What are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Flaws?

politics in the u.s., at least on the national level, has been devoid of substance for years, and is essentially just trolling. the things we grew up with - schoolhouse rock, how a bill is passed, etc - looks like old-timey footage from the 1800s. the way politics and the legislative process is supposed to work has been upended and turned into a joke. to talk about "policies" is out of date. who cares about policies? the GOP bother putting together a platform in 2020. no one noticed. if the thread is a bunch of trolling an personality-driven bullshit, it's a reflection of the world we live in

like what, you want to talk about legislation that AOC wants to pass? cool, she's supporting like a million great things, and isn't alone. it's just that you have to fight the 2-mile high power ranger boss battle in the Cave of Forgetfulness before you can get past the filibuster, first

and yes, the cave is more than 2-miles high ok

"wants to pass" is fairly soft stuff tbh, we're talking about a literal vote here

ah, you're getting into the specifics though. the second you do that, you have to consider the context within which she operates, which, *presses button to go into space and look at united states, only some of which is on fire at the moment*, seems absurd and inherently troll-like. us politicians are dominated by the media and the public's perception of them, which they get via media. look at "media" *presses button to zoom into media* it is absurd, everywhere. call it click-bait, vapid commentary by the word, troll-like. it's the same old trolls it's always been, but it's seeping into all of the outlets to some degree. we are about 5 years away from a washington post front cover that's something like "OOPS, WE DID IT AGAIN -- WE'RE BOMBING IRAQ AGAIN I GUESS LOL!" *presses button to apologize, explain i'm just being 99% goofy here, but i 1% believe it, goes way into outer space*

want to stress again that i'm not talking about AOC's vote on israel here, or the dress. i really did skip all of those posts.

i'm specifically addressing this idea, which is valid:

I gotta be honest, in most forums I would write this level of discussion off as trolling.

someone should start a thread on "trolling" and its meaning, you know?

It's ilx, we go high.

Thanks for thought KM.

To me trolling in general just means low-quality or bad faith discussion. I feel like regarding the specifics of this vote, there was a valid concern which was initially raised and after we thoroughly flogged that dead horse, the discussion promptly sank into a bog of ideology-based slapfighting.

Honestly I do respect everyone who posts here so none of this is meant to be personal. But in what way does it serve the quality of discussion at all to chime in with “ABC otm” when the only point I could abc actually making was frankly a pretty lazy straw man.

It is a very valid observation that much of this is personality driven. Like if we had an abstract discussion of the role of Israeli nationalism in the gatekeeping that occurs among center-left (ok I’m being generous) political parties in West, it seems likely there would be much more common ground among various positions represented here, but as is this has gotten quite personal, quite quickly.

I’m also out of the loop in terms of recent posting history here so maybe there is some background I’m missing.

typos, plz let me know if anything’s unclear

Like it's possible and even okay to say 'this vote sucks' or 'this vote makes me think less of AOC' without saying 'lol, guess AOC will be voting for us to invade China soon, lol lol'.

xp makes sense to me viborg! i should say, too, that personally i don't think it's a huge deal to be unclear, either. the world unclear right now (imo)

also old lunch otm with that. again, i skipped a lot upthread, but that's because i know that it's full of that kind of stuff. hard to take at length

It's hardly wild speculation to say AOC will go to shit based on what we've seen last week.

Sorry if I'm not respecting posting tradition in doing so.

Cynicism, that's where I'm a viking

viborg, the issue really is that *any* valid criticism of AOC is immediately read as "Leftists of ILX being misogynist purity police." Of course, this latter phenomenon does happen, but what I see more of is people ready to jump down the proverbial throats of anyone who dares to question AOC and her bullshit performative Leftism.

Perhaps it's because they don't agree that it's "bullshit performative Leftism"

I'm not sure that xyz's stance is any more cynical than you have to be prepared for awful votes, don't be a dummy and expect better.

who exactly is being the dummy

xpost @ the table is the table

Right that’s certainly fair. I’m far from wedded to the party and I know the feeling of being shut out by the accepted Overton window or whatever.

But I’m mostly with Old Lunch, when xyzzzz__ mentioned the events of last week, that’s mainly referring to the Israel vote and her fashion choices right?

Hopefully we can all agree that while the fashion choices might be significant in terms of optics, the actual relevance to her policy positions is not so crucial.

Again the initial criticism of the Israel vote was not unwarranted. However the context is also fairly unique, especially imo considering how Corbyn has been pilloried for his support for Palestine, and in New York in particular, criticism of Israel is basically the third rail of politics — untouchable.

That’s really neither here nor there though, I’m taking sides which right now seems mostly counter-productive. The arguments have already been laid out, the only real contribution I had to make was trying to make a somewhat balanced and objective case for quality of discussion.

I seem to be mainly expert at failure these days so if this was another L for me then that’s par for the course. (Is that a mixed metaphor? I can take an L at golf right? Fuck golf tbh, it should be illegal.)

I'm not that invested in this particular argument but I mistrust how much energy there is for taking apart a non-white woman elected official in the landscape of terrible elected officials.

If she had voted otherwise in this instance would it have changed anything?

It doesn't remove the moral blight of her vote. She disappointed many of us precisely because we did expect better.

xp unfortunately yes, aiui she was the deciding vote?

"But I’m mostly with Old Lunch, when xyzzzz__ mentioned the events of last week, that’s mainly referring to the Israel vote and her fashion choices right?"

I didn't talk about her dress at the gala xxp

I get thinking misogyny might play a role, but I don’t think it does here. Bowman isn’t getting the same level of shade because he’s not a national figure and frankly, he didn’t make a big performative deal of voting the wrong way. It was badly done on her part, and the long letter saying nothing didn’t help.

I'm not that invested in this particular argument but I mistrust how much energy there is for taking apart a non-white woman elected official in the landscape of terrible elected officials.

She has embraced the role of being the second most prominent face of the American left. That makes her a lightning rod for criticism and praise from people who see in her a potentially better future.

Bowman isn't taking as much shit for his vote and Bush/Omar/Tlaib essentially never garner as much praise (no one's shouting out Omar as "the coolest" politician on Earth here on ol' ILX).

Xxxxposts the vote was 420-9

the thing is Omar, Pressley, Bush, and Tlaib are objectively cooler than AOC

but it would also be weird for someone to come onto the AOC thread and be all "Omar rules the school", like maybe some of the conversation here is happening because people are talking about the person the thread is about rather than playing woman-of-color "gotta invalidate 'em all!" Pokemon

oh well if it was 420-9 this seems like a lot of nonsense over nothing, somehow I thought it was close

oh well if it was 420-9 this seems like a lot of nonsense over nothing, somehow I thought it was close

― sleeve, Monday, September 27, 2021 6:44 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

could have been 420-69 with just 60 more voting members

playing woman-of-color "gotta invalidate 'em all!" Pokemon

this sounds like a fox news bit from the future, when zoomers are 30+

lol map

oh well if it was 420-9 this seems like a lot of nonsense over nothing, somehow I thought it was close

― sleeve, Monday, September 27, 2021 6:44 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

could have been 420-69 with just 60 more voting members

― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Monday, September 27, 2021 12:58 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yet another compelling reason to amend the permanent apportionment act of 1929

Britishers in an American politics thread

Hillary Clinton walking so pompously into Queens University in Belfast as a child carries the tail of her cape and bystanders call her a war criminal is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/Q07DYgch5I

— Kate Hyde (@KateHydeNY) September 24, 2021

what the hell is happening there, when did The Thick Of It become real life

2
Divided by love
Can only be 1
And 1 is the loneliest number

I am completely baffled by that Clinton video. Why is she dressed like that? Why is a child carrying the tail of her cape? How is this not a prank? help I'm dying of lols

lol it's so funny

did she eat the child when she got inside?

Why do you think she carries hot sauce everywhere?

lmao

if I got an honorary chancellorship at a uni. I personally wouldn't go for the Louis XV entrance, but that's just me

Calz, thought you'd be more for the Louis XVI exit?

If you don't think HS will advance the class struggle you're possibly not understanding social democracy correctly from a Marxist viewpoint

HC! not Hilary Simpsom

I went to a state school that wasn't that great and avoided as much philosophy, political science, and psychology as possible, in favor of moar history classes. I can pretty much guaranty I don't understand anything from a marxist viewpoint. I wish I did!

sorry, I'm quoting a UK pol thing on a US thread again. It's a pisstake quote of an extremely stupid Paul Mason pronouncement that will haunt and clown him him until his death

what the hell is happening there, when did The Thick Of It become real life

did you pay attention to politics during the original TX of The Thick Of It

Uh oh, she's just in total free fall after the dress debacle. Way to torch your online constituency.

"I think that President Biden has been a good faith partner to the entire Democratic Party" -- AOC pic.twitter.com/W9oC9hmmNV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 3, 2021

Deep thoughts with Jack Handey over here https://t.co/9fhii4C49Q

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 9, 2022

She’s on fire today

At least she leads by example. She clearly banned all books from her house years ago https://t.co/SGMheBuFzn

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 9, 2022