AOC was on Jon Stewart’s podcast the other day. I’m no fan of the guy but it was a good interview, mainly because he let her talk. Anyway, I found a transcript and wanted to share a few quotes that I found interesting. The excerpt is pretty long so it’s after the jump. Also, for those of you who tend to run to the fainting couch and clutch your pearls while inhaling smelling salts when the sacred Democratic Party is criticized, you may want to preserve your health by not reading further.
AOC: One of the things that MLK would talk about, he would talk about this this tension between people who value order over valuing justice. I think there is this really strong attachment to order and business as usual. I think also a lot of Democrats see that as a contrast. They’re like, See, we’re not them, so we are going to ask you what tea you want, as opposed to calling it like it is, which I think sometimes is seen as a little more gauche.
[…]JS: […]When you wanted to be the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, the Democrats decided to hand it to, and nothing against Representative Connolly, but he’s 74 years old. It’s almost as if they were saying, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is really great at this, but he’s 74, so there’s nothing we can do. He’s a 74-year-old man. He’s first in line.
AOC: I mean, there are rules and structures and orders in the Democratic Party. One that we know very well is seniority. It’s a seniority rule type of system. It is true, my run was… It was a challenging of an entire system. It wasn’t just about me or about any… Again, I think Jerry’s great, but it wasn’t just about two individuals.
[…] it was about challenging a system, and a system of in a way of making decisions in the party. The problem with that is that when you asked Democrats sometimes to challenge the way that they’ve been operating for decades, it’s existential in some ways. If we don’t make decisions like this, what could we possibly do? What would result?JS: [D]oesn’t Trump rise and the way that he’s operating make farce of that? Yeah. I mean, in some ways, he clowns them. That it doesn’t look like a holding to protocol. It looks like submission. It doesn’t in any any way appear to be they’re maintaining the thing about the party that is ineffectual, that doesn’t do anything. Yet that’s the thing they seem to cling to the most.
AOC: Yeah. And not only that, but the other thing that makes it dangerous is that it makes us remarkably predictable. It makes the Democratic Party highly predictable in the decisions it’s going to make, in the people that we’re going to select, in the type of people we advance in the way that we make decisions. And when we are highly predictable to the opposition, they will be one, two, four steps ahead. They know what Democrats are going to do.
JS: You’re talking more on a procedural level, or do you mean also a ideological level?
AOC: I think both. I think they know what we’re going to do politically. They know how we position ourselves, even within internal squabbles, when there’s a aggressive or whatever you may want to say about it. They can map us out. Because of that, they’re able to operate around that. They’ll say, Oh, yeah, they’re going to do that, or they’re not going to do that. There was never any question about who or who wouldn’t show up to the inauguration, for example, or how they would be received, I think. And they know that. And so they’re able to… To your point, Trump is able to run roughshod through these things because he knows, he has a lot of the party’s number in terms of how they’re going to operate. I think that sometimes making certain calculated but unpredictable choices is a way that we can put ourselves, gives ourselves the upper hand.
JS: […] I think in some ways, it reveals some of the Democrats posturing as performative. When you’re creating apocalyptic messaging about a fascist- Literally. Who is literally coming over and doing these things. And then when he wins sitting down with watercress sandwiches and cream cheese and doing the whole nine yards, it makes you wonder, well, did you believe any of the shit you were saying before? […] Or was that something, again, that was just a part of your messaging?
AOC: Yeah. No, it’s really true. I think something that what makes this go around with Trump so much more dangerous than the first time around is exactly what you’re saying. It’s that he is much more normalized this time around than he was the first time. The first time, people were really on edge. They were on guard. They were very vigilant about any break that he would have with these norms. This time, the norms are becoming him. The norms are embracing him. Even these little things that everyday working people may not care about, but they are strong cultural signals. Oscar de la Renta, like dressing all of the women. There’s all these cultural symbols, right?
There was a pretty long exchange on money and politics, and AOC said when she was appointed to the Energy and Commerce Committee this year (one of the four “money” committees in Congress, in charge of billions in appropriations), her phones were ringing off the hook with lobbyists who wanted to influence her.
AOC: […] One of the things that we need to do is to talk to people directly. Also, guess what? There need to be Democrats who walk the walk and talk the talk. There is an insane amount of hypocrisy, and the hypocrisy is what gets exploited to use the cynicism. […] And wherever there’s a hypocritical window. For example, I think one of the most biggest examples of this is insider trading in Congress.
[…] I think sometimes what my colleagues and other people in the party don’t understand is that the insider trading that happens in Congress, it explodes the cynicism that fuels the right. It doesn’t benefit us. It benefits Republicans because they make no bones about the fact that they are here, about what class they are here to serve. In fact, Republicans are far more honest in this respect sometimes, which is that they’re here to serve the billionaire class, and they make decisions very publicly to serve that billionaire class.
AOC: Now, first and foremost, her family explicitly asked that her name not be politicized or used or wielded in this way. Every time I see this, it’s just so disgusting to me that they just trampled on this family’s wishes and decided to do this. But anyways, so you have this act that’s brought forth, and Republicans say, Okay, well, this person, if you have a criminal record, if you’ve sexually assaulted somebody, you should be deported. And so that’s the guise of this bill, right? And They said, so that should be the law. Except that’s not what’s in this law, because A, that is existing US law. […]Now, in this bill, all you need to do is be accused of a crime. And you don’t have to be fully undocumented. It works against dreamers, too. So you could be here. You could have lawful- So they take a narrow common sense issue [deporting immigrants who commit violent crimes] , and then what they do is they expand the margins out on it to things that would not be common sense.[…]And so this is the thing that we need to be aware of. But it’s also something that you haven’t heard this because Democrats are very scared on these kinds of issues. Democrats are vulnerable on issues of immigration. And so the response, instead of being more full-throated and telling people how they’re being conned, is to just be quiet about it and to go along with it.
JS: So let’s take your energy, let’s take the passion that you have for these issues. Let’s think about, because right now, the Democrats are almost fully defined by their positions on Trump, as opposed to people are thirsty for a leadership The Democrats, I think, have had a really difficult time responding to that thirst, responding to that action. […]
AOC: Well, I think we need a real agenda. If you’ve noticed, the Democratic Party has not really had a platform with any new- I have noticed. Yeah. There’s no platform. I mean, there’s technically a platform that gets voted out. This is the crux of it. If you ask a working class American or just any normal American, what is a Democrat? What do they stand for? They will not really be able to give you a clear answer And so our party needs a clear and strong agenda. I think one of the problems is that the internal incentives within the Democratic Party are quite contrary to a clear, full-throated agenda. […]
This is where I think when you talk about responsiveness, it’s that a lot of people propose these things that nibble around the edges but don’t actually structurally address the problem. They’ll say, Okay, we’re going to do a little bit of Medicare reform here. That doesn’t fix the problem. That doesn’t fix the fact that you aren’t paid a living wage from the jump, from the time you’re 15 years old getting your first job at McDonald’s or Baskin Robbins or wherever it is. We don’t have money. We need money. That doesn’t solve that problem. It doesn’t solve the fact that the price of college is just skyrocketing year over year, and it’s increasingly becoming something that’s only accessible for more and more elite people as time goes on. It doesn’t fix the fact that then in order to that degree, yes, it still does give you a ticket to a more privileged class. I know there’s a lot of discussion about is college worth and also the trades, too. The trades are incredibly important as well. But these are still tickets to a more… So people are getting left behind at every single stage of life.
And what the Democratic response has been is like, oh, let’s expand Pell Grants a little bit. […]
At the end of the day, and the stuff that’s crazy to me is the answers are stuff — we’re just asking for things that our parents and our grandparents had. Tuition-free public colleges and universities, not new.
We should be lowering the age of Medicare. I want the age of Medicare to be lowered to zero, but even you bring it to 50 and you will be able to make tons and tons of people far more secure in their lives, which, by the way, helps their kids because you’re working your ass off to get your parents health care because they’re not 65 yet.
Emphasize consequences, not norms. Show anger, not measured platitudes. She gets it.
different-church-lady
The key to it would be to turn justice into the order of the day.
zhena gogolia
So what is the legislative mechanism for fixing the problem in a Congress made up of half or more than half Republicans? I don’t see that explained here.
sab
Silly and trite comment, but I love that mistermix bigfoots his own posts, proving that BJ people can walk and chew gum and comment on two threads.
MobiusKlein
M-mix, I honestly resent being castigated for criticizing bad faith criticism. Or other forms of circular firing squads that we fall into on cue. No need to start off a post like that.
Alce _e_ardillo
She is the defacto minority leader ,and the sooner the appointed “leadership “ understands this,the sooner the Democratic Party will be a force.
Starfish (she/her)
@zhena gogolia: Attempt to pass some cool things even if they are going to fail. Then use those Republican votes to slap them silly next election. “You know, Republicans don’t want YOU to have access to good medical care.”
“Oh it wasn’t going to pass so we didn’t even try” is not inspiring.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@sab: 51 minutes is “big footing”? We used to have a couple of posts an hour in the good old days. And sometimes the same person wrote them.
zhena gogolia
This kind of snideness will really help us consolidate our movement.
zhena gogolia
Fuck Jon Stewart.
Scout211
Really, mistermix? I may not like your and other jackals constant criticisms of Democrats but to call us names? Really? Is that necessary here? Does that help Democrats?
@MobiusKlein:
Thank you, MobiusKlein.
sab
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Just joking. My point was we can do two things at once. Didn’t you understand that?
That is what is wrong with the blog now. So sensitive. //////////
Starfish (she/her)
I think there are some other folks on that committee that may be qualified to lead it. I would like to see Jasmine Crockett lead a committee.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@sab: I was joking, too. No harm no foul.
sab
@@mistermix.bsky.social: We sometimes had so many posts the jackals couldn’t keep up.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Many white dudes are always going to be looking for excuses to check out.
Let’s assume that the Dems believed that Trump wasn’t a fascist and were lying for votes. What does JS believe? He doesn’t want to steer the conversation there.
scav
There is nevertheless a tinge of entitlement and lack of focus (or is it revelation of the importance of what is the supposed focus of attention) when the method of plating and delivery is what gets peoples mouths going.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: He knows (or thinks) it won’t affect him. I hope Clooney is enjoying Lake Como and Saint Tropez.
Baud
I appreciate AOC not taking the ageism bait.
zhena gogolia
@Starfish (she/her): Could you please provide me with a list of this sort of legislation that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has proposed?
sab
@sab: According to the blogfather from last night or the night before we are now jackasses not jackals. I am uncomfortable with that. It makes us sound too much like Democrat donkeys.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Trump probably improves his ratings, so it will affect him.
Another Scott
If 2016 and 2024 should have taught us anything, it’s that good, sensible, policies from qualified, good, sensible people do not win elections in the USA on their own.
I like AOC, but she’s in no position to lead the party right now. She hasn’t demonstrated that her approach turns out voters – not even in her own district – above what, e.g., [harping on this yet again] conventional old firebreathing liberal Gerry Connolly did in the November election, where he got 125,000 more votes than she did [/harping].
We just had an election 81 days ago. The horrible new guy has been in office all of 5 days. We have our team in place, we have our leadership team in place, the monsters are putting their team in place. We need to work together with the team we have now and figure out a way forward with as much unity as possible (which will not be 100% unity on everything – we’re not a cult).
We’re the party of reality. We need to work with the reality we have, not think that some new savior like AOC is going to fix everything if we just listen to her right now…
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: True.
sab
@zhena gogolia: Jon Stewart is aging out and desperate to still be relevant. Sad to be in a profession where your life is over at 60.
In my line of work we are failing to send 85 year olds out the door.
matt
@zhena gogolia: https://www.congress.gov/member/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/O000172?q=%7B%22sponsorship%22%3A%22cosponsored%22%7
1,299 results
matt
@Another Scott: Do we really have to have the Jon Testers of the world lead the party because they ‘turn out votes’? I like that she doesn’t talk like a philosophy professor or a lawyer.
zhena gogolia
@matt: I’m scrolling down and don’t see her as the initiator of any of these — am I missing something?
And which of these has had any impact or resonance in the public sphere?
matt
@zhena gogolia: Oh, so co-sponsoring isn’t good enough? Got to be a lone sponsor? I’ve played this game with right wing assholes online before. It’s funny stuff.
Since she’s not already in leadership, she’s not going to be the sole sponsor of major bills passed by the party delegation.
Here are the 66 bills she sponsored alone:
https://www.congress.gov/member/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/O000172?q=%7B%22sponsorship%22%3A%22sponsored%22%7D
66 results.
Starfish (she/her)
@zhena gogolia: Attempting to impeach Alito and Thomas? They should do this every Congress. It can be the War on Christmas.
Drag this corrupt Supreme Court.
The Green New Deal may not have gotten passed, but it made space for other climate change efforts.
Baud
@matt:
We need people who will turn out votes, both nationally and in each state and district. That’s how the system works.
Finding those people isn’t easy.
Starfish (she/her)
@matt: Oh. I see that we are in Lucy and football territory.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Another Scott:
Sorry, I’m all out of unity feelings for Democrats who are doing things like voting to confirm Kristi Noem, and voting to help pass the Laken Riley Act. Fresh out, the unity store is closed, and the unity train has left the station.
zhena gogolia
@matt: And which ones have had public impact?
Ruckus
Some people like money more than anything else on the planet.
It is nice to have some. It’s somewhat nicer to have a bunch of it.
But.
When we really, really taxed the uber wealthy – they were still – uber wealthy.
And then we cut back the upper tax brackets as being too high and we now have the uber wealthy telling us once again that we need to get down on our knees to them (at least figuratively anyway)
And that is and always has been a problem for any country – when the uber wealthy get promoted to a higher level in the culture than everyone else. We are supposed to be equal, but with the dollar being the linchpin of society, rather than the constitution and our equality – it all goes to shit. As it’s been done for centuries and centuries on this planet. Money talks and everything else walks. That was not the premise of this country when it was founded, but it’s getting back to that now, what with the world’s richest man telling our “leader” how to run the country, and our leader being one of the supposedly wealthy. Some have asked why people voted for him and I’d bet the number one reason was that he supposedly has a lot of money. He did a nothing job the last time but look how many still voted for him. Because he has money – or at least he is easily on the monied side of any issue. Money will always talk the loudest because it is how one lives in any large economy. Very few humans own the concept of production of stuff. They work in the jobs that create the economy, but relatively very few actually own and control the jobs they get paid to do. And those jobs all work under those that control the MONEY. I’ve owned 2 businesses, one manufacturing of tools used to create products to sell and one to sell stuff that others made. And what I got for both of those was at best, pocket change compared to the controllers of the economy, the uber wealthy. And most of the uber wealthy got that way by controlling what you can buy and what you get paid to be a part of the economy that they make a hell of a lot of bucks from.
And now they want to take away the protections that this country has built around them getting uber wealthy so they can get more uber and you and I get far less of what we earned getting them there. They want to go back to a time when money talks and everything else crawls on it’s belly in the mud, muck and shit.
matt
@Baud: We do, but do those people have to be the only faces of the party? Don’t we have room for whip smart people who can message more effectively than the bottom 95% of Congress?
I think she’d be a great wartime consigliere for the party’s messaging. Maybe we do need a boring white guy in front of her so the hill people don’t freak out. I don’t know.
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: I don’t think AOC is wrong, necessarily, but I don’t think slagging the Democrats is helpful at this or any point, really, and I don’t think Jon Stewart is in any way a good-faith actor as an interviewer or a media personality, so I am not prepared to throw any bouquets around or go into any other ecstasies about this particular message.
ETA: I like her style, tho, and I would like to see more of it in the coming years. Wonder how she would do in a leadership position.
zhena gogolia
@Starfish (she/her): This is the first I’ve heard of it. Very nice. But did anyone notice?
matt
@zhena gogolia: Fuck off, loser.
Baud
@matt:
Huh? The party has many faces, including AOC.
zhena gogolia
@matt: I guess that’s easier than answering my question.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@zhena gogolia: Oh, and matt, while you’re at it, put the goalpost farther out into the parking lot.
zhena gogolia
@matt: Yes, I am a loser, because so many people couldn’t be bothered to vote against a felon rapist who attacked the U.S. Capitol.
matt
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I’m the one moving the goalposts? Ah, never mind, got my blood up a little bit and misread. Thanks.
zhena gogolia
@matt: Mistermix was supporting you. I’m the target of the “goalposts” comment. And I don’t give a flying fuck.
bluefoot
@Scout211:
Maybe Mmix is aspiring to be the Loomis of BJ?
matt
@zhena gogolia: You’re not engaging in reasonable debate, you’re just Goldilocksing when I show evidence. It’s dumb.
Another Scott
@matt: [not sure if serious]
Tester lost re-election.
The House and Senate set their own rules – it’s in the Constitution.
The parties in the House and Senate vote for their leadership. Whoever gets the majority wins.
We may not like who they choose as leaders, but it’s their choice and that’s the way it works. The players are fixed for this Congress.
Do we really want there to be some sort of national party popular vote for committee ranking members and all the rest??
Griping about the party or party leaders doing it rong has a time and place, but that time is not right now. Again, they just decided their leadership. Our focus needs to be on figuring out how to stop the worst of their proposed policies given the reality, and figuring out how to win in 2026 and 2028 and beyond.
Unending sniping at allies, and thinking that what works in the Bronx and Queens obviously is going to work in Springfield and Stanardsville and Jumbo, isn’t the way forward IMHO.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
MagdaInBlack
Well. This is constructive.
hitchhiker
She does. She also refrains from sneering at anybody, which might be why you’d want people to read this instead of taunting them for being idiots who can’t hear criticism.
Josie
@bluefoot:
Aspiring? How about accomplishing?
matt
@Another Scott: I just want to see the old folks home denizens of our Congress be more effective. AOC can talk better than almost all of them. Also, she’s young – maybe our problem with young voters could be solved somehow. Let me think about that.
TBone
I am muted today but still kicking it. I needed a palate cleanser after all this reading and Chaplin provides one. *Pee Wee voice: “I’m NOT sorry!”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20
zhena gogolia
@hitchhiker: She is one of our many capable and articulate representatives in Congress. I appreciate that she refrained from publicly dumping on Biden when so many of her colleagues were rushing to the microphones. I look forward to her further career, should any sort of democratic career still be possible in the coming years.
ETA: And I also appreciate that she does not sneer.
matt
@Another Scott: I know the Tester reference is stale, but for the last years his name has kept popping up as the kind of guy we need in charge. Cletus safari big game hunter. That’s what we need.
I don’t think AOC does unrelentingly snipe, not like say Ilhan Omar. Maybe I missed it.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
👍
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@sab:
You say that like it was a bad thing. I always thought it was a feature, not a bug.
Another Scott
@matt: News to me. I don’t recall anyone advocating that Tester should be in charge.
My position has always been that we’re a big, diverse country and our message has to be tailored to voters’ diversity. Not pandering, but representing them and their interests and hearing their concerns. And working to move the country forward.
That message isn’t going to be the same everywhere, we’re not going to agree on everything – even important things – because we’re not a cult.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
sab
@zhena gogolia: When I vote it is a five minute car ride then a two minute wait in line.
In other neighborhoods in my city it is an hour bus ride then a wait at the transfer then another bus ride, then after voting a wait and another transfer then a bus ride to the job you hope you still have.
Don’t you dare minimize the impediments to voting that they are putting in.
ETA Twenty years ago I could walk to the polls. No more.
Alce _e_ardillo
@Another Scott: Leaders emerge from the roots of the party, because they crystallize the thoughts and feelings of the people. AOC does that better than almost anyone I have seen in Congress, and she compels agreement by the force of her argument. Other leaders include Jasmine Crockett, and Jamie Raskin. She has been criticized for being a show horse, but we need show horses too, to grab the spotlight and shine it where light needs to be shed.
matt
@Another Scott: I agree 100% that message segmentation is a super important and neglected part of our politics. I was disappointed this last cycle to see Democratic politicians all up and down the ballot resort to blast-repeating a few high production value video ads over and over and over. Thought maybe our side’s collective thinking had gotten better than that. Then again, maybe it did. I am not much of a consumer of social media, other than a couple of websites like this. Didn’t hear about anything like that though, any social media push.
Miss Bianca
@sab: mail by vote should be a legal right in all 50 states.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: AOC farts rainbows contingent is allergic to reality.
sab
@Miss Bianca: Yes. Although awkward for abused spouses, but that is a tiny demographic.
matt
@schrodingers_cat: Communication skills are (a) good or (b) bad for a politician to have?
As to allergic to reality, fucking try me. Show me your great facts.
‘Oh, she’s in a safe district.’ Yeah. So is Nancy Pelosi.
zhena gogolia
@sab: So you think that accounts for Trump’s victory?
@mistermix.bsky.social
@sab:
Yes, and the scary thing is that these impediments have become almost normalized, especially by media covering them. “Welcome to the 6 o’clock news. It’s time to vote, look at these 500 people in a poor neighborhood who will stand in line for hours in the hot sun. Next up, a look at one of the most popular restaurants in the city.”
Mary S.
I am a Democrat and have always have been a Democrat. But I think it’s important to hear things you don’t like — and not focus too much on whatever tone you perceive the speaker to be taking. I really dislike criticism of “The Democrats” that follows Murc’s Law and/or waives away the enormous rightwing (social) media advantage — largely funded by oligarchical types — and the enormous advantage of having no shame about appealing to (white) people’s worst, most fearful impulses. However, I think that criticism of the Democratic congressional hierarchy is spot on. More broadly, I feel betrayed by the way so many elected Dems are (to put it as mildly as possible) ditching reality in order to cling to norms that no longer exist in any meaningful sense.
sab
@sab: My comment to zhena gogolia: “don’t you dare” was unintentionally but still very hostile. I hope she will accept my apology.
sab
@zhena gogolia: Probably not, but it didn’t help. I apologized to you below or above. My comment was very much more hostile than yours deserved.
Miss Bianca
@sab: abused spouses are likely going to have a problem voting in the traditional ways as well, I would imagine if, say, they are dependent on the abusing spouse to provide transportation to the polling place.
Point being, I think mail-in ballots are a net benefit all round.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@schrodingers_cat:
This is pretty much the sentiment of the people I was ribbing with my comment about fainting couches. I could have just said nothing, and I think the comments would have been similar. A bunch of orthodoxy gatekeepers banging out short little comments that address none of the substance of what AOC says.
sab
Off topic: I got up and distributed cat treats around the house at four a.m. No big deal. I needed to pee anyway.
Cats let me sleep in for hours this morning.
Steve LaBonne
Broad cultural and institutional change is rarely led by elected politicians. On civil rights MLK and others led, LBJ followed. Also see FDR’s “now make me do it”.
E.
I don’t understand why I have to be a “AOC farts rainbows contingent” person just because her messages, when I have come upon them, have always resonated with me. Has she done something terrible? What is it?
Citizen Alan
@matt: personally, I absolutely believe that our house leaders should all be from safe districts. I reached that conclusion after I saw two democratic speakers from red states lose their seats during red wave years because the morons who lived in thise districts were too stupid to see the value of being represented by the fucking speaker of the house, even if they disagreed with his politics. Meanwhile, moderate democrats in red state wiill vote for someone like thad cochran well past the point of obvious senility because they (not I!) recognize the tangible benefits of sending the chairman of the appropriations committee back for another two years to bring federal pork back to a state like mississippi, that otherwise has nothing going for it.
MagdaInBlack
@E.: I don’t understand that bit either.
Melancholy Jaques
I never faint because I am not sure that I will fall gracefully – Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution
I mostly agree with AOC – as I usually do – but if we ask the white working class voters what is a Democrat and what do they stand for, they will give a very clear answer & we won’t like it.
I accept good faith criticisms of the Democratic Party & every losing Democratic campaign. We must always examine & re-examine who we are & what we are trying to accomplish. But too often the criticisms are hand-waving away the realities of the nation we live in & the people who live here & vote here.
Are we predictable? Yes, and we ought to predictably stand for protecting the environment, everyone’s right to vote, women’s right to control their bodies, everyone’s access to jobs & schools & government programs regardless of national origin, race, color, religion, disability, sex, and familial status. It the fact that we Democrats do stand for these things that causes the majority of white working class voters to reject us. Just ask them.
Glory b
@E.: She’s made several attempts over the years to primary other members, Hakeem Jeffries, Shantel Brown and Sharice David’s come to mind.
Not good for party unity.
She’s also not accomplished much, like passing a bill, either.
Ruckus
@sab:
Many parts of this country are different in many ways. Where I live now it is a short walk to vote at a public building, which is appropriate for me to vote in, a local senior center, in a park. Last vote they had about 15-20 machines so no waiting to vote in the middle of the week and day. This is LA County so there are a few million voters among the 10 million people living here.
Miss Bianca
@Melancholy Jaques:
I agree, and it’s not just the white working class, either. A majority of all strata of white people in the country apparently reject this stand.
Glory b
@matt: AND Nancy understood that members in her party might have to go against her in order to win in their districts.
She dud so without criticizing them.
Remember her mantra, “Just win, baby.” If they had to challenge her to do so, so be it.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
In CA one can walk into a voting center on election day, register and then vote. An alternative for anybody not able to receive (for whatever reason) their standard mailed ballot.
This system BTW makes us pinko commie loserheads.
Kay
@Glory b:
Right wing Dem hero Richie Torres is in the WSJ trashing the Democratic Party, taking a gratuitous shot at AOC, and hinting that Hochul is an anti Semite and he intends to primary her.
It’s in the WSJ because he hopes to raise money from Roght wing rich people. It’ll work too.
Bet you didn’t read that on Twitter.
VFX Lurker
I appreciate this advice. I skipped the rest of this post and went straight to the interesting and thoughtful comments by Baud & co.
I once admired Jon Stewart. Now he just makes me sad.
zhena gogolia
@sab: No apology required at all. I didn’t see anything hostile about it.
Glory b
@Another Scott: AGreed. I’ll note that AOC and Bernie together couldn’t even turn out 100 people for a rally for Jamaal Bowman in a park on a nice summer day in her own back yard.
It was so bad that someone did a “How it started, how its going” meme juxtaposing Bernie with a huge outdoor crowd in NYC when he ran against Clinton vs the pitiful turnout then.
Even if I don’t disagree with her, there’s no evidence she’s the youth turnout juggernaut people claim she is. I also think we fail to realize that Dems represent a wide variety of districts and shouldn’t be roasted for not matching her rhetoric.
Alce _e_ardillo
@Glory b: I think she’s gotten that out of her system…
Another Scott
@Mary S.: OTOH, “I don’t support you, now do what I want” (AFAIK) has never worked.
I’m all for petitioning the government, making our views known, trying to persuade our elected officials (and agencies requesting public comment – H/T David Anderson) to think about things differently and vote differently. But making it personal, talking about “betrayal” and the like, does not seem to me to be a constructive approach.
There have been 27 roll call votes in the House in 2025. Some sensible bipartisan legislation has passed. We have to work with the other side, even when there are many things that they want to do that we are vehemently opposed to.
YMMV.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Glory b
@Kay: I’m not on Twitter. But any Dem is better than any Republican and that includes him.
After the absolute disaster that was the student intifada/pro Palestinian protests (substantial increase in favorables for Israel, Harris poll last weekend shows 80%/20% overall), he probably feels pretty confident.
Kay
“On February 16, two days after her state of the state, Torres accused Hochul of not supporting the state’s Jewish population”
If only Richie Torres played this nasty hardball with fascists. With them he cuts deals.
A whole editorial with him calling everyone an anti Semite and not ONE policy that Richie Torres supports other than blind, fawning support for Netanyahu. Why is he in the US House? He doesn’t say.
If I have to be in a party with this Right wing asshole, you can bear AOC.
What did Hochul do to enrage him? Family leave? Free school lunches? WTF?
E.
@Glory b: Okay but in about 20 seconds of googling I discovered that everything you are saying about the other members is untrue.
Kay
@Glory b:
His issues seem to be blind, blank check obedient support for the Israeli Right and private school vouchers.
Oh, and he doesn’t much like NYs more popular female lawmakers, AOC and Hochul.
I hope he primaries Hochul. It’ll end his career when he loses.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
This system BTW makes us pinko commie loserheads.
Cool
And there’s 10 million of us in LA county.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
Isn’t that exactly what she’s saying? Because ISTM that it’s the proposals that fix this or that corner of the problem that are regarded as sensible and good, and more sweeping stuff like Medicare for All that anyone can see the benefit to is just laughed off the stage by the Serious People.
Glory b
Glory b
@lowtechcyclist: Maybe because polling showed that even Sanders voters didn’t want to pay the taxes it would require, as calculated by Sanders himself.
Chief Oshkosh
@Starfish (she/her): Yes, this is a pretty common and useful approach for an opposition party. Both major parties have been successful by proposing legislation when they’re in the minority that is very unlikely to pass immediately, but by getting it out there, it helps define the party’s stance and it keeps many people engaged. Sometimes the proposed legislation makes it into law when the party is in majority again.
lowtechcyclist
@Ruckus:
Preach it, brother.
Another Scott
@Melancholy Jaques: @Miss Bianca:
Another thing that I think we really need to understand in our head and in our gut is that liberals are not a majority in the USA.
NORC Study 91 page PDF says that all of 22% of the US is “Classically Liberal”. (21% Mostly MAGA, 13% Believers, 29% The Ambivalent, 15% The Disillusioned are the 5 categories.) We can’t win without getting others to join us.
Effective politics in a Democracy is all about pragmatism because there are – and should be! – too many groups and interests and concerns for vast numbers to agree on most everything. And vested interests and fear of change means that lasting progress (almost) always must be incremental.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@matt:
Well, that said all I need to know about you. It’s high time for pie time.
Melancholy Jaques
@lowtechcyclist:
Sweeping stuff like Medicare for All causes major panics in the suburbs & exurbs of America because they see it as free stuff for black people & immigrants & higher taxes & socialism & keep the government out of my health care & other enlightened ideas.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
My problem with Dem criticism is it’s almost always “throw the baby out with the bathwater” flavored. It’s never ” we need to tweak this” it’s “we have to tear everything down and rebuild it.”
And that’s just not practical right now. We need to be able to criticize Dems in good faith while keeping the baby and taking strategy into account. Just because something provides catharsis for us doesn’t mean it does for everybody or is a good strategic move.
lowtechcyclist
@Glory b:
Then we get someone else to pay them. How about this shitload of multibillionaires we’ve got?
Or, hey I know, we could fund it with tariffs! (OK, I’m joking here.)
There are other funding solutions besides having working people pay the entire freight for M4A. Enough so that it shouldn’t have been laughed on the stage just on that basis.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Kay:
Geez, Kathy Hochul? She bends over backwards to show support for the Jewish community, as far as I’ve seen.
What this is about is that she looked weak in her re-election and Republicans and (apparently) conservadems are hoping like crazy they can beat her in the next general if she runs. I really doubt that Torres will try to primary her. He’d lose, hard.
My hope is for a stronger Dem to challenge her in the primary if she runs. Tish James would be my choice, but I’m sure there are others.
Steve LaBonne
@Melancholy Jaques: And we understand the benefits and the need perfectly well. Hell, make me dictator and I will enact policies so left-wing that they will even curl the hair of some jackals. The problem is that nobody is going to make me dictator.
Ruckus
@Melancholy Jaques:
I am a rather old, white man.
I was a democrat before I could even vote. Well before.
The voting age turned 18 the year I turned 22 and was already able to vote. Which made a hell of a lot of sense to me because 18 yr olds were being killed in Vietnam before that and while I was in the US Navy. Which I enlisted in before I could vote. If you are old enough to be drafted and to die for your country you should be able to vote for its leaders.
Many people think that money is the most important thing in life. It is how we pay for groceries and shelter. And any of the things that make life a little easier. And while this is a less racist country than when I was young, there is still a way too large percentage of citizens that do not respect a large segment of the human existence because they have more of the same chemical in their bodies than the people that are considered white, and are actually only a paler version of the same color as the darkest human alive. We all have the same chemicals – just different percentages. Racist hate is pure unadulterated, unacceptable bullshit. We speak different languages, some speak several of them, we are all created from the same concepts of female/male conception. We are all individuals and we all die at some point. We have made up stories and concepts of the afterlife because long ago that was an easier and better place. But we can make this a better place by recognizing that we are all equal in our concept of supposedly 2 arms, 2 legs, takes 2 to tango, and that we are all actual human beings – regardless of skin tone, hair or lack thereof, language we speak, or money we have. Now I’m an old, as stated here before and I’ve wondered for most of my decades if we will ever actually admit that none of us are better than any others. Sure some have skills or an ability to learn more and/or faster, but we are all human – good – bad or indifferent. And life is better if we work together to make it so, or worse if we work to make it so. Better is better and worse isn’t.
tam1MI
**Cough cough,** Columbia University**Cough cough
Xavier
There’s something that AOC shares with Trump: they both talk like real people, not like politicians. In AOC’s case a smart person and in Trump’s case a moron, but people respond to that.
Glory b
@lowtechcyclist: Thats not what Sanders proposed. You really don’t think he planned on taxing the billionaires?
wmd
@zhena gogolia:
The mechanism is to strongly promote the agenda, and then elect people in 2026 that will pass it (it likely would be vetoed). Then campaign in 2028 to have an executive that will sign it while expanding the Congressional majorities.
wmd
Earlier Medicare eligibility would be very helpful to me. Since my COBRA ended I’ve basically had hit by a meteorite coverage and am paying cash rate for office visits with care providers I’ve had for over a decade including through successful cancer treatment. They all accept Medicare and the copay rates are lower than the cash pay rates.
Medicare eligibility isn’t far in the future though. Likely I’m on employer sponsored insurance before then though, and it probably is higher value.
I’m still irritated with the amount of time it took the INS archives to get my father’s naturalization records to me – I should have gotten my Italian citizenship about when COBRA ran out and had Italian national health available. It took from July 2022 to November 2024.
Jinchi
@Xavier: Objection, Trump does not talk like a regular person. He talks like a used car salesman with dreams of being a mafia boss.
Another Scott
@Jinchi: Worse than that. He talks like a perpetually needy child.
YouTube – Trump and Hung Cao visit Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church VA (13:53).
Nobody I know, or have ever known, talks like that… :-/
Oh well.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ramona
@Another Scott: you’ve said before that Connolly got 125,000 more votes than AOC and I responded before by pointing out that each one about the same percentage of the vote in their respective districts but Connolly’s district is more than twice the size of AOC’s. If your argument is that the leadership position should rightfully go to somebody representing a more populous district, then please explicitly state that. Your pointing our that Connolly won 125,000 more votes than AOC without stating that his district has twice the number of people as hers is disingenuous.
I extracted the following from Ballotopedia.org:
General election for U.S. House Virginia District 11
Candidate % Votes
Gerald Edward Connolly (D) 66.7% 273,529
Michael Van Meter (R) 32.9% 134,802
Other/Write-in votes 0.5%3 1,855
Total votes: 410,186
General election for U.S. House New York District 14
Candidate % Votes
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Working Families Party / D) 68.9% 132,714
Tina Forte (R / Conservative Party) 30.7% 59,078
Other/Write-in votes 0.4 % 759
Total votes: 192,551
Another Scott
@Ramona: Here are numbers I’ve found (from Wikipedia).
VA-11 – 2023 population – 783,583
NY-14 – 2023 population – 740,563
Their districts are roughly the same size (as one would expect – House districts are supposed to be roughly the same population size).
I haven’t found any breakdown on voting age population, citizenship, voter turnout, or the like (probably because different jurisdictions have different boundaries that don’t neatly line up with congressional district boundaries). And of course those are crucial numbers if one wants to talk about the effectiveness in motivating voters and making comparisons. There may be vast differences in the number of eligible voters or registered voters between VA-11 and NY-14. I would be surprised if there were, but I haven’t seen and have not been able to find the numbers. If someone finds them, that would be very helpful.
Yes, more people voted in VA-11 than in NY-14. That’s part of my point. The argument for AOC being in leadership would be stronger if she (or her leadership-advocates) could show that she drives turnout for herself in numbers bigger than some other Democrat.
There are previous NY-14 race results at Ballotpedia.org. I haven’t had a chance to go through those numbers other than very quickly, but I see things like in 2016 Crowley got nearly 83% (148,000) of the vote out of 178,000 cast while in 2024, as you point out, AOC got 69% (133,000) out of 193,000 cast. So her being there doesn’t immediately seem to have had a big effect on turnout for Team D in that district. But that’s just an initial impression (and doesn’t account for any shifts in population that may have occurred, etc., over that period).
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Bupalos
“This is the crux of it. If you ask a working class American or just any normal American, what is a Democrat? What do they stand for? They will not really be able to give you a clear answer”
This is it.