What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

tressie mcmillam cottom dyac

take 1 look at right-wing editorial cartoons about AOC and you’ll see there are plenty of republicans who don’t think she’s pretty. they draw her with buckteeth, flies circling her etc. frankly “they secretly think she’s hot” kind of a weird angle imo

in my experience calling a girl annoying is guy for "im gonna try and fuck that chick". its an instant break up in my book.

-- sunny successor, Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Republicans are Very Mad (again) about my appearance. This time they’re mad that I look good in borrowed clothes (again).

Listen, if Republicans want pointers on looking your best, I’m happy to share.

Tip #1: Drink water and don’t be racist

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 29, 2020

she’s the fucking best at this.

wow

I’m willing to hold you accountable for lying about climate change for 30 years when you secretly knew the entire time that fossil fuels emissions would destroy our planet 😇 https://t.co/ekj1Va1Cp0

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 2, 2020

followup:

The audacity of Shell asking YOU what YOU’RE willing to do to reduce emissions. 🙄

They’re showing you RIGHT HERE how the suggestion that indiv choices - not systems - are a main driver of climate change is a fossil fuel talking point.

Yes, make good choices. Reign in FF corps.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 2, 2020

fuck yeah

hell yeah.

but it’s time to primary or at the very least cow leadership or this is all sound and fury

it's not quite time tbf

if anyone is serious about primarying top Dems in Congress from the left, it isn't too soon to be meeting quietly to discuss strategic planning. you can always drop the idea if circumstances change, but you can't get back lost time.

(I meant today and tomorrow speciifcally might have other distracting strategising going on)

imagine the poor little shit who runs shell's twitter account today, lol

i'm sure they'll just say technically true things like "shell spends more on renewable energy R&D then countries X, Y, and Z _combined_!" and wait for it to blow over

more than consumers x, y and z_s too

❤️ Dutchess County New York. pic.twitter.com/uDCPuMUqPm

— raf (@rafaelshimunov) November 2, 2020

AHHHHHH!!! She always brings the justice and the joy.

Dang sorry that was supposed to be in reference to "Tip #1: Drink water and don't be racist" lol

She's so great. I wish they could put her in charge of everything:

There are folks running around on TV blaming progressivism for Dem underperformance.

I was curious, so I decided to open the hood on struggling campaigns of candidates who are blaming progressives for their problems.

Almost all had awful execution on digital. DURING A PANDEMIC.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 6, 2020

That whole thread is really good.

consistently the most OTM politician in the country

99% with AOC but I admit that I feel like "Defund the Police" is misunderstood so much that maybe it just bad messaging. "Abolish" arguably even worse

bad messaging if D.'s don't explain it. bad messaging if they let the R.'s control the narrative. bad messaging if white D.'s don't confront their own racist tendencies.

how many candidates actually ran on "defund the police"

how many candidates actually ran on "defund the police"

how many candidates actually ran on "defund the police"

― it bangs for thee (Simon H.),

I did and don't you forget it.

Running on "defund/abolish" probably would be a bad idea; per Simon's point: they're activists' slogans. But lots of white people believe the completely banal idea that "Black lives matter" is equivalent to advocating for a racial civil war or something, so I doubt you could come up with a good slogan that would appease most people.

also, how many genuinely progressive dems ran and ate shit?

anecdotally it seems like it was mainly the mushmouthed centrists who bit the dust or came close to it

Exactly the point AOC was making.

oh I know, but I was wondering if anyone had actual numbers/a roundup on that yet

Hardly any, but that didn’t stop Republicans from claiming all Democrats want to abolish the police.
― Ape Hole Road (Boring, Maryland), Friday, November 6, 2020 9:31 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

george w. bush could declare himself a democrat and run for office and Republicans would say he wants to defund the police

I think Kara Eastman is the only progressive who ate shit: https://theintercept.com/2020/11/03/kara-eastman-nebraska-congress/

And she didn't get blown out...but she did run pretty far behind biden in that district

also -- as tends to be the case, somehow, coincidentally I'm sure -- the actual mechanisms of doing so are broadly popular, and IIRC so was the wording "defund the police" this summer, until it was ceded to the right as a scare phrase

I’m seeing all sorts of progressive/liberal reclaiming of the word “defund” like, “our conservative government defunded education in last year’s budget” etc, which seems smart in realpolitik terms. Not sure how far beyond the twittersphere it has/will spread, but it’s a useful framing device I think

Lauren Underwood is in a near tie outside Chicago against Jim Oberweiss, who has been running forever for everything on a right wing, anti-immigrant conservative GOP platform. Weirdly ... the state senate seat he gave up was won by a Democrat.

Pause for non-AOC content:

I asked ⁦@IlhanMN⁩ about Trump’s confidence that by raising her profile in Minnesota, the state would swing his way. “He effed around and found out,” she said. More from our conversation here: https://t.co/qWJvMPneLi

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 6, 2020

Hahahah amazing

Man I love all four of them

I’m seeing all sorts of progressive/liberal reclaiming of the word “defund” like, “our conservative government defunded education in last year’s budget” etc, which seems smart in realpolitik terms. Not sure how far beyond the twittersphere it has/will spread, but it’s a useful framing device I think

― The little engine that choogled (hardcore dilettante), Friday, November 6, 2020 10:32 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this isn't even realpolitik, it's just true; see also the USPS

Running on "defund/abolish" probably would be a bad idea; per Simon's point: they're activists' slogans.

I think the key here is that Republicans are eager and willing to attach progressive activists' slogans to any Democratic candidate, no matter what their actual policy positions are, and the right-wing media machine will happily amplify the message. So the goal for Democratic candidates is to anticipate the inevitable bad-faith attacks and defuse them. The specific approach will necessarily vary by candidate and district, but it probably requires a savvier media strategy than what's traditionally worked in the past. Some candidates already get this, while others clearly don't.

Or, run candidates who are behind the core message and can explain/defend it

Right. The problem is the defensive crouch.

run candidates who are behind the core message and can explain/defend it

Yes. Obviously. But the core message of the policy should be inherent in the slogan, or it fails as a slogan. The difficulty with "defund the police" is that it confines itself to the negative aspect of the policy - taking money away from what is widely seen as a public service. It doesn't make the positive/alternative component of the policy visible at all.

For voters who have automatically negative feelings about the police, this is attractive. But for all those white people who grew up with Officer B. Friendly visiting their third grade classroom and who do not get regularly harassed and threatened by the police, this merely makes them feel less well-served.

It doesn't help that "defund" doesn't suggest any particular limit on how much funding would be eliminated. To me the prefix de- strongly suggests eliminating almost all police funding. I mean, you wouldn't think very highly of a degreasing compound that only got rid of 15% of the grease you applied it to.

on the other hand

One more note. In May and June, when Dem voter registration had bottomed out due to the pandemic and GOPs were outregistering Dems, it was the George Floyd/BLM demonstrations that created a huge Dem voter reg spike. pic.twitter.com/Y3YXbJk4Ol

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) November 6, 2020

Almost as if ... uniting people around a vision of a better future can motivate them ... weird.

(not picking on Aimless or anyone)

roundup from Aidan Smith (Data for Progress) Twitter:

"House Dems who lost reelection in 2020:

- Donna Shalala, an opponent of Medicare for All and defunding the police.
- Joe Cunningham, an opponent of Medicare for All and defunding the police.
- Xochitl Torres Small, an opponent of Medicare for All and defunding the police.
- Abby Finkenauer, an opponent of Medicare for All and defunding the police.
- Kendra Horn, an opponent of Medicare for All and defunding the police.
- Collin Peterson, an opponent of Medicare for All and defunding the police.
- Joe Cunningham, an opponent of Medicare for All and defunding the police.
- Debbie Murcasel Powell, who once spoke in favor of Medicare for All but abandoned support for the issue, and also an opponent of defunding the police.
- Max Rose, who ran hard to the right on matters of policing, disparaged his progressive colleagues (Ocasio-Cortez and Omar in particular), and was still called a "cop hater" and lost."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/06/memo-centrist-democrats-stop-blaming-progressives-house-losses/

And what exactly are centrists asking progressives to do? It sounds like they’re saying, “Republicans falsely accused me of believing what you believe, so that means you have to change your positions and believe only what I believe.” Do they want the progressives to change their beliefs on health care or economics or some other issue? Should the progressives just stop advocating for their preferred agenda at all?

Let’s not forget, the Democratic Party nominated exactly the candidate those centrists wanted — and that didn’t in any way change what Republicans said about him. Biden was the moderate in the race, but Republicans still called him a radical socialist. It’s utterly bizarre that after all this time, there are still Democrats who believe that if they change what they say, it will change what Republicans say about them.

Obama was painted as a radical leftist, muslim, black nationalist and did pretty ok

I mean that happens to literally every democrat now (well, except the muslim part)

God help the progressives if they don't vote for the centrists now screeching, though.