of those critical policy priorities. It is about making the federal judiciary into a self-sustaining redoubt of Republican power – an entrenched veto power against Democratic election victories and policy making for decades into the future.

...

posting all of that because i think it is a good argument to FIGHT HARD. that doesn't mean rage-tweeting "GRRR PACK THE COURT THEY ARE SUCH ASSHOLES" (although i think that's a very valid response for normal, non-politicians. they ARE such assholes.) but it's certainly an argument to not split hairs over one tweet from AOC because it advises democrats to "play hardball". i mean COME ON MAN, look at what is happening

We need to retake the senate in order to "play hardball." That's hardly in the bag at this point.

alright

And there's a balance to strike between laying the groundwork and creating a lightning rod issue for right wing voters that might otherwise be a bit demoralized right now (not to mention complacent bc they already got Barrett).

if democrats don't win the senate, they need to "play hardball" about 100000000000000000000000000000x harder

What is hardball without power?

The elections are a lighting rod already.

i mean idk what republican is going to change their vote based on something AOC says? i think there is more value in those statements energizing dems

yes

i agree, there is MUCH more value out of speaking the truth and energizing democrats. trying to win over those swing wingnuts is a 1990s strategy, no offense. we are in a different world

agree. Democrats have been a bait-and-switch party for too long. sometimes progressives get baited into thinking they might be able to finally get a wishlist item, or at least attempt to get it, and then wind up disappointed when they disappear back into the center to appease indie voters. Republicans, on the other hand, actaully attempt to get their extreme bullshit passed into law, and succeed. that's why their base remains loyal.

we focus so much on Indie voters, who often are difficult to peg as far as what's going to make them decide ("I could drink a beer with this guy", "I didn't like his attitude about America", "HIs voice is annoying", "He yelled at a rally"), that they wind up alienating their own voters.

there's a reason that it's AOC who has a trillion followers and is widely seen as the future of the party, rather than whatever centrist democrat who managed to barely win a red district by speaking evasively about abortion and supporting the free market.

There are more people staying home because they feel disenfranchised or demotivated than there are ‘independent’ voters.

I want to believe that but I’m not sure if it’s true, or that we can get those people to vote.

But if Biden loses, can we try an actual progressive next time?

and i'd argue that the people staying home (because they (correctly) view most politicians as completely full of shit) are much better people to try to win over. you win over those people by being a good leader and not being full of shit. you win over centrists and independents by being full of shit and being afraid to say "hard ball" in a tweet

anyway, we've been through this a million times (bernie vs biden vs the world), it's nothing new. but i just can't stand by and abide nonsense about sitting on your hands and playing 1996 politics at such an extremely important time

AOC is a baller you gotta let her shoot her shots! otherwise what's the point of having her on your team?

sometimes Mike McCarthy is your coach

she needs to play in the Dantoni system

just after 2020 election: not a good time to bring up expanding court. want to show country that we all stand together, a time of healing after trump

a few months after the election: still not a good time. need to concentrate attention on most important legislation (covid-19, green dream whatever, etc). we are still healing, and with trump looking to face a trial later in 2021, it's not a good time to anger the remnants of his base even more.

end of 2021: not a good time. the backlash from the right has been substantial, and the dreaded mid-terms are coming up in 2022, likely to end with a loss of seats, considering the poor economy and the total stagnation in congress. last thing democrats need is its house members fending off worries about expanding the supreme court.

2022: uh oh, amnesiac america just voted a bunch of republicans in, and they have a mandate to oppose ALL democratic proposals. plus, a guy who was born in 1942 is running for president again in 2024, and if he appears to cede power within his own parties to the socialists who are whispering in his ear, he could be on the defensive against nikki haley, who so bravely defended the rights of normal americans against the one world order. Better hold off until the next election.........

time for that 7 second offence

but make sure not to make it TOO offensive

But if Biden loses, can we try an actual progressive next time?

― DJI, Tuesday, October 27, 2020 11:57 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I like how this scenario posits a 'next time'. Very utopian!

it's like this with SO many things. when is a good time to talk about the electoral college? it KIND of seems like bullshit that only 1 republican presidential term (2005-09 bush) has been legit in the last 28 years, despite their being 3 republican presidential terms during that time, but what do i know

when is a good time to talk about statehood for DC and PR (if they want it)? well not right now, that would very troublesome for our -completely- -fucking- -delusional- -family- -and- -dumbasses- -across- -the- -country- -who- -don't- -even- -know- -what- -the- -fuck- -they're- -talking- -about- -,- -EVER- (which is to say, "our friends across the aisle")

my mom sent me a text about the "great reset" today (has to do with the new/one world order), so sorry for being a smartass dick. i just can't take these people seriously, at all