https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1349186664502087680
So glad future generations will be happy to know that politicians focused on impeaching someone that was gonna be gone in about a week instead of providing free healthcare and a stimulus to the millions of people facing unemployment and being homeless. So brave.
Why not just say the best reason? Because it prevents him from doing a Grover Cleveland in 2024, which he definitely could do considering how bad the Democrats are at handling him, and since COVID-19 will likely not be as bad by then?
God forbid people begin to think Democrats are willing and able to wield power.
Banning Trump from running in 2024 instead of just beating him in the election by adopting popular policies - that's moderator shit, not democracy.
I'm even more scared of that than Trump running again. Republican voters aren't gonna rethink their ways. They'll just feel cheated again - like they aren't even allowed to compete.
Punishing Trump is good. But it's treating the symptom, not the illness.
Yeah they might vote extra hard for the republican if he's banned
Also the Senate wouldn't commit to a conviction vote anyways so its a moot point.
lol, except Democrats can vote for M4A while telling their donors they're just playing make believe for the stupid constituents. M4A isn't divisive among actual flesh and blood voters.
But the Republicans are in a double bind here, where moderate conservative suburbanites will be mad at them, or the trump freaks will be mad at them. Both choices are signals, and there are a lot of Republicans dependent on right-leaning centrist votes. They would rather cocktease both groups.
And yes, there are some Republicans who don't give a shit, and cannot be hurt by this, but that's not who it's targeting.
You fail to understand that the "moderate conservative republican" is ripe for consent manufacturing. By the end of this year, every single one of them will be saying the exact same shit the Q-freaks are, but they'll have had time to work out the language to make it sound more sophisticated.
The "moderate republicans" in my family all started tacitly supporting BLM after George Floyd. They didn't actually support BLM, they just were buying time to come up with a way to be racist without overtly signaling it. Now all of them basically agree "that was the white anarchist antifas, the good blacks stayed home". Or some shit similar to that.
It's not that I think Republican voters have consistent ideology, it's that it's a numbers game, and some will be peeled off of their representatives either way. Like we just saw that shit in Georgia, which would have been 2 or 1 republicans if they hadn't infought.
With Trump getting owned, the consent manufacturing machine will be somewhat less efficient as well. They need a powerful daddy to be brave for them, and losing isn't powerful.
It's not like people are going to flip blue or whatever, they're just going to be depressed.
With force the vote, all these mother fuckers have to do is look down the hall, see that the senate is still there, and call up their boy at Anthem Blue Cross and tell them "yeah this is just a bullshit vote, don't worry I aint voting for that shit if this somehow ever goes anywhere" then they're gonna run around saying they voted for M4A until the year 2050 when they are still in office and we think "M Three A" has the votes to pass, at which point they will say oopsie doopsie I just really oppose this poison pill which I also put into this bill - how about Captain America 2: Rise of C.O.B.R.A.???
I think the "moderates" are more likely to fall in line no matter what than the psycho Trump folks. The former has loyalty to the party because they're dumb as rocks and only value abstract concepts like that. The latter only got into politics for Trump and were a huge deciding factor for a lot of races (Trump mobilized apathetics while the democrats tried to make even more of their voters apathetic).
But there are all kinds of people, some are loyal Republican voters, some are just half-ass Republican voters, and these fucking ghouls have gerrymandered districts so hard, that their seats are often held up by razor thin margins so that they can have 60 seats with 40% of the vote and shit like that. It's a spectrum between left of center libs and right of center libs, and there are people who casually vote Republican, who are really distressed by the idea of breaking into congress.
Again, it's not huge, most people keep voting for exactly the same dipshits every year, or nobody at all.
But I'm saying the right-leaning "My god, Trump did treason" crowd is a whole fucking lot bigger than the "My house rep voted to give me medicare?? What the fuck, how dare they" crowd.
Like its pretty much been shown that the world population of Blue Dogs is like a hundred guys, theres seriously zero public constituency for that. But then republicans occupy a much wider spectrum of belief.
But I’m saying the right-leaning “My god, Trump did treason” crowd is a whole fucking lot bigger than the “My house rep voted to give me medicare?? What the fuck, how dare they” crowd.
Exactly. The Dems can easily vote for M4A and tell their donors a different story, like Kamala did after cosponsoring M4A. I doubt it is possible for a Dem to lose votes in the general election over an M4A vote.
It's funny how close this site aligns with Jimmy Dore if it's unstated agreement, somebody post his video about this and see if AOC stans show up in the comments Quantum leftists.
aoc "sucks" because she's a member of congress in the imperial core of a global empire of capital. her failures were precluded from the start. socdems in congress aren't the vehicle to change, but they can grease the wheels if you have the kind of mass movement we all know we need to build
i respect jimmy dore very much for #forcethevote. i do not respect him for his comedy. that man is not a funny man
Bro who's talking about change or reform? All I want is for them to sabotage shit and cause problems, like what's the point of electing "leftists" if they're not willing to detonate the vest if they get in?
my point is that my theory of change does not rely on anyone in congress. you can spend your time electing a shit-disturber if you want
Sweden would be a communist country by now if any of the socdem "theories" were right. Social Democracy is pure opportunism and anyone telling you that we need to have social democracy before socialism is lying to you
i guess it depends on the conditions of the moment. if you're ever in a position where you're using mass action to force congress's hand, i'd think you'd want the shortest ideological distance between your movement/party and its members. if you're not, then it doesn't matter much
I would defend her around here just to be a pain in the ass, sometimes. I don't even bother anymore. Show me something substantial other than tweets and radlibbing.
Last time we had this struggle session, it came out that she'd voted against funding the shitbags in Bolivia and or Ecuador, so maybe look that up.
I read the words on this one last year in the old sub, it reads like a hitjob.
it reads like a hitjob.
Accept for the fact that she actually voted in favor of the things the article claims she voted in favor of. And then there's her reaction to #forcethevote which is in complete contradiction to her reasoning on impeachment her.
We have to come to terms with the fact that some politicians we really liked, campaigned for and donated to, aren't behaving anymore in the same way that they did in the past. If we don't recognize that, we'll end up like the people who're currently still supporting Jim Clyburn because of his role in the civil rights movement, ignore his terrible record since, and vote Biden over Bernie in a crucial moment because he asks us to.
Well, I certainly didn't campaign for or donate to AOC, so I don't really need to worry about that. Maybe others do.
FTV is much ado about very, very little. If you're getting upset about the prospect of holding a House vote on a bill that will not pass the Senate and which Biden has said he will veto, IMHO you're being played.
No, I disagree. The next decade, at least, there won't come another moment where it will be so incredibly obvious that we need medicare for all. A pandemic, when millions lost their employer based health insurance, is the perfect condition for forcing such a vote.
The fact that Pelosi needed their votes to become speaker was also one of the only moments where they had leverage to demand a concession. If the dems lose the house in two years, there won't come another moment where they can demand concessions. I would've been fine with more demands than just the floor vote on M4A, but they didn't do that (the *partial * paygo-exemption is pathethic).
But the broader question is about the type of representative that the left-wingers in congress want to be. I want them to be fighters, who're constantly showing the people that socialists are fighting on their behalve. Imagine the following situation: they demanded a floor vote, and got one, and immediatly, AOC announces she'll endorse primary challengers against every dem who opposes M4A during a pandemic, and organises protests where people are invited to tell there horrible healthcare stories. It would force the national political debate to be around M4A, and it would create enormous pressure. It would create a political discussion between the left and the rest, instead of between the centre and the extreme right. Socialist representatives should use their position to mobilise and organise people, not to play tit-for-that-politics with establishment dems. You can't win their game, and it doesn't advance class struggle.
OK, so in the ripest conditions imaginable, to paraphrase you, you force a vote and M4A fails to become law. You've just handed an incredible talking point to M4A opponents who are going to repeat ad nauseum for the next two decades how even in a pandemic, M4A couldn't pass, because even in a pandemic the voters sent to the capitol a bunch of M4A opponents and to the White House the one guy on the Democratic slate who didn't even pretend to favor M4A. That'll be what we'll have to argue against for the next twenty fucking years.
I want them to be fighters, who’re constantly showing the people that socialists are fighting on their behalve.
AOC isn't a socialist.
If that happens, you created amazing conditions to primary establishment democrats, which is exactly what you want.
AOC isn’t a socialist.
Then why are you defending her?
Someone can reply to you because they disagree with your characterization, not just they have decided that AOC is worthy of defense
Re: primaries, the slimy bastards that you want to primary can do as others have already said and vote for M4A knowing that it won't actually become law. Then you actually lose that talking point against them in the primary, thus worsening conditions for leftists.
Considering the fact that the democrats now have all branches of governement, that means M4A would pass.
If, on the other hand, some do what you describe, there is a massive campaign against them and they lose their seats, the rest will then have to make the calculation that voting against it during a second vote would destroy their career with almost certainty.
Considering the fact that the democrats now have all branches of governement, that means M4A would pass.
Oh ok
Just want to say as a pessimist I'm betting there will plenty more moments where its incredibly obvious we need a healthcare system :(
Accept for the fact that she actually voted in favor of the things the article claims she voted in favor of.
Of course, what is actually voted on should be widely known. But it's weird to see that article criticize her for receiving donations from individuals working at certain companies.
That's a fair criticism. But you can't make that point about every issue it raises.
Last time we had this struggle session, it came out that she’d voted against funding the shitbags in Bolivia and or Ecuador, so maybe look that up.
I'm not involved in struggling for one viewpoint or another here.
It's probably just a little unclear that when you're asking "a picture is substantial?", what you really meant was "I've read the words in this article before and disagree with them for reasons I can outline."
No I meant both. I've seen people present the photo op itself as an argument, I just ducked up and didn't initially realize this wasn't one of those situations.
He's not even mad. He's eerily silent. I'm not sure what the libs in the news will talk about now that Trump's gone - at least after the smoke on this story clears.
"To let future generations know we did everything we could."
She is lost, folks. It's fucking official now.
Let’s primary her ass with someone that will actually give a shit
Unless they could do it as part of budget reconciliation, they would need 60 votes I think.
I'm just fucking around. Didn't realise it was the electoralism (lol) subreddit
Oh no she supports one completely performative gesture but not the other one. Got her ass
completely performative
Yes, this idea wouldn't create better conditions to wage class war in, you're completely right.
It's going to be amusing if the Republicans ever control congress again and impeach a sitting Dem President for some Benghazi like shenanigans. Just as a matter of petty revenge for absolutely manufactured right wing media bubble reasons. 😮
