What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

well those people should be browbeaten into it because they're racist and wrong

Pitching it as moving resources from cops to social services seems like the best move to me.

Like what if cops could do stuff like find your stolen laptop or mugging assailant because other people (or at least less cops) would handle the homeless interactions and domestic disputes?

^ this is the actual pitch, it's just not a three word slogan

I think it's cool than in a party that is very much a coalition that different ideologies clash and contradict each other, defund the police can't possibly mean the same in Brooklyn, Ferguson and some rural Kansas county, and that's okay because the diversity of the country probably means that for many types of policies different solutions can be applicable (not for health tho!). The messaging that is off here is when centrists and progressive are blaming each other for not allowing them to be 'the' message, as if one blanket statement could be applicable for all.

Medicare4All is the preferred policy of most voters. Fox News viewers endorsed a slew of moderate left-wing policies in exit polls. The war on drugs saw a fairly decisive victory by... *checks notes*... Drugs. 29 out of 40 national-level candidates endorsed by the DSA won their races. Every single Dem who lost their seat opposed M4A and other progressive policies. At some point the Democratic leaders might as well think about running on policies that are already popular, and just explaining to everyone else why they're good!

2 xp - Yes. We know. The only discussion here is how clearly that three word slogan conveys the intended message and whether opponents can effectively distort its true meaning. imo, they can and will distort it very effectively. it would be better to admit this and seek a slogan that may not be as popular with activists, but doesn't hand your opponents an opening they can very easily exploit against you. Because most people's politics are not much more sophisticated than what is said in a three word slogan, like e.g. Green New Deal.

The slogan works great as long as you message what a waste of money current police funding and operations are, and how that money could better serve the people via services, not tanks and tear gas and $300,000 overtime and $250,000,000 brutality lawsuit settlements.

The police have been pushing the message very very strongly this year, to be fair.

John Kasich spoke for longer at the DNC than Julian Castro and AOC combined, the latter of whom was pointedly not invited.

Rashida Tlaib got 66% in her two-way primary and was re-elected. Ilhan Omar got 58% in a five-way primary, and was re-elected. After AOC beat her primary challenger 82% - 18%, the challenger ran against her in the general and was beaten again.

Good communicators and policies are already successful in the Democratic Party. The party acting terrified of them is not, on the whole, motivating the electorate.

To have a party that allows that much diversity of opinion on such an important issue as health care is pretty rare, even outside of the US, I don't see much of it in Canada, even less so in France. There's a bit of a conflict of narrative when on one hand, the Dem party leadership is so powerful and evil they can decide a candidate without consulting the people and ignore a whole part of the electorate and yet on the other hand those progressive candidates keep getting elected under the Democratic banner. I don't think any side is truly the victim of the other and as long as people like Ocasio-Cortez or Jamaal Bowman are allowed the thrive I don't think we can talk about 'shitting on progressive ideas'.

To have a party that allows that much diversity of opinion on such an important issue as health care is pretty rare, even outside of the US

yes, this is true and good

Is the diversity of opinion not less to do with ideology per se and more to do with who donates to the party/candidates? M4A is popular with all voters, they’re not allowing anti-M4A opinion because they firmly believe that paying thousands of dollars a month for insurance and people being bankrupted by medical debt is intrinsically good.

In some places the notion of raising taxes isn't as popular as in other places. Pre-pandemic I've found M4A popularity to be vastly overrated by progressive (538 had a good article about it), but I think now it would make sense that a huge portion of the electorate switched, or maybe it's wishful thinking on my part. In any case if M4A's popularity skew younger voters, well it's just a matter of time now.

as long as people like Ocasio-Cortez or Jamaal Bowman are allowed the thrive

are you suggesting that as long as they're allowed to run as Democrats, they're not allowed to complain about their treatment by the party establishment?

No i’m suggesting that the fact they can openly complain about the establishment is a pretty rare sight in party politics.

Because the Democrats aren’t a political party in any meaningful sense.

Well good then it seems to be working very well for the progressives.

In the sense that they’re allowed to run? Sure. Not supported, just allowed, mind you.

In the sense that the party leaders will adopt progressive policy stances? No.

And slowly and surely they won’t need the party leaders, so who cares.

people who die as a result of the slowness might, but they won't be around any longer, so who cares

the fact they can openly complain about the establishment

A mark of her excellence as a politician is that AOC almost invariably frames her arguments as disagreements on the best route to a common positive goal, not as complaints.

Agreed. AOC has amazingly sharp communication skills. Excellent political and diplomatic skills, too. She must have started honing them when she was very young, since they seem to be innate by now.

a big part of this is called "working in a regular-ass public-facing job for a long time" which the majority of US national elected reps have never done

(not to discount that separately from / on top of that she is v skilled)

her tweets have better zings on both libs and republicans than like 99% of left twitter

That’s not hard

Thank you sic for your recent posts that did a better job of explaining my frustrations with the Dems than I ever could, mostly because I get so angry that my general incoherence really ramps up

To have a party that allows that much diversity of opinion on such an important issue as health care is pretty rare, even outside of the US, I don't see much of it in Canada, even less so in France. There's a bit of a conflict of narrative when on one hand, the Dem party leadership is so powerful and evil they can decide a candidate without consulting the people and ignore a whole part of the electorate and yet on the other hand those progressive candidates keep getting elected under the Democratic banner. I don't think any side is truly the victim of the other and as long as people like Ocasio-Cortez or Jamaal Bowman are allowed the thrive I don't think we can talk about 'shitting on progressive ideas'.

― Van Horn Street, Friday, November 6, 2020 6:52 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think a lot of the American left doesn’t appreciate that in other countries the party has much MORE control over who runs on its ticket. I guess our semi up for grabs ballot lines are the consolation prize for our rigid two party system.

TBF more leftists have finally woken up to this and that’s why we are seeing these left on dem ticket wins. It’s so much more fruitful than the bullshit like the Green Party that people were focusing on when I was younger.

Here's the middle of a thread that, at this point, breaks down AOC's specific messaging on Defund The Police and other applications of that three-word format.

Here's AOC's tweet history on the word "defund." When "Defund ICE" was an important part of left messaging, she tweeted about it all the time. "Defund the police"? Very different story. https://t.co/P5t3MuMp77

— Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) November 6, 2020

I said: "Defund the police" expresses a clear benefit only to those who want fewer police

Doc said: for many folks, defunding the police has at least one other "core benefit," which is, less funded police.

We're both talking about the same people, the ones for whom fewer police is an end in itself. The question is whether there are enough of them to win elections. If so, then the slogan is perfect for those cities and counties where "we want fewer police" is the dominant sentiment.

BTW by my re-reading, Doc was saying "less" on purpose: I certainly think less funded police is a far more urgent issue than fewer police.

Even if the former has a corollary benefit of leading to the latter, by weeding out some of the types who are only in it for the ability to use resources against their peers.


(Appreciate it, tabes.)

people are saying "defund the police" isn't a workable slogan, but personally i think every city should have a big billboard with a chart showing police budget vs every other department's budget, paired with the line "when was the last time a cop helped you" pic.twitter.com/3MgLoAPsUo

— Aisling McCrea (@ambientGillian) November 6, 2020

That tweet is exactly right. Another potential approach: show pictures of the most horrifyingly militarized cops in Yourtown and ask, "Does Ourtown really need a tank more than the library needs a new roof (or whatever)?"

Although even "defund ICE," I think it was easily manipulable by opponents into sounding like it meant "stop doing border control" when it just means "go back to doing border control the way we did it for decades until we impulsively decided 15 years ago to create an unaccountable subagency to take over the job and do it worse"

well even that job is really done by CBP, which has its own problems

Destroy CBP too.

Borders are tools of social control and resource hoarding, destroy those too.

people could really be pointing out more that ICE didn't even exist until 2003

well, i had written a longer post about why "abolish ICE" was more digestible to normies and that was one of the reasons. but i felt like i was justifying the "'abolish the police' made me lose my election" whine so i deleted it.

I'd say it's about equally digestible, the problem is that people are reluctant to get rid of anything that's "tradition," even if that "tradition" is extremely short-lived. if it exists, it always must have existed. same with the militarization of the police

(or with court-packing for that matter)

or with the United States as a country!

I think that's exactly right, katherine. I'd wager most people haven't thought very hard about police budgets and can't see a real difference between "defund" and "abolish," and that seems insanely radical and unprecedented to a lot of well-meaning people.

Also for lots of well meaning people it means people losing jobs, which never really flies.

To me it all means demilitarize the police which is a matter of both equipment forfeiture and reculturation, the latter needs to be especially aggressive

i think every city should have a big billboard with a chart showing police budget vs every other department's budget, paired with the line "when was the last time a cop helped you"

Genius. Aisling McCrea gets how to message. A nine word slogan just barely fits into the optimum range of length, but that one works. The visual component is crucial education, too.

that chart is even worse than it looks, too - they should have added the $60M "police overtime" line item to the $414M "police department" total

Dunno there might be value in "never mind the main budget...they spend more on OVERTIME than they do on [relatable thing that matters]"

yeah, the overtime and regular budgets should be colour-coded the same, to associate better, but it's very useful to see what a rort OT is. as I sort of noted upthread, a bar showing police legal settlements wld also be appropriate as a third tally: the ten largest PDs in the US collectively paid $250M in misconduct cases in 2014, which is an additional cost to taxpayers on top of their cities" actual budgets.

I am a progressive, and I think you need to develop a more conciliatory and cooperative attitude. I also think that you can't expect to be listen to immediately is the new kid on the block

— karen zimmerman (@ghostwriterkz) November 7, 2020

Literally Karen

I know it feels good to attack liberals and moderates from the left, but attacks do not build your numbers. Selling better policies that obviously will improve people's lives will build your numbers.

When you can't implement your policy goals on your own, you need allies to get somewhere. When the time comes, you can primary those who won't come along as allies, replace them and move forward. When you attack potential allies with no strategic aim but to show how much smarter you are all you do is marginalize yourself.

and awwwwaaaaayyyyyy we go!