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You are here: Home / Open Threads / AOC, as Usual, Is the Model

AOC, as Usual, Is the Model

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AOC, as Usual, Is the Model

AOC is apparently thinking about running to replace Jamie Raskin as ranking member of the Oversight Committee.  Last night I noted on Bluesky that she’s smart: she walked into Congress, looked around, and figured she could run the place if she wanted.  So what she did was first lock down her fundraising, so she could donate to PACs of her colleagues.  Then she locked down her district — she regularly destroys her well-funded opponents (and primary challengers).  Now, she’s on step 3:  moving up the committee ladder, but not at the snails pace usually happens, and choosing a committee where she’s distinguished herself as a tenacious, well-informed questioner.

I also think she uses social media the way every Congressperson should, and she runs a good district office.  Her office does a lot of constituent services, and they also do things like hand out turkeys on Thanksgiving.

Anyway, there’s a piece making the rounds arguing that Democrats need to undergo a transformation to address the fact that the US is a “Civic Desert”.  Basically, the idea is that the loss of social clubs and other interactive spaces have isolated people, and Democrats’ could step in to address that.  I don’t think it’s a bad idea.  Certainly, I’ve witnessed the death of local party meetings in rural red states.

The piece identifies four areas where Democrats could do something:  Membership Cards, Maps (by which the author means precinct maps maintained by captains who live in the precinct), Meeting Halls and Mutual Aid.

The author, Pete Davis at The Nation, is a little too wedded everything starting with “M,” so Membership Cards encompasses more than just a card — it’s tracking registration and recognizing precinct captains that grow their membership.  He also mentions dues as part of the membership package.

Maps, and all the infrastructure associated with maintaining likely voter lists, was often the work of the federal office holders in red states.  They had the money to keep those lists going, and when they lost office, the underfunded state party couldn’t keep up with it.

Meeting Halls that we pay for directly is a big ask, but having a place to gather is important.  And, of course, Mutual Aid probably already happens but if Democrats were a visible part of organizing this, that’s all to the good.

The barrier to this is obviously money.  Other than the 50-state project, which never really amounted to much, it’s clear that money spent by the Democratic Party is almost all spent during elections, for infrastructure that doesn’t last.  And, there’s just a shitload of money spent on TV ads that I think is at least partially wasted.  There are a bunch of political consultants who won’t get anything out of the 4 M’s, so they will certainly resist.

That all said, one of the smartest people in Congress, AOC, is doing a lot of these “M’s” in her district, and it’s working for her.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  3. 3.

    hrprogressive

    AOC is The Way Forward.

    If we had a Democratic Caucus full of AOC’s, we’d likely be in a much better place.

    Give her whatever gavel she wants, immediately.

  4. 4.

    Suzanne

    AOC is very good at commanding attention and she knows how to get herself out there in the social media age. I admire her a lot and think other Dems should watch and learn!

  5. 5.

    Chetan Murthy

    @SeattleDem: Two thoughts:

    (1) yes, you’re right

    But (2) the problem with social media is it doesn’t connect you to people in your geographic locality.  That means it’s not resistant to oppression — it’s not offline.  It can be shut down by The Money Power.

  7. 7.

    CaseyL

    AOC is what I want all the younger Democrats to be: whip-smart, no bullshit, angry in all the right ways, able to work the refs, and not afraid to call a spade a bloody shovel – and do so intelligently, cogently, with enough spark to get peoples’ attention.

  8. 8.

    narya

    @Maxim: Oh my; that sucks so very much. Maybe light a candle for each of them at the solstice or new year? Or whatever makes sense for you. (For years, I had my sister’s favorite drink on the anniversary of her birth (NYE, it turns out) and her death.)

  9. 9.

    TBone

    Anthem backed off from denying “extra” anesthesia claims, and now this. The popo are selling the guns illegally all this time!  Hopefully it will at least cause an outcry:

    A CBS News investigation found dozens of law enforcement leaders — sheriffs, captains, lieutenants, chiefs of police — buying and illegally selling firearms, even weapons of war, across 23 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., from the Deep South to the Midwest, Northeast and California coast. 

    A nationwide review of government audits and court records over the last 20 years uncovered at least 50 cases of police illegally selling their weapons online, through dealers, out of their homes or the back of their cars. In many cases, the weapons were sold to gun enthusiasts, often at steep markups as high as 10 times what they were bought for.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-selling-restricted-guns-posties/

    One can hope…

    Adair, Iowa, had a population of 794. So, it seemed suspicious when its three-person police department asked regulators to buy 90 machine guns, including an M134 Gatling-style minigun capable of shooting up to 6,000 rounds of ammunition every minute.

    Federal agents later discovered Adair’s police chief, Bradley Wendt, was using his position to acquire weapons and sell them for personal profit.

  10. 10.

    Belafon

    The meeting thing is something I have been trying to figure out, both politically and socially. As a liberal, not-church-going person in a red area, I’ve been trying to figure out how to reach people like me with something regular where we could meet and sometimes talk politics, and other times play games. I have looked into Living Liberally, and my wife and I will be going to a meeting at a nearby place next week, but the closest one is 20 miles away. But yes, the meeting thing costs money, and I don’t have enough to do it on my own.

  11. 11.

    JML

    @Suzanne: she is very good at grabbing the spotlight, but she’s also good at not doing it in a “look at me! look at how wonderful I am” egocentric sort of way. She’s very media-savvy, but is using it with intent.

    I’m a huge fan of hers as a politician. I don’t always agree with her on policy issues (though I mostly do), but her approach to politics as well as law-making is pretty dead on.

    not everyone can be AOC or needs to be, but we can definitely use more of her and having her in a leadership position is great idea. I think she can wield power effectively and she doesn’t lose the forest for the trees.

  12. 12.

    Chetan Murthy

    @TBone: Do you remember when that Nashville shooter’s gun was destroyed?  It was a big deal, b/c the rule at the time was that guns seized by the po-po in Nashville must be sold at auction (or something  like that).  It took a special exception to get that gun destroyed, was my recollection.

    It’s all  madness.

  14. 14.

    scav

    @Chetan Murthy: As we’re online, it’s also got a tinge of those in the bubble announcing theirs is the most important bubble.  Important, sure, but part of.  To some extent, it’s also like a participatory infomercial and audiences have had a lot of practice at tuning those out.  Some fall for it, some don’t, some will pause and glance, others will fast forward to their preferred eye-candy. Making the message digital rather than print, radio, televised, doesn’t make it magic.

  15. 15.

    FelonyGovt

    I was an AOC skeptic but now I’m a convert. She’s smart, savvy, and has learned when to fight and who to fight with. The fact that she’s really attractive doesn’t hurt either.

    The “meeting hall” thing is interesting, but if it’s the same tired group of tired older folks meeting up to bitch about things (I’m thinking of my local Democratic club) it won’t work.  It will need something else, that can get the younger folks away from their screens.

    ETA games? Book clubs? Knitting?

  19. 19.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Harry Litman resigning from LA Times:

    I don’t pretend that my resignation is any kind of serious counter-blow to the damage of Soon-Shiong’s cozying up to Trump. And I see, and I thought about, the argument that my most constructive role would be to stay on and continue to use my one voice as forcefully as I could to explain to Times readers the grave dangers on the horizon.

    But the cost of alliance with an important national institution that has such an important role to play in pushing back against authoritarian rule, but declines to do so for spurious and selfish reasons, feels too great. And Soon-Shiong’s conscious pattern of détente with Trump has in fact recast the paper’s core identity to one of appeasement with an authoritarian madman. I am loath to affiliate with that identity in any way.

    My growing misgivings about the Times are one of the reasons I started this Substack two weeks ago. I’ve been blown away by the response and the number of followers and subscribers in just the first two weeks: thank you to everyone. Having this outlet for my thoughts about where Trump 2.0 is taking us makes it easier to leave.

    I’m not going anywhere. I will continue to do my best to identify and analyze the dangers that might be hard to see, but for now, here on Substack. I may surface elsewhere, too. Stay tuned! I hope you will follow me here and think about becoming a subscriber.

    I’ll close by quoting admiringly my former colleague and the former editorial editor at the Times, Mariel Garza: “I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

    Talk to you later.

  20. 20.

    TBone

    Couldn’t local peoples’ Democratic Clubs be given meeting space at community libraries, colleges, and/or other municipal buildings with such spaces?  I guess that’s just a pipe dream in red areas…

    Food is what brings people, also too. I suggest big potlucks.

  21. 21.

    Ohio Mom

    @Maxim: That’s a lot of loss to somehow adjust to. My deepest sympathies.

    Please be very kind to yourself, cut yourself a lot of slack and disregard anything anyone tells you about how long it should take to finish grieving. It’s going to take you a while to learn to live in this new world of yours, without your friends’ companionship.

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was so good at commanding attention that she was one of our best-known Representatives before she served her first day in Congress.

    This bothered me at the time, because I had followed many other members of the Democratic Class of 2018. I thought it was a very talented bunch,* with many members as capable as Ocasio-Cortez and some even more so. We’re seeing some of this now as Reps. Slotkin and Kim advance to the Senate.

    But “AOC” was the star that outshone them all, both individually and collectively. That was not her fault; people want heros and the media gave them what they wanted.

    * Ed. Not just the ones who flipped red seats like Reps. Davids (KS), Underwood ((IL) and Porter (CA). Some who succeeded to blue seats like Reps. Haaland (NM), Neguse (CO) and Escobar (TX) were as well..

  23. 23.

    TBone

    @TBone: BTW I can’t stress enough how explosive the rest of the information about this investigation is if you read the article!  It’s absolutely earth shattering stuff, IMO!

    For police departments to get ahold of such high-powered weaponry, each one needs permission from the ATF. Even though it has been the law for more than three decades, the ATF only started vetting every machine gun application for the first time in January 2023 to confirm that a legitimate government agency was making the request.

  25. 25.

    Ohio Mom

    @TBone: My local Democratic Club meets at our local suburban municipal rec center.

    It’s a pretty bare room. I sometimes wonder if the meetings would feel less like a boring business meeting, and instead feel friendlier, full of camaraderie and fellowship, in a cozier location.

  27. 27.

    Harrison Wesley

    I’ve enjoyed taking part in Touchstones Discussion Project sessions online (too lazy to form an in-person group), but can’t take part again until I get my computer fixed. Not political but a nice way of socializing.

  28. 28.

    TBone

    @Ohio Mom: yeah, no doubt about that aspect, but I was thinking of keeping costs low. I’ve never even heard of political ‘clubs’ IRL before today! They weren’t a thing anywhere I’ve lived.  Ambience is another good reason to spread out a potluck smorgasbord!

  29. 29.

    Maxim

    @Ohio Mom: Thank you. It’s been tough. If there were a management office I could complain to, I’d be picketing it. Maybe marching on it with torches and pitchforks.

  31. 31.

    glc

    @TBone: Also to be noted –

    If I’m guilty of this, every cop in the nation’s going to jail,” Wendt told CBS News

    He’s got a point there.

  32. 32.

    glory b

    @FelonyGovt: I don’t dislike her, but I said before that if she was a 300 lb 45 year old black woman with the same message, no one would pay her any attention.

    I think we should be talking about Jasmine Crockett.

  36. 36.

    Ramona

    @glc:

    @TBone: Also to be noted –

    If I’m guilty of this, every cop in the nation’s going to jail,” Wendt told CBS News

    He’s got a point there.

    So be it!

  39. 39.

    Melancholy Jaques

    I have been beating the “we need social clubs” drum on and off for the last twenty years. The right wingers are using churches and multi-level marketing groups to build their base and keep it active. We Democrats use to rely on unions, various ethnic clubs in the pre-expansion team cities, and the like.

    I am not sure how to get it done, but a rough outline would include several annual events organized around the common holidays & breaks from school and at least one event every year that is on a day all our own. A Democratic Party Day!

  40. 40.

    mrmoshpotato

    @TBone:

    Adair, Iowa, had a population of 794. So, it seemed suspicious when its three-person police department asked regulators to buy 90 machine guns, including an M134 Gatling-style minigun capable of shooting up to 6,000 rounds of ammunition every minute. 

    LOL!  The population count of this definitely white-as-fuck (get fucking (your cousins) kids to save the white race!) town doesn’t matter.

    How do you fire 30 machine guns at once?!  Reminds me of the gun-humpers who post pictures of an arsenal laid out on the living room floor.

  41. 41.

    Chris

    Anyway, there’s a piece making the rounds arguing that Democrats need to undergo a transformation to address the fact that the US is a “Civic Desert”.  Basically, the idea is that the loss of social clubs and other interactive spaces have isolated people, and Democrats’ could step in to address that.  I don’t think it’s a bad idea.  Certainly, I’ve witnessed the death of local party meetings in rural red states.

    I think what’s really missing from society isn’t Democratic Clubs (or a more efficient version of such).  It’s the ostensibly non-partisan institutions, that are allied with a political party and supporting a certain kind of politics, but without being part of the actual party and which reach people in a part of their everyday lives that at least officially isn’t about politics.

    The New Deal coalition had labor unions.  The Reagan coalition had evangelical churches.  (Those weren’t the only institutions in either case, but the most memorable and arguably the most important ones).  Our coalition today doesn’t have an equivalent of that, and it hurts us.

  42. 42.

    Suzanne

    @Geminid:

    This bothered me at the time, because I had followed many other members of the Democratic Class of 2018. I thought it was a very talented bunch,* with many members as capable as Ocasio-Cortez and some even more so. We’re seeing some of this now as Reps. Slotkin and Kim advance to the Senate.

    But “AOC” was the star that outshone them all, both individually and collectively. That was not her fault; people want heros and the media gave them what they wanted.

    Eh. Doesn’t bother me. She’s got a lot of rizz and that’s compelling.

    Like it or not — and I would bet that most people here do not like this — this is politics in the age of celebrity. It’s the game. The media isn’t giving anything that its consumers don’t want.

    I was going on and on this morning about how much I love Amy Klobuchar. I see a lot of myself in her. (Maybe I should try throwing a stapler.) I love smart people who work hard and don’t act showboat-y. AOC can definitely strike me as a bit thirsty.

    But she’s building political capital. I cannot argue with that. More of us would be well-served to follow her example.

  43. 43.

    Chris

    @TBone:

    A CBS News investigation found dozens of law enforcement leaders — sheriffs, captains, lieutenants, chiefs of police — buying and illegally selling firearms, even weapons of war, across 23 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., from the Deep South to the Midwest, Northeast and California coast.

    Huh, Lethal Weapon 3.

  44. 44.

    glory b

    @glory b: I’ll add that I also think we should talk more about Lauren Underwood. She is a black woman (not white adjacent) who flipped a red seat & is much more accomplished than AOC (or anyone else in the younger cohort for that matter), passing more legislation (which is what they are there for) than any of the other ones.

    I like Crockett because of her presence. She was a successful litigator, including criminal defense work, and you can tell that she knows how to get attention focused where it should be. I think the Republicans are gaining a healthy respect for her & know she is not to be pushed around.

  49. 49.

    glory b

    @Baud: Lol.

    Because, as we like to say, “Good black doesn’t crack,” many people are surprised to find out that she is actually in her mid-forties.

    Also from Missouri and a TX transplant. HBCU grad too.

  52. 52.

    catclub

    @TBone: the ATF only started vetting every machine gun application for the first time in January 2023 to confirm that a legitimate government agency was making the request.

     

    whats the hurry, anyway.

  53. 53.

    Belafon

    Personally, I think they all work as the fact of the party, but part of the point is the local work they are doing. Are the others doing stuff similar to AOC?

  54. 54.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: I’ve got no problems with stars per se. It’s more the rank-and-file Democrats who think of the non-stars as “chopped liver” that bug me. We have a tendency to look down on our politicians, and to assume that if we don’t hear about them they must be mediocre.

  56. 56.

    zhena gogolia

    @Melancholy Jaques: In the “church” thread earlier, there were lots of people saying they are atheists but attend Quaker meeting or Unitarian Universalist services. How about that? Liberal Christian communities don’t demand that you believe in God. My UCC church probably talks about God much more than either of those, but even so, we have atheist or at least agnostic members. There they are, ready-made “clubs” that don’t demand anything. And that are involved in on-the-ground service to their most marginalized neighbors.

  58. 58.

    narya

    @Baud: Exactly. Which is why I like AOC AND Underwood AND Crockett–they each bring a different area of expertise to the party (and the Party). The other thing about recognizing the “team” aspect of it is that when someone says/does something with which I disagree, I have other voices to which I can listen. If the other voices are providing a different angle, and (dis)agreeing, I can pick up nuances I might otherwise miss.

  59. 59.

    matt

    @Geminid: She wasn’t handed her prominence by media – her skill at working with media and direct outreach has resulted in her prominence.

  61. 61.

    Martin

    Here’s why I think AOC really matters.

    1. She does the work. She wasn’t out there blaming the electorate. Her first instinct was to try and understand the reasoning behind her voters that also voted for Trump. That was useful. It gave Democrats something to work with. Some of it didn’t make sense (because people don’t always make sense) but there was an overall theme there that made sense if you could put party stereotypes aside. She’s among the best democrats in terms of maintaining communication with her constituents.
    2. She goes where her voters are. Having been elected when she was in her 20s she had a better understanding of the new range of spaces. She’s talked about the importance of workers organizing inside video game streams, stuff like that. It may seem trivial, but when that reaches half a million voters that don’t watch MSNBC, that’s a big deal. And she still does MSNBC. She’s also more like to do Fox News than most Democrats are. You look at the people she has at the local level doing local organizing and they’re all under 40. It’s both easier to reach young voters that way, and also building the next generation of politicians. You may get these people running for city council in their 20s, mayor by 30, House before 40. Nancy is trying to knife out the older Dems from committees now. She’s picked up that part of the message at least.
    3. She is MUCH more likely to be constructively critical not necessarily of Democrats but of the things that Democrats protect. Pelosi was pissed that she knocked off a more mainline Dem when she first won, and eventually became less critical of AOC, but AOC still criticizes Pelosi and Dem leadership for never once having asked her how she beat a party supported Democrat. And that’s a VERY valid criticism of a party that is often kind of dogmatic in terms of how they operate, and in terms of the message they work with. She described her freshmen orientation to the House as ‘how to be indoctrinated by lobbyists’. She knows how she won that race and refused to bend to the party playbook, and continues to by and large trust her own instincts on which voters to chase and how to do it. And I think voters see a reformist in her that they don’t see in other Dems. That was a dominant theme among the AOC/Trump voters – she’s critical of these institutions that need to change/go away in ways Democrats generally aren’t.
    4. And to the extent that I’ve been suggesting that Dems push a more populist (in terms of marketing, not policy) economic message, she understands that she can’t have it both ways on that. Once you yield to lobbying and big donors, you’ve lost all credibility on the message. That’s why a lot of Republicans liked Bernie. Sure, he’s a crank and pain in the ass, but his core message is easy to understand and he doesn’t feel like he needs to compromise on it and that’s appealing to a LOT of voters. I’m not suggesting he would have won any of these elections, but I think that characteristic of him is a winning one that other dems would do well to embrace – and AOC does it naturally because she really does think that way. AOC beat the Dem incumbent without the big money, and I think Harris might have done the same if she could have stuck with the small donors and continued her early economic populist message, but it seemed as though that message had to get jettisoned in order to keep the big money flowing in.
  62. 62.

    glory b

    @catclub: As a former ATF employee, I’ll defend them by saying that the agency has been significantly underfunded (by the Republicans, of course) for decades.

    1. Long after other agencies were computerized, ATF wa cataloging information on index cards.
  63. 63.

    scav

    @zhena gogolia: Why not have more options going?  Especially as every congregation is different, as are the individuals joining them.  Some would prefer no discussion of deities during their civic activism / activities, so what? It’s not like we shouldn’t have World Central Kitchen because there are pre-existing religiously affiliated soup kitchens.

  64. 64.

    zhena gogolia

    @scav: Fine — if someone can instantly invent venues that can do the same, fine with me. I don’t think it will happen before Trump shuffles off this mortal coil.

    I guess I’m trying to suggest that people can find ready-made communities with the values we treasure, and no one will ask you to talk about God.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    Back on topic.

    About 30% of voters in deep red areas are blue voters. It would be me nice if we could find a way to hear from and empower those people, even if they’re not as liberal as we like. I feel like they’ve been lost in the conversations and they probably feel like it too.

  66. 66.

    Belafon

    @Baud: I would love for Democratic reps in nearby districts to extend their party representation to nearby red areas. At least give us the chance to have someone listen to our concerns as well.

  67. 67.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @JML:

    I’m a huge fan of hers as a politician. I don’t always agree with her on policy issues (though I mostly do), but her approach to politics as well as law-making is pretty dead on.

    I’ll echo that.  I’ve actually met her twice at Netroots Nations conventions last decade.  She’s the real deal and understands not only the House process in all its nuances but the outward political messaging of being a Democrat.

  68. 68.

    Gin & Tonic

    Has commenter HumboldtBlue been around lately? It now appears there was a major earthquake in that area, so I’m just wondering about their well-being.

  70. 70.

    frosty

    @Marmot: That was a really good article. One thing that resonated with me was Obama for America training precinct and neighborhood leaders in 2008 and 2012 … and then walking away. I saw it in our GOTV work – we seem to start from scratch every election.

  71. 71.

    scav

    @zhena gogolia: Yes, but I’m saying having more and others is also a good thing.  More channels.  Building them and their associated networks will help even post-Trump.  Additionally, diversifying will help protect against the overall effort being derailed or  clogged by takeovers by the more exclusionary religious adherents.

  73. 73.

    Gretchen

    @glory b: I think of Crockett in the same way I do AOC. Attractive always helps, and Crockett is attractive, witty,smart, and fast with a retort. I’m hoping for more of these smart younger Democrats.

  76. 76.

    Gretchen

    @glory b: Yes, I thought Crockett was mid thirties and was surprised to learn she’s 43. She’s got a decade of courtroom practice which shows when she’s questioning witnesses.

  78. 78.

    Gretchen

    @Belafon: Sharice Davids does a lot of constituent work and things for veterans and local businesses. She doesn’t call a lot of attention to herself as a Democrat. Like Lauren Underwood, she’s from a less Democratic district so can’t be seen as sticking it to Republicans like AOC can.

  79. 79.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @frosty:

    One thing that resonated with me was Obama for America training precinct and neighborhood leaders in 2008 and 2012 … and then walking away.

    It was (and is) infuriating.  I remember vividly tons of people, in person and online, saying just how OfA was gonna transform Democratic campaigns, yada, yada, yada.

    And here we are 12 years later…

  80. 80.

    Suzanne

    @Geminid: That’s fair.

    I think most of us here are somewhat unusual in that we look to our elected officials primarily to do (honestly fairly boring) jobs, and we try to judge their performance rationally based on data or at least something measurable. The imagecraft absolutely is not at the top of our list of priorities.

    I don’t know that that works in the current era.

  85. 85.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @eemom:

    Also too, she didn’t say boo about the Hunter pardon, unlike so many of my clownish CO “Dems”.  Well, okay, she used it as a pivot to advocate for commuting some federal death sentences but didn’t feel the need to shiv the man one final time like other Dems.

    Like I said, she understands the nuances of intraparty stuff better than anybody ever thought.  And she still continues to be underestimated in that regard.

  86. 86.

    Gretchen

    @Baud: Jess Piper of Blue Missouri. She says we’ll never come back without paying attention to rural voters and running everywhere. She says even if we could bump up our rural turnout by 3% it would help. She ran in a very red MO district and raised a lot of money. Rather than help her the state party thought she should give some of her money to a race that had a better chance of winning.

    https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/rural-america-is-untapped-political

  87. 87.

    scav

    @Baud: Absolutely in term of the just doing it.  Just do it even if you’re building new would be closer to it.  Didn’t mean to imply a universally coordinated effort or network, sorry for the impression.  But a more diversely anchored effort will still be less prone to interruption.

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @matt: Well, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s Justice Democrat managers certainly were adept at grabbing the spotlight. But their candidate became a star as soon as she beat Joe Crowley in the June, 2018 primary. That was the kind of story news people love, and they came running.

  92. 92.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @zhena gogolia:

    Perhaps, but it isn’t just atheists like me who find churches off-putting. A very large percentage of Americans are “unchurched” and may not feel like associating with one.

  93. 93.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Gretchen:

    I follow Jess.  I lived in a district not unlike hers for 22+ years, in a county that over the course of the last dozen of those years competed as the “Reddest County in Missouri” when it came to presidential votes.

    What she’s saying is true but not new.  Me and the late Ozark Hillbilly (as well as actual prominent bloggers like Booman) have been saying that for years.  I’ve written about the campaigning transformation of McCaskill over that time frame and how she grew to adopt exactly what Jess is currently saying.  Claire would go into the bloodest red districts in the state and start her stump by saying “I’m here but you’ll never see my opponent here.”

    And it doesn’t move the needle anymore.  Why?  We’ve all got our hot takes.  Part of it is the cultural divide that’s only grown wider over the last 15 years.  Another part is demographic in that people have actually left those red areas and moved to larger metro regions, leaving behind a demographic that was virulently red to begin with and now, fewer “others” to counterbalance their vote, even if it’s at 10%.  And another part is the hibernation Dems enter after every election cycle.  And I’m sure there are other parts so hats off to Jess but it ain’t that simple.

    Absolutely we should campaign everywhere but in order to do that, we need people and we need a national party committed to working that angle 24/7/365.

    And that’s one thing Dems haven’t done.

  96. 96.

    SatanicPanic

    @Belafon: Joe Biden’s birthday? Why would anyone celebrate that guy? He’s a bottom five worst president. He had ONE JOB (stop fascism) and he failed miserably. Only Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump are worse presidents. Maybe Buchanan or Pierce too. But no one else. And I’m not even sure about the latter two.

    OK I was just curious to see if people were still here after the election loss, I’ll go back to not coming here. We’re all doomed anyway. Bye to those of you I like.

  98. 98.

    Gretchen

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yes, it’s partly young people leaving, at least the educated ones. My MO friend has 4 kids and 3 have moved to the coasts. I also have 4- 2 still here in KS, two on the coasts.
    I think a huge part of it is evangelicals. Their pastors told them it was a sin to vote for Harris, and unquestioning obedience to authority is part of the culture. The Catholic bishops said the same thing.
    Talia Lavin’s new book Wild Faith is an eye opener about this.

    https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/talia-lavin/wild-faith/9780306829192/

  104. 104.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    If you want to attract young people, help them with what they need.. food, housing, navigating legal issues, learning how to navigate society in general. Years ago I turned a young lady into an engaged voter by just taking the time to explain to process and providing links to voter guides and other resources. You’d be surprised how often their elders didn’t take the time to show them what they they need to know.

  105. 105.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: Yes, and some of us have demanding professional lives, families and streaming services to attend to. I live alone and pull weeds and prune bushes a couple days a week. I’ll read a John Sandford novel or a history book for entertainment.

    I was a busier in 2018, but I still had plenty of time to watch all the Democratic House candidates catch the Blue Wave, and I’ve kept up with most of them since then. Now I want to survey our new House Class. It’s a nerdy job, but someone has to do it!

  106. 106.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @SatanicPanic: I thought you left. It’s your beloved cohort of donorcrats who lost that election. Go lick Adam Schiff’s butthole while he watches himself on CNN and tell him “I’m so glad you brought us President Trump, zaddy.”

  107. 107.

    eemom

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    I have an unequivocal fuck you for every “Dem” who shits on Biden, from last July (hello, Schiff, Warner, and a fuckload of others), to post-election (hello Pelosi (and Bernie if he were a Dem)), to the Hunter pardon (hello, lost count).

    @SatanicPanic:

    I first thought you were kidding. Fuck you too and your GBCW bullshit.

  110. 110.

    SatanicPanic

    Oh yeah Krope, it was my fault, the old ass fossil was really going to win it.

    Delusional.

    OK leaving for real, you dweebs can save your fingers for typing out love poems to our worst Democratic president ever.

  111. 111.

    eemom

    @VeniceRiley:

    The next “just not THAT woman” has entered the chat.

    We’re never gonna see anything other than a white man in the WH again in our lifetimes, even if there are more elections.

  112. 112.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @SatanicPanic: You’re a bigot. And that is one of two major ways that Democrats capitulated to bigotry this year, the other being the Palestine issue. And, FTR, they should have had Biden’s back for the last three years, not just in July.

    Mistermix is damn right here, by the way, that AOC is showing the best judgment in the party right now.

  114. 114.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I am not putting her forward for president yet. There is a lot that she can do in Congress. 

    Right.  And starting to jerk off to 2028 already…  I fucking hate that shit.

    And we have four more years of punching Putin’s bitch in his fat, orange, fascist face as much as possible.

  115. 115.

    Maxim

    @Belafon: I just went to their website and found the meeting location for the nearest chapter to me — which closed 3 years ago, but the site has not been updated. You might want to confirm the place you’re going to if you haven’t already.

  116. 116.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    The actions being described are what Unions often do. Occasionally we caucused in the UAW Hall when we lived in Iowa.

    AOC has always impressed me by how clear it is that she does her homework. A lot of congress people look blank if asked to talk about something before a committee they’re on . They can hurl insults, and then they’re done. She has the facts

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    It is the political level of the people doing the work that makes a difference, especially because they should be able to get more done on a smaller level – which helps their side grow. And that growth is what works better in our much higher communication level than humanity use to have, in the lifetime of many alive today. For example look what we are doing right here and right now. We are talking about the basics of a lot of politics, something that was much harder to do, in the lifetimes of most adults still with us. We can, and do, discuss a much wider concept of humanity than anyone was ever able to do, 20-30 yrs ago, let alone 50-100 yrs ago. This is a very major change.

  120. 120.

    Martin

    @Dan: Yep. That’s one of the problems we’re having in mind planning this kind of thing. We don’t have a solution to the meeting place problem, so right now we’re thinking on a small enough scale that we do a meetinghouse model – with the consideration we’re in SoCal and ‘outdoors’ is almost always a workable space.

    But there are options. The scale of our current effort is our local HOA. That doesn’t sound very ambitious, but our local HOA is about the size of the largest city in a few states. It’s big and if we got 1% of Harris voters in it, it’d be a hundred+ people and that would verge on being too big to organize. But it also means we have the HOA facilities we can rent for small enough amounts of money that many of us would just cover it out of pocket – it’s cheap to residents.

    And it’s also a consideration in what we’re trying to build – is this a Democratic Party thing, or is this a nonpartisan liberal/service club that we could access space at the library, etc. And we’re inclined to the latter, even though that’ll probably make us the traitors that back the DemSoc candidate over the Dem in the primary or whatever.

  121. 121.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: IIRC, a lot of establishment Dems at the time did not want an organization not beholden to the Dem establishment operating in the field. Obama needed all of the Dems to rescue the US economy & pass his agenda, so he folded. After the 2010 shellacking, Obama & OfA no longer had the cachet to circumvent the Dem establishment.

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