What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

shhh, i'm trying to get an actual CIA officer re-elected to congress to effect positive change

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A lot of ghouls will keep using MLK as an example of change happening through non-violence to actually diminish BLM and their goals.

You mean like they've been watering down his message and ignoring his radicality since he was murdered by the US government?

N.K. Jemisin with a relevant post (long, not sorry)

OK. Now that the dust is clearing on the election, there's a thing us liberals, leftists, not-centrists, whateverthefuck we call ourselves, are going to have to work on: our storytelling.

It's not that the right is better at storytelling. It's that their stories are simpler, more viscerally satisfying. "A Black woman stole your job!" "They want your guns!" Easy, reductive us vs them, you in danger girl level stuff. Even when it's not true, it provokes a reaction.

These stories are like snacks. They satisfy a (forbidden?) craving. They have good mouth-feel. They make you want more. Thing is, try to *live* on snacks and you'll die of malnutrition.

The left's story is a meal. Some crave-able comfort food, but also stuff that's good for you.
But "eat your veggies" is always going to be a harder sell than "have another snack." (Vegetarians sit down, I'm making a point. 😛) So the problem isn't that the left doesn't understand the right. It's that we learned to like (or at least eat) veggies too, and they... didn't.

A lot of left analysis I'm seeing right now disregards this. "We need to understand why these people love salt." Bitch, no, everybody loves salt, some of us just moderate. "We need to sell snacks, too!" That's an uphill climb -- and it elides the fact that snacks are *bad for you.*

Leftist points *can* be distilled into simple visceral stories, sure. "Eat the rich." "Defund police." But they don't hit as hard because they're shorthand for complex topics. Like kale chips -- superficially snacky, actually good for you, offputting to people who prefer potato chips.

Also? People who choose to live on snacks aren't doing so for any rational reason. It's literally killing them. They're doing it anyway because it satisfies some other impulse: in-group approval, a sense of power over a complex and changing world. Snacks are soothing that way.

You cannot reason with folks who've chosen to do something against their interest, because their interest isn't what *you* think it is. They probably know America is better off unified and equal... but ooh, it feels so good to hurt others.
Some folks just got raised wrong.

So I'm not concerned about them, personally. Folks like that might fix themselves, but *you're* not gonna do it. What concerns me is *leftists* falling for snack-style stories. Way too many of y'all buy into the right's "both sides" nonsense, or "white working class" rhetoric.

(As a reminder, both sides are *not* equally bad, and Trump's base is actually wealthy white people. About half the working class is BIPoC and they are disproportionately disabled, queer, immigrant -- groups the right hates. "It's about the white working class" framing is a lie.)

And here is where the failure of storytelling kicks in. Why do leftists -- people who ostensibly believe in a balanced diet -- continually fall for this malnourished bullshit logic?

Same reason right-wingers do: because on some level these leftists prefer snacks to good nutrition.
We see it again and again -- reductive class analysis that ignores the impact of race and other intersections. White pundits who empathize with racists but find BIPoC equality terrifying ("cancel culture!!!1!"). Black male hip hop stars who throw their own people under the bus.

Some of this is human nature. We often draw causal connections that don't have much to do with logic (e.g. superstition). Some of it is culture. Capitalism is a doctrine of selfishness, after all, and most of us have been indoctrinated with it from childhood.

But a lot of it is that many leftists have chosen false simplicity over the complex, often bitter flavors of truth. "Whiteness is the core of America's problems? That can't be true*. I'd rather believe [salty snack #1]."
*It can be. But it's more complex than "white ppl bad."

Somehow we have to get these folks to swallow "it's the racism, stupid" pills without choking on them and vomiting back Trumpian talking points.

I have no solution for this, by the way. I'm trying to tell good stories, but mine are kind of long and chewy. Not very snackable.

End of day, this is probably a question for marketing/PR people to answer, since their specialty is very short stories. But it's important to target those stories at the right audience. Not everybody likes everything, after all. My books aren't super-popular in the Western aisle.

So, know your audience. Stop trying to sell wholesome meals to people who've chosen to live on chips -- hell, half the reason they're doing that is to spite you. Focus on folks who claim to want good food but are eating a lot of crap. Remind them that salt is not a food group.

And more importantly, focus on those who already know the complex stories, but don't trust the storytellers. The BIPoC who don't vote completely get that it's the racism -- but they don't think leftist politicians do. Because the best-known leftist politicians *don't* get it.

That's the danger of class reductionists and white liberal pundits who sound straight out of MLK's Letter From A Birmingham Jail -- more devoted to "order" than justice, constantly cautioning BIPoC to put their needs off for the greater good. Nobody likes a story with a bad ending.

The great non-voting masses of America have fallen prey not only to voter suppression, but also the stories told by GOP/billionaire think tanks: voting is meaningless, both sides are bad, doesn't matter who's in charge, life will always suck. This is a narrative we must counter.

And the way to do it is NOT with messages of conciliation toward fascists, or unity with bigots. Not by handwaving consequences because trials and equality are too hard. The way to do it is to SHOW people (don't tell!) that who they vote for matters. That justice is possible.

We all want life to be better. But we have a chance right now to achieve the positive peace which is the presence of justice, to paraphrase MLK, and not just negative peace which is the absence of conflict. Elevate the powerless, not the powerful. Focus on justice, not "unity."

Put some fucking Republicans in jail. (Probably the biggest reason I can't commit to prison abolition; I want these mfs to die in prison.) Put ICE officers in jail if they raped or abused immigrants. Put bad cops in jail.
When we lack stories to tell, actions speak loudest.

And a big, important story we need to be telling right now is just how terrifying the vote is, to fascists. Fortunately they've helped tell that story themselves, by repeatedly attacking people's ability to vote. It's clearly important. Leftists need to double down on that.

So that's all I got, from one storyteller to the many others out there. Hope it helps.

"but also the stories told by GOP/billionaire think tanks:

(and John Mulaney on Saturday Night Live)

voting is meaningless, both sides are bad, doesn't matter who's in charge, life will always suck."

Love an NK.

thanks, io

I assume that nobody posting ITT follows AOC on twitter.

I follow AOC on twitter, AMA

I follow her on Twitter too!

The perception that change is impossible isn't solely (or even mostly) the product of a propaganda campaign, it's the product of lack of positive change. People who've lived through the last thirty years - 16 of them under Clinton and Obama - and didn't see an improvement in their lives (climbing inequality, the destruction and non-recovery of Black and Latino household wealth after 2008, exploding housing costs, etc., ever-decreasing union participation) - why would they believe that change is possible?

You could have a 3% decrease in poverty rate since 1990 which is pretty good considering the worst recession in almost a century happened during that time and no one would ever celebrate that because it's human nature to focus on the bad.

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hi milo

I mean... that's the problem. Pointing to a marginal improvement in an artificially low poverty rate (the relative poverty rate has increased slightly over the last 30 years), which is still the worst of the G7 by a fair margin. That's not people "focusing on the bad," that's not actual positive change.

When positive changes do occur (ACA) you just mark them as total failures because they're not ideal changes

Incrementalism is the worst, literally telling people to be happy with scraps. Even the coldest hearted, biggest corporatist stooge of a politician should understand that hungry and desperate people won’t continue to tolerate decline in their living conditions forever. It’ll spill out one way or another.

Barely half the country has a positive opinion of the ACA, only within the last two years, and only because of measures that could be taken without pouring subsidies into Blue Cross/Blue Shield. That's not a winning policy, no.

Pointing to the ACA - or great successes that came in spite of political parties (like LGBTQ rights) - is not going to sell the disaffected or young POC who switched from Clinton to Trump in 2020 on the possibility of material change. Non-voters are poorer, less white and (far) less likely to have a college degree.

Disaffected people don't have a negative view of the future because John Mulaney made a joke about Joe Biden being old, white and status quo - they have a negative view because things have gotten worse for people like them over the course of their lives.

Once again you're arguing against the position that nobody has made. I didn't say ACA was perfect, merely that it's better than what came before it. (The fact that you mention "subsides pouring into Blue Cross/Blue Shield" tells me that you don't even understand it). And you're changing the argument: you said there was a perception that change is impossible because it's objective truth that zero change has happened. You're wrong.

The perception that change is impossible isn't solely (or even mostly) the product of a propaganda campaign, it's the product of lack of positive change. People who've lived through the last thirty years - 16 of them under Clinton and Obama - and didn't see an improvement in their lives (climbing inequality, the destruction and non-recovery of Black and Latino household wealth after 2008, exploding housing costs, etc., ever-decreasing union participation) - why would they believe that change is possible?

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Sunday, November 8, 2020 7:16 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

some good things that have happened:

- medicaid expansion in 2014 cut the number of uninsured low income households in half

- many state and city level minimum wage increases. after the 2020 election just under 50% of the population live in states or cities where the minimum wage is or is on track to be 15$ per hour

- legalization of marijuana in 15 states, decriminalized in another 16 states

- wages among the bottom 25% of earners started to increase for the first time since the nineties and increased faster than for the rest of the earnings distribution (until the pandemic hit). and it’s not just because of minimum wage increases; the same trend holds for states that didn’t pass minimum wage increases. it happened under trump but largely because of the tight labour market he inherited from obama. this is imo part of why trump did so well with black and latino voters. the gallup surveys on personal finances from before the pandemic hit were insane; like 61% of people saying their personal finances are improving and 75% saying they are improving or expect them soon to improve. that’s unseen since late 90s. things turned around after april but were still surprisingly high in like September

- not a fashionable policy on the left at the moment (for some good reasons that im very sympathetic to) but 26 states expanded their earned income tax credits, and several cities did too

none of these things are “enough” obvs and I’m not sure why dem politicians don’t campaign on them and similar policies that put money into people’s hands more, but they did happen and are good relative to what existed before imho

i see that while i was writing that the goal post shifted from “nothing good has happened” to “what happened wasn’t good enough”

I didn't say "nothing good has happened."

There are thousands of people who now have their heath insurance fully subsidized by the govt, some of them or someone in their family having health conditions that before ACA would've meant they couldn't get health insurance no matter what. Yes, private health insurance should've been rendered unnecessary, but perhaps some of these people would disagree with your stance.

Forgive me for interpreting there's been "a lack of positive change" as "nothing good has happened"

Lol the disingenuous shit itt is too much

When positive changes do occur (ACA) you just mark them as total failures because they're not ideal changes

This isn't a referendum on the existence of the ACA?

I'm arguing against the idea that people don't believe in the possibility of change (via electoral politics most of all) because of propaganda, rather than it being a reaction to what they've actually lived, what they've experienced from electoral politics.

You're arguing something different in every post, who can keep up

Granny, do you think life has gotten better or worse for most Americans since 1990?

Milo, do you think there have been zero positive changes since 1990?

Changes to what?

You think MY question is the one that's more vague and difficult to answer?

guys

Yes?

Texting beats the hell out of ever calling someone. That's certainly a positive change.

You're arguing something different in every post, who can keep up

He made that point a few posts ago.

It’s true that incremental change is harder to see and even quantify milo, as I noted, a 3% change in poverty rate doesn’t seem much (even if it means tens of millions of people) but the reality is that countries that have less inequality, better health-care, countries that are closer to what you want the US to look like, well they got those changes incrementaly.

So I think it’s always worth noting that while incremental change is not always the best possible change, it’s still a positive step forward.

xxp - if you think things are generally getting better for most people, then I imagine that it makes more sense to think that disaffected people are being fooled. I think most people are pretty rational about their lives in general.

... and yet they vote for centrists and their stupid policies, or even worse, the GOP.

People have been shown to be irrational actors in just about every facet of life.

I think most people are pretty rational about their lives in general.

lol

Funny because that is one of the core assumptions of neolibs.

Or they don't vote (which is the group I think is more important) in normal times.

We saw it in exit polling in the SC primary - most Biden voters supported Medicare For All but didn't trust Bernie Sanders (or anyone else) to deliver it so they voted for the safer centrist. That's not the result of propaganda, it's lived experience telling them good things won't be given to them (since the Democrats abandoned the transactional politics of the mid-20th century).

Likewise, the percentage of young men of color who switched to Trump in 2020 - their lives pre-COVID probably didn't get worse from Obama to Trump (because actually the decline in life expectancy, for one, reversed, unemployment held steady, etc.) and he at least promises things.

Or you can write them off as dumb and/or hateful in some way, rather than responding to the material conditions of their lives.

You go from "most people are pretty rational about their lives" to people voted for a lying conman cause he promises things

gyac OTM.

Of course things have become marginally better, in many respects. I'm weird white guy married to a weird brown guy, and I would have died last year without the ACA. These issues actually aren't abstract to me.

But we also spent years homeless, living out of a U-Haul truck parked under a freeway or next to our friends' warehouse, or later, on very isolated land projects in nowhere towns of rural California. We had jobs or gigs, but they were part-time and/or seasonal, always with side hustles, too. It was fucking awful in most respects, and it all happened during the Obama administration. Part of the reason I didn't post much here for years and years was because of unreliable access to internet! I bathed in a river for almost a year because we didn't have running water!

So things have gotten better, sure. But as the class of serfs continues to grow because of the way the economy works, the consequences of that growth are appearing more and more dire.

Incrementalism is the worst, literally telling people to be happy with scraps.

In my view, incrementalism is happily embraced only by those who fear change because it might be inconvenient to their present comfort. It is grudgingly accepted by those who only prefer scraps of progress when the alternative is no change at all or retrogression.

I, for one, would be ecstatic to discover there is a visible path within US politics that delivers even-handed justice and ensures FDR's Four Freedoms more rapidly than incrementalism. I'm open to anyone who can describe that path to me in such a way that I can see it and help to implement it. Please, someone, rescue me from this damnable creeping pace toward a just society. I'm as impatient for it as the rest of you.

Aimless, sarcasm isn't helping

table otm in the post above

both of these things can be true:

When positive changes do occur (ACA) you just mark them as total failures because they're not ideal changes

and

hungry and desperate people won’t continue to tolerate decline in their living conditions forever. It’ll spill out one way or another.

TF was sarcastic about Aimless's post?

I think incrementalism vs. radical change is largely an illusion, things happen slowly and then quickly without an immediately obvious cause in many cases. I'd love to see capitalism have a Berlin Wall moment but who knows when/how that will come, in the meantime I will continue to work for "pragmatic anarchism" as sarahell memorably put it

OL I really don't have to parse that post do I?

Please, someone, rescue me from this damnable creeping pace

this is his usual snide, superior centrist garbage FYI

I think incrementalism vs. radical change is largely an illusion, things happen slowly and then quickly without an immediately obvious cause in many cases

I believe a long-dead Russian guy might have said something like this once