Do people look at staged and focus-grouped photos like those and actually think any of it is genuine?
Oh, my posts about her being faker than bodega Gucci got nuked into the negatives in real fuckin time when she was first doing that detention camp photo op. People simped hard as fuck for her, even as the 'progressive' mask slipped further and further off her lying face. Then, and the "Tax the rich" dress stunt at one of those rich people galas a couple years ago.
Then, and the "Tax the rich" dress stunt at one of those rich people galas a couple years ago.
critical support for actually existing in congress individuals who do vaguely leftwing things sometimes
does it count if it's performative and they all just laugh about it afterwards?
Everything she does will continue to be performative until she's not alone in congress.
Perfomatively crying as she votes for giving more money to the Iron Dome..
until she's not alone in congress.
"The Squad" doesn't work as a voting block now. They're not going to magically form discipline or a real left political vision if more people with their same branding get elected. Its just a marketing scam. Their a boutique brand within the larger Democrat lifestyle brand.
That stunt was bullshit. The message on that dress is completely negated by accepting the invitation to the rich people party. Its basically her whole career in one photo. Wrapping herself in something vaguely left while materially working for the class enemy
That one where she's looking into the camera looks like she's trying to convince herself it's real and she can't.
The only tough decision AOC ever makes is if she's going to put on a pouty face or a stoic face for her photo op of her fucking over her supporters.
I don’t mind that AOC isn’t all “viva la revolution!” all the time, but this pusillanimous inability criticize her own party’s leadership when it’s warranted is contemptible. You’ve got the most prominent profile of any Congress critter that isn’t in leadership, your electoral base isn’t dependent on their kind graces, they’re not going to give you shit anyway, stop playing nice with them. Oh no, Nancy Pelosi said something mean to you? Then tell her to fuck off!
I recently read the new book Ryan Grim just put out related to "the squad." (this is not a plug. It is relevant. Full disclosure I pirated the audiobook and ebook. I don't care if you buy it. I'll show you the torrent link I used myself)
He's a reporter for the Intercept and I'd describe him as a socdem. For those unaware he's one of the few US journalists who ever pushes back on the ghouls at the press briefings which is what interested me to see his inside-view towards AOC, etc.
So blah blah blah obligatory statements aside, I left that book with, I suppose, better understanding of who AOC is and isn't. I don't think she ever intended to be nor wants to be any sort of actual "revolutionary." She was just a fairly normal person who held generally left-leaning ideals on a bunch of issues, especially compared to most Americans, and was able to beat out a powerful piece of shit right wing democrat in her district.
I don't know if Grim meant to portray her as naive, or a liar, or too willing to go along to get along. I THINK he's very sympathetic to her. But the stuff he writes about her in a matter of fact way often made me go "holy shit he wrote this? She won't be texting him anymore insider shit." (He references personal texts between himself and various progressive US reps throughout the book)
I left the book disappointed in her but I guess I kinda get it. She never intended to be like Ilhan Omar who legitimately does seem to not give a single fuck. Ironically Pelosi is better friends with Omar, which seems to be for the purpose of driving a wedge between her and the rest of the progressive women in congress. I have no idea why Omar maintains such a relationship unless Ryan's characterization is inaccurate (always possible). Like, fuck Pelosi. Fuck Jeffries too. He's an even bigger PoS.
The only reason he ever seems to cite, and again he draws heavily from quotes most of the book, is they don't want to be mean to the people they work with. Their peers in congress.
I'm not joking. A lot of underlying reasoning seems to be personal like/dislike of individuals and wanting to curry favor with them. A cynical view would lead me to believe that's only to make sure she doesn't allow them to be primaried (although this is Jeffries' job now: and he IS allowing it anyway!).
It does seem that whether she knew it or not (and I'm ok giving her benefit of the doubt) Pelosi and the DNC as a whole has successfully reigned in any sort of leftist electoralism by picking the weakest, least principled progressive and getting her to bend of leadership over and over to dishearten, cause disengagement, whatever else and send the ultimate signal that "it doesn't matter if you send 100 or 400 members like this to congress. We will break all of them. We are all unprincipled and you cannot win."
Obviously Pelosi, et al. wouldn't word it like that. They'd view as like "see! AOC is a team player and she's benefiting from it and her district too!" Or some sort of BS.
In any case, Grim, I think unknowingly to a large degree, laid out a case for anti-electoralism. He was overly positive (he's a socdem after all) about the legislation and ideas AOC managed to push. None of it is meaningful ultimately, imo. Is it something? Sure. But if it's not enough then it doesn't matter with climate change or genocide in Gaza.
Also the book taught me Josh Gottheimer legitimately needs to be in a supermax prison. He's a fascist freak. I didn't know much about this Nazi fuckstick until recent Palestine events, but holy fuck is he disgusting. And these are the people (same party!) that AOC ultimately is ok being friends with or trying to be nice to by voting to explode more children.
I feel like I wrote one of those 7th grader "prove you did the reading" book reports. Fuck.
Hey bud, good effort but I ran your report through an "AI Detection" website and it said it was 89% positive you used AI to write this. I'm going to have to give you an F on the assignment unless you rewrite it again but in your own words.
Those websites also famously will tell you books written in 1950s are generated by AI
It's almost like, if you train a robot to write text based on books written in the 1950s, then train a robot to detect text written by that robot (who is writing text as if it were a book from the 1950s), then naturally that robot will think a book from the 1950s is written by the first robot.
This pretty much lines up with what I’ve read about how the insular, continuing status quo culture of DC perpetuates itself. It’s not that everyone becomes maliciously corrupted, it’s seeing other Congress critters as coworkers and not wanting to rock their boats. Like, Bernie doesn’t call Biden his friend as a moral judgment, it’s literally they’ve been working together for decades and developed the work-friendship relationship that happens at any job. The establishments are good at leveraging these sort of personal relationships to keep the gravy train going for themselves and their donors.
And this is why the saying “If you want a friend in DC, get a dog” exists.
but who cares about any of them? the system prevents them from doing anything corporate and military owners disapprove of. it doesn't matter one lick what they say.
That's the non-electoralism argument yes. Which is basically where I am (not because of this book. I've been here for years. Probably since like 2008 when Obama literally lied to my face. Definitely since 2016 when the DNC subverted any notion of a democratic process)
There's some argument which I can't fully dismiss though for electoralism. There's a bunch of ideas obviously surrounding it, but I imagine if collations of "normal people" were banded together and successfully elected people let's say like AOC or Omar and then those reps said "I will only represent the true interests of the people" basically and then did it. That means vocally voting against Israel money, all DoD spending, any cuts to social programs, etc. you get the idea. Just do it every time and then tell their constituents and the country, to whatever degree they can, what they did and why. The theory then is this resistance to the status quo would grow. Seeing a minority of technically unsuccessful but highly principled politicians always voting exactly how they promised, never compromising, without inspire new runners and shame incumbents. Eventually you get a majority or sizable part of the minority and can force concessions at which point a land slide of support comes and the nation goes full socdem and ground is laid for even further socialism.
So that's my best case idea. Now how do you do literally any of that when even the "best" politicians we can get, I'd say those are currently Omar and Tlaib at the federal level, aren't really meaningfully on path? I dunno. How do you overcome AIPAC money and the might of every politician who is bought coming down on a small group? Again, don't know. I mean I have thoughts, but I don't think it's plausible.
This also all ignores the giant elephant in the room of "how would the MIC react to legitimate pushback?" Arguably, debatably, Kennedy was killed for even the slight suggestion of destroying the CIA after they embarrassed him with the bay of pigs. So, you know, who knows on that front.
yeah i agree. the process seems to preclude most from every making it far enough to get elected. should anyone actually follow thru then they're made an example of like Rashida losing her committee positions for having the audacity to speak out about Palestine
I really think she'll just do anything to keep the comfortable lifestyle and sense of self-importance. I've known several former MPs, none of whom I thought were particularly great in the first place, and with the exception of one they were all desperate to get elected again even though they had achieved very little and talked nonstop about how much they hated to politics of it. And the reason was simple; it was a highly paid job with a shitload of benefits, loads of trips and freebies, and a constant sense of importance (however thin it might have been).
I've met a bunch of my city's councillors and the self importance is an immediate giveaway for the ones that just see it as a stepping stone to "real" (well paid) politics. Used to be a solid Labour contingent that were in it for the people, but since fucking Kier took they've been unceremoniously deselected in favour of nepo babies.
Yeah, it's definitely even worse now on thr Labour side, but this was also multiple people from multiple parties over the last 20 years or so. Totally agree about councillors with that attitude in particular. It seems even more pathetic these days since so few MP selections actually come from councillors with a track record and are rather parachuted in as mates of party bourgeoisie.
That's the give away that the "Squad" have always been complete libs who have no intention of being a voting bloc or taking over the party. Those commitee positions are pointless. AOC can raise money without any help from the DNC the 2nd largest fundraiser after Pelosi - she can afford to be totally independent. If they wanted to wage war they could, because they have an independent war chest. And she can be on TV whenever she wants.
Crying about "muh commitee appointments" is just the socdem version of "the parlimentarian" lib argument
Oh no, Nancy Pelosi said something mean to you? Then tell her to fuck off!
fr wish she should wear a guillotine as a dress to the next gala
wish she should
wearbring a guillotineas a dressto the next gala
Which country did the bombs and weapons that cause this "loss of life" come from, and which president bypassed congress to give Israel more bombs and weapons?
The Biden administration (along with Sunak's government) is going to be sued for being complicit in potential genocide by South African lawyers, do these people not get that? This is happening right now, it's not abstract, it's real, and it's happening now. Biden broke the laws of his own "rules based international order" to arm Israel over the past months. It's on the books, have a spine. The ICJ case gives you all the ability to do so and challenge these people by their own rules. South Africa did this for that reason. Time for progressives and the left in the West to take the baton and raise their voices at minimum, and support South Africa's legal challenges, if not file their own lawsuits. If Western progressive/left wing politicians can't even oppose an ongoing genocide, what use are they?
I totally agree
I may be too cynical to believe I'll ever see these fucks dragged into the Hague, but I want them to spend the rest of their lives bleeding money and having to cancel appearances or turn around jets because there's word a legal team might be waiting for them when they land.
And the act of going after them alone has a chilling effect on others, especially further down the ladder for those who can't necessarily afford to insulate themselves in the same way.
If Western progressive/left wing politicians can't even oppose an ongoing genocide, what use are they?
The exact same use they've always had - absolutely none to the proletariat and real left. They're objectively valuable to capital though, its moderate wing
loss of life
Oh no I lost my life, where did I put it this time, aw jeez, I always carry it with me I swear!
"I don't think it's fair to call this a genocide. Genocide implies that they select, and make the effort to differentiate, a certain group. So how can Israel be guilty of genocide when they are just killing, I'm sorry I meant precipitating loss of life of, everyone indiscriminately?"What a pathetic non-answer. But she's still very popular with zoomers who treat criticism of her the same way Millennials did with Obama.
YOU JUST DON'T LIKE HER BECAUSE SHE IS A BARTENDER WHO CAN BARELY AFFORD TO LIVE, DEEP DOWN IN HER BONES, JUST LIKE THE REST OF US
Stolen Valor Cortez. That photo op 6 month bartending tour after interning with Ted Kennedy. No different than Buttigieg playing soldier for 6 months after McKinsey, except hers is more effective. She's just Buttigieg but good at the grift and targeted toward younger people instead of boomers
Her attempts to build a slightly left of center bloc in the DNC were blocked.. by the DNC changing the rules on running.
This is the best we can hope for - the most mildest of critics, which likely received huge yelling in return.
America is basically without hope.
if you thought any possible hope for America ever rested with the dems, you're looking in the wrong place
Let's be real socdems are center to center-right on the wider political spectrum
They objectively are right-wingers. They do not want to change the economic system of Capitalism. They simply want to bandage it, cover its gruesome face with an emoji smiley face mask, and keep it going for another millennium.
this is like saying to your sick child "well your arm is going to rot and fall off, this is the best we can hope for while treating your illness with homeopathy"
Electoralism was never going to help.
Her attempts to build a slightly left of center bloc in the DNC were blocked
I don't think she or the rest of them ever tried to do that at all. "The Squad" never acted like a coherent voting bloc. They even made public excuses for one or the other not voting with the rest of them. They had no cohesion, discipline, or real vision, hust a bunch of useless liberals.
I had hopes about them, and the concept of taking over the dem party at one time, but its less that they were blocked than that they never really tried to be a voting bloc aside from they're marketing and fundraising
They got very slight “maybe we can run on progressive things, as look how well it’s going for us” and the party went ballistic, as The Squad was a bigger threat than Trump and fascists.
Completely right, as if the Dems ran on policies or ideas other than “not trump” they may make the Dems upset the funding class.
What cool and perceptive guy said that I wonder
those photos are both incredibly funny and infuriating
But did you think about the power dynamics between Palestine and Israel?
No one is doing the age gap discourse on palestine v israel
Palestine: like 3000 years old
Israel: idk 40 or something
But my pragmatic comittee posistions!
