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My take is: when AOC does a good thing, it's good.
But, and here's the tricky part, when she does a bad thing it's bad.
if she knifes a senior representative in the ribs i will do voter fraud for her
I mean sure, but what pressure is realistically put on you that you can't just brush off if you're not concerned about "your career in politics" or whatever? I doubt anybody is threatening her family or something to make sure she votes for Pelosi. Somebody truly committed to the working class would value showing how fucked up the entire system is over their own political career.
Anyway, this reminds me of an Obama quote.
I found myself spending time with people of means—law firm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists. As a rule, they were smart, interesting people. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class: the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate. They believed in the free market and an educational meritocracy; they found it hard to imagine that there might be any social ill that could not be cured with a high SAT score. They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by movements of global capital... I know that as a consequence of my fund-raising I became more like the wealthy donors I met. I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population—that is, the people that I’d entered public life to serve. And in one fashion or another, I suspect this is true for every senator: the longer you are a senator, the narrower the scope of your interactions. You may fight it, with town hall meetings and listening tours and stops by the old neighborhood. But your schedule dictates that you move in a different orbit from most of the people you represent. And perhaps as the next race approaches, a voice within tells you that you don’t want to have to go through all the misery of raising all that money in small increments all over again. You realize that you no longer have the cachet you did as the upstart, the fresh face; you haven’t changed Washington, and you’ve made a lot of people unhappy with difficult votes. The path of least resistance—of fund-raisers organized by the special interests, the corporate PACs, and the top lobbying shops—starts to look awfully tempting, and if the opinions of these insiders don’t quite jibe with those you once held, you learn to rationalize the changes as a matter of realism, of compromise, or learning ropes. The problems of ordinary people, the voices of the Rust Belt town or the dwindling heartland, become a distant echo rather than a palpable reality, abstractions to be managed rather than battles to be fought.
AOC (and the squad) are useful in the radicalization pipeline, but make no mistake. She's not like you or me, and she doesn't have your best interests at heart. She's already one of them.
I mean sure, but what pressure is realistically put on you that you can’t just brush off if you’re not concerned about “your career in politics” or whatever?
The real Paul Wellstone black box.
I doubt anybody is threatening her family or something to make sure she votes for Pelosi.
I mean probably not but would it surprise you if they did?
No, nothing would surprise me about vested interests implying or carrying out violence to protect their wealth and power, you're right. I just don't think we're at the point where any of that is happening yet.
I think the mistake that critiques of AOC run into is that they ascribe intent or maliciousness to her failings.
The problem is that a) intent is unknowable, and b) intent is irrelevant
If we assume the best of intents from AOC, and everything I've seen implies that she does have good intents, the results would still be the same. I feel like the much more effective and resonant critique is showing how electoralism is a dead end, and how our institutions are designed to work against us and blunt any capacity for change through the ballot box. Either she sold out incredibly quickly, or her hands are legitimately tied, the end result is the same. Electing representatives to our institutions as they currently exist is an incredibly ineffective way to win concessions from the ruling class. A few weeks of rioting over the summer was able to get much more done in a much shorter amount of time.
If we assume the best of intents from AOC, and everything I’ve seen implies that she does have good intents,
OK
“I think it’s real bougie to grow up with a defined political ideology,” she adds. “You need to have college-educated parents for that, with a political lexicon. My mother doesn’t even have an English lexicon! When people say I’m not Socialist enough, I find that very classist. It’s like, ‘What — I didn’t read enough books for you, buddy?’ ” - AOC
The College educated liberal is now going to lecture the working class on being "bourgeois" for reading books and for having a defined ideology. For reference most of the communists I know did not have University education due to the cost and do not come from well to do families.
So the only time she ever used "bougie/bourgeois" was to punch left at socialists.
I feel like the much more effective and resonant critique is showing how electoralism is a dead end, and how our institutions are designed to work against us and blunt any capacity for change through the ballot box. Either she sold out incredibly quickly, or her hands are legitimately tied, the end result is the same.
This is the actual answer. The Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie is not up for discussion even those with the best of intent. Socialists who enter electoral politics inevitably water down their content until it represents something like Keynsian liberalism (Corbyn and Left labour/AOC and left Dem).
The only use AOC has at this historic juncture is proving quite demonstrably that politics in the US was bought and paid for long before most of us were born and the only time countries gifted out things like free healthcare (in Western Europe for eg.) was when those countries had strong militant Communist parties threatening revolution and when the USSR existed and had done away with for profit healthcare.
The Left Labourites that like to wax lyrical about how Labour can "become working class again" and how Labour "gave the UK the NHS" forgetting that conservative parties all over Europe brought in universal healthcare all over Europe at the same time as a tactical compromise with the worldwide and local communist movement
be real cool if she just came out and explained things. I don't get why she is trying to be coy about it.
Then she should put it out in the open. Cause if they are willing to threaten you, they might be willing to do it. Having it known what is going on could only protect you.
She will be so absorbed by the system she'll begin to look unto Pelosi as a mentor.
It's like if a buddy of yours became a cop to "do the right thing." 20 years on the beat, and they won't be the same person. You either play the game :liberalism: , go out guns blazing :dorner: , or get put on feckless desk duty :bernie: .
Just had a thought (probably a cringe take). Everything politicians do while they're at work should be streamed publicly. No more sneaky bullshit. Everything 100% transparent.
I have no doubt that this is true. I got into an extended fight with my last boss over lots of stuff and spent months thinking every day was my last day at work because he was constantly watching me, lying to me, and even trying to frame me for theft and it takes a huge toll.
Still doesn't excuse inaction. Should have expected this. This is how power works.
she hasn't exactly been doing nothing. she repealed paygo or whatever the fuck.
the state of the left is just powerless right now...its so silly to blame where we are right now on her and the squad's lack of effort.
I mean she isn’t wrong, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a soc dem at best and compliant with the system because of those pressures.
I mean, I guessed this was the case but I'm glad she actually said it. Sad that she's the only one that admits it.
AOC is a succ dem and thats amazing for a right wing country with no virtually no left for almost a century.
But this is ridiculous. Sure there's more pressure to abandon the working class but it doesn't excuse some of her actions and garbage takes. Look at Corbyn, McDonnell (waved around the little red book while Shadow Chancellor) and Abbott (Defended Mao on prime time TV).
this is exactly the problem that #forcethevote was trying to expose, if there were no justice dems in the democratic party we might focus on a 3rd party or even better direct action. Having justice dems in congress gives everyone false hope because they will never fight for programs they promised to implement
