UPDATE: Devastating news. This dangerous bill passed 213-212, with @RepAOC @RashidaTlaib and @JamaalBowmanNY abandoning their positions and voting "present" instead of against it, thus supporting giving cops more money and weapons to use against the most vulnerable people.— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) May 20, 2021
Eugene Debs was a labor leader. AOC's one of Ted Kennedy's old staffers. But that's who was on the ballot in 2018 against Joe Crowley. I don't blame people for flocking to her banner, given the alternatives.
Shit, she isn’t even Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders wasn't even a politician until he turned 40, and even then he just barely squeaked by into the Mayor's office. And once he got there? He was happy enough to compromise as it suited him. AOC's seen the inside the machine since high school and positioned herself to knock out a perennial safe-seater in an off year. They're incomparable for a host of reasons.
I see people bitching about her performance, but these same people hate on electoralism generally speaking. I see people defending her, and they tend to defend electoralism, generally speaking. I begin to think folks like AOC and Sanders are simply proxies for a bigger conversation about what efforts are worth our time and what's a waste.
For the most part they are. As you said, people criticizing AOC tend to also add that her decisions and tweets are proof that electoralism doesn't work. My comparison was more about how Debs risked being jailed for years to stand for his beliefs. There are some who think that she'll be the same firebrand he was and do something similar, or at least fight with the same stubbornness. This of course ignores the position she and Debs were in.
Sanders is someone AOC is constantly compared to, even if their origins and current situation in politics are very different. People seem to expect that she'll follow the same path he did after her congressional highlights made the rounds. They also expect the same type of "maverick" behavior that Sanders is perceived to have.
I may have been harsh in my opinion on AOC, but the expectations people have of her were way too high to begin with. She never really positioned herself as anything more than a social-democrat with liberal leanings and that's fine. Her opponents have all been worse and she's frankly better than the majority of Democrats in the house.
Eugene Debs was a labor leader. AOC's one of Ted Kennedy's old staffers. But that's who was on the ballot in 2018 against Joe Crowley. I don't blame people for flocking to her banner, given the alternatives.
Bernie Sanders wasn't even a politician until he turned 40, and even then he just barely squeaked by into the Mayor's office. And once he got there? He was happy enough to compromise as it suited him. AOC's seen the inside the machine since high school and positioned herself to knock out a perennial safe-seater in an off year. They're incomparable for a host of reasons.
I see people bitching about her performance, but these same people hate on electoralism generally speaking. I see people defending her, and they tend to defend electoralism, generally speaking. I begin to think folks like AOC and Sanders are simply proxies for a bigger conversation about what efforts are worth our time and what's a waste.
For the most part they are. As you said, people criticizing AOC tend to also add that her decisions and tweets are proof that electoralism doesn't work. My comparison was more about how Debs risked being jailed for years to stand for his beliefs. There are some who think that she'll be the same firebrand he was and do something similar, or at least fight with the same stubbornness. This of course ignores the position she and Debs were in.
Sanders is someone AOC is constantly compared to, even if their origins and current situation in politics are very different. People seem to expect that she'll follow the same path he did after her congressional highlights made the rounds. They also expect the same type of "maverick" behavior that Sanders is perceived to have.
I may have been harsh in my opinion on AOC, but the expectations people have of her were way too high to begin with. She never really positioned herself as anything more than a social-democrat with liberal leanings and that's fine. Her opponents have all been worse and she's frankly better than the majority of Democrats in the house.