What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

We have the Joe Biden sucks thread and it's not okay to say Joe Biden sucks there so... doubt it.

There is no collective effort with the establishment. They want different things. One side organizes tenants' unions, the other side takes a million dollars to lobby against rent control.

To be fair, rent control is a disaster that made millions and millions for landlords and keynesian economists, the same that are vouching for single payer, consider it to be a fraud most of the time.

A good NYTimes interview.

We finally have a fuller understanding of the results. What’s your macro takeaway?
Well, I think the central one is that we aren’t in a free fall to hell anymore. But whether we’re going to pick ourselves up or not is the lingering question. We paused this precipitous descent. And the question is if and how we will build ourselves back up.

We know that race is a problem, and avoiding it is not going to solve any electoral issues. We have to actively disarm the potent influence of racism at the polls.

But we also learned that progressive policies do not hurt candidates. Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.

...

What if the administration is hostile? If they take the John Kasich view of who Joe Biden should be? What do you do?

Well, I’d be bummed, because we’re going to lose. And that’s just what it is. These transition appointments, they send a signal. They tell a story of who the administration credits with this victory. And so it’s going be really hard after immigrant youth activists helped potentially deliver Arizona and Nevada. It’s going to be really hard after Detroit and Rashida Tlaib ran up the numbers in her district.

It’s really hard for us to turn out nonvoters when they feel like nothing changes for them. When they feel like people don’t see them, or even acknowledge their turnout.

If the party believes after 94 percent of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organizers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organized Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic Party is the John Kasichs won us this election? I mean, I can’t even describe how dangerous that is.

Incredible that she apparently didn’t even to run for re-election

*want to

I mean I understand 100% obv

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet.

this reminds me of this classic clip of Nomiki Konst at a post-2016 DNC Unity Reform meeting

It’s really hard for us to turn out nonvoters when they feel like nothing changes for them. When they feel like people don’t see them, or even acknowledge their turnout.

will more ilxors start to agree with me about this now that AOC is saying it

fuck she rules, hope she keeps running

What is your expectation as to how open the Biden administration will be to the left? And what is the strategy in terms of moving it?

I don’t know how open they’ll be. And it’s not a personal thing. It’s just, the history of the party tends to be that we get really excited about the grass roots to get elected. And then those communities are promptly abandoned right after an election.

Hope she follows her bliss and moves into a Maine lighthouse

hope she keeps running

right through Schumer's dessicated form so that he explodes into dust and she ascends to majority leader


classic clip of Nomiki Konst

good stuff

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet.

My favorite part of this is that "the year of our Lord 2020" is a very internet-y turn of phrase.

kinda condescending to presume that non-miserabilists care less about the world not being better imho

― flopson, Saturday, November 7, 2020 4:56 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

whenever ppl say stuff like that it reads to me as self-pity at your own pessimism of the will

― flopson, Saturday, November 7, 2020 5:00 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also, flopson otm

My favorite part of this is that "the year of our Lord 2020" is a very internet-y turn of phrase.

it might even be a dril thing

pessimism about longstanding institutions that have worked more often than not to hamper progress ≠ pessimism of the will imho

AOC is in fact very clear-headed and unequivocal about their record in this very interview. even someone with her remarkable skill/ability set and extremely influential position is by no means confident that "pushing the party left" is going to work out at all

There's a fine line between hopeful skepticism and hopeless fatalism.

I find myself, as I expect many do, on different sides of that line from day to day!

AOC right on in those comments, tbf.

I will add to Rob's post, though, and say that while Milo and silby and myself and other more left-oriented people on this board can be extremely soaked blankets, the 'rationality and even-handed realism' view is equally cumbersome and imho, shows a deep lack of imagination and capitulation to a system of so-called governance and justice that doesn't actually serve anyone. It takes the status quo for granted and then when argued against, says 'but the status quo is this you idiot.' it's circular and lazy.

At least some of the left idealism expressed here and elsewhere on the board dares to dream of a better life for people instead of constantly saying 'bUt tHe sYsTeM w0rKs aNd dOEsN'T wAnT tHaT, bE ReAliStIc.'

the one gift of the soon-to-be-deposed administration is that "being realistic" in the post-trump era - when literally the most egregious, explicitly politically impossible shit happened every day for years - means nothing

90% of the time you guys (and it’s always guys) are not expressing what you are for, it’s what you’re against, and 80% of the time what you’re against boils down to “my existence as an upper middle-class person of color” mixed in with “I’m not saying Obama is a race and class traitor but WINK WINK”

there's a shit ton more to be against than for in the existing order. the fucking planet is burning.

millions and millions of people in the global south will die in my lifetime due to completely predictable forces in part to maintain the lifestyle of nearly everyone on this board (myself clearly included) and I'm not inclined to be sunshine and roses about it, especially when all existing praxis in our hyper alienated world seems to me to be utterly unequal to the task of significantly righting the ship.

(that's not to say we shouldn't do things to try. I do!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsT2akkI4lc

Simon, wouldn’t energy be better spent on trying convincing people who vote for those centrist than to just add to the animosity by shitting on those same politicians? I think sometimes our contention as less to do with goals, all in all there is more common ground than anything, and more to do with how we get there. All of the BLM, the Sunrise Movement, Ocasio-Cortez, Thunberg have been succesful because they aren’t afraid to embrace people who are initially comfortable with the status quo in order to speak to them directly and grow their ranks, instead of constantly rehashing that no progress is ever going to happen unless we abide by your ethics and understandings of society; I firmly believe most people react negatively to dogma.

It’s not even about being nice to centrists, it’s about making a positive case for why your policies are better (which should be really easy to do because they are) rather than performative self-flagellation disguised as shitting on everyone around you

I think sometimes our contention as less to do with goals, all in all there is more common ground than anything, and more to do with how we get there.

Aka ILX's raison d'être.

performative self-flagellation disguised as shitting on everyone around you

You've got this backwards; the shitting on everyone else is the real purpose.

Thunberg (has) been successful...

I think she'd dispute this

jesus

Her role is not to fix climate change herself on her own, but to raise awareness and action and in that regard she has been extremely succesful.

DJP, the only reason I tend to go more toward Simon's side is that the case has already been made for many of the policies that would help people, such as a $15 (or $20, which it should be by all rights) minimum wage, universal health care, building up mass transit and infrastructure, cleaner energy solutions, etc. Arguments for these policies have existed for a long time, and yet progress on them has been incremental at best and completely oppositional at worst.

So, at a certain point, having people tell me to "argue my case with positive solutions" when that's what I've been doing for most of my adult life is *incredibly frustrating.*

If you are frustrated that people don’t see the Light of your Obviously Much Better policies then yeah that’s a problem.

performative self-flagellation disguised as shitting on everyone around you

You've got this backwards; the shitting on everyone else is the real purpose.

to be clear, I have some differences of opinion w a bunch of you but I don't wish ill on anyone (on this board). but I react negatively to dogma, too.

The other night I was discussing similar issues with a friend, who was saying that the left is at fault for not reaching out to religious people or those in rural areas, and I was like, "look, while I agree with you in spirit, having to continually make my case to people who have never met me halfway on anything is a bit of a fool's errand."

If you are frustrated that people don’t see the Light of your Obviously Much Better policies then yeah that’s a problem.

― Van Horn Street, Sunday, November 8, 2020 8:42 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You obviously can't read.

I think some proselyting is impossible as well, when you made it clear that restricting abortion is the political hill you'll die on, it's a difference of opinion that can only be resolved at the ballot.

Her role is not to fix climate change herself on her own, but to raise awareness and action and in that regard she has been extremely successful.

of course no one can fix anything on their own but I think if you asked her you'd find the goal of the environmental movement is to reduce or eliminate emissions, not merely "raise awareness" of them. and in that sense it is premature to call the movement a successful one imho

of course no one can fix anything on their own but I think if you asked her you'd find the goal of the environmental movement is to reduce or eliminate emissions, not merely "raise awareness" of them. and in that sense it is premature to call the movement a successful one imho

raising awareness is the necessary first step!

this turns 15 next year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth

"I’m pretty comfortable not deriving joy from the guy who has played a leading role in ruining millions of lives over the past five decades.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Saturday, November 7, 2020 3:22 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
If Joe Biden is the best thing you got going in your life let me know I’ll send you an edible arrangement or something to try to lend you a little sunshine

― The Bosom Manor Michaelmas Special (silby), Saturday, November 7"

For the 1000th time, it's about Trump losing not Biden winning

this turns 15 next year

and obviously it wasn't enough for a large part of the electorate.

I have no idea how anyone could have more than a smidgeon of faith in our parasitic species. Dante's 'Abandon all hope, etc.' is not at all how I picture Hell: hopelessness – which is not quite the same thing as despair – strikes me as less masochistic than the refusal to accept our essential brokenness in a world where we are all doomed to suffering and death from the outset and for no legitimate reason. Making do with the little we have is our best, and only, chance.

I never said anything about abortion here, to my knowledge.

There is widespread support for many of the policies I mentioned above. Afaict, the issue isn't actually "talking to people about the issues." People want a higher minimum wage! Free good healthcare! Better infrastructure! The issue is actually that some people have unswerving faith in the integrity of a political system that is clearly rotten, and some people don't see it that way because that system has consistently shut down anything that would trouble its center of power, which is a system of oaths and loyalties to capital and concerns of multinational corporations' CEOs.

I'm using abortion as an example.

VHS and Aimless: But you see, the voters simply aren't ready for that, since they haven't elected people willing to support those policies.

Us: But we've been making the same points for decades, and you've been saying the same thing. The people support these policies, it's just that politicians don't care about their constituents, merely consolidating their own power.

VHS and Aimless: You need to make your points more friendly, you obviously aren't doing a good job.

Us: Wtf.

There is widespread support for many of the policies I mentioned above. Afaict, the issue isn't actually "talking to people about the issues." People want a higher minimum wage! Free good healthcare! Better infrastructure! The issue is actually that some people have unswerving faith in the integrity of a political system that is clearly rotten, and some people don't see it that way because that system has consistently shut down anything that would trouble its center of power, which is a system of oaths and loyalties to capital and concerns of multinational corporations' CEOs.

First, the US is not yet a complete libertarian state and progress, great important progress has been achieved in the US over the past few decades. Obviously, none of it is enough. However, don't call it hopeless when there has been these victories.

Second, americans have voted for neoliberalism. Over and over they made the choice of neoliberalism. From 1980 to arguably 2008, people have constantly voted for neoliberal policies. They did again in 2016. It stands to reason that neoliberal policies are still rather central to this day, but it need not be in the future. Some places have voted for increased minimum wage to great benefit, as mentioned above single payer is gaining steam, drugs are getting decriminalized, there is more and more diversity in politics, etc.

Simon, wouldn’t energy be better spent on trying convincing people who vote for those centrist than to just add to the animosity by shitting on those same politicians?

it's worth clarifying that in meatspace I'm perfectly happy to, for instance, join the NDP and vote in leadership elections, donate etc even though they absolutely suck shit in a million different ways. (OK, "happy" is overstating it.) I'm not of the "nothing matters lol" school of thought. but I also see no value in sugarcoating.

to bring it back to AOC, I hope a lot of Dem voters read that interview and really reckon with how rotten the Party machinery is (whether by design or through sheer ineptitude) to the extent that even someone as skilled, motivated and influential as she is acknowledges that it's a very real possibility that substantive policy change might still be off the table despite progressives' electoral advancements and crucial support.

I think maybe the big fallacy I'm opposing is the widespread support of these policies, it exists now but it is relatively new and since democracy is slow by nature (even more so when you share the country with Trump voters), it's normal they aren't all implemented yet.

Us: ...The people support these policies, it's just that politicians don't care about their constituents, merely consolidating their own power.

VHS and Aimless: You need to make your points more friendly, you obviously aren't doing a good job.

Aimless: Then find better politicians and elect them. And, yes, it isn't as easy as it sounds, but if, as you say, "the people support these policies" you've already got all the support you need to win. Surely somewhere among all these supporters you can find someone capable who is willing to run.