Regardless on whether you think AOC is usefull and deserves critical support she only has moved to the right or stayed static on most issues. Even after getting elected (removing more left wing talking points from her website) and especially after Biden
Regardless on whether you think AOC is usefull and deserves critical support
As you said, as she continues to move right whatever theoretical benefit she brings continues to go down in value.
The whole idea of critical support is there is something we get in return and not just a sport. For example it is fine to say critical support for Iran against western imperialism because the benefit here is avoiding the death and suffering of millions of people in a possible war against the US while at the same time frustrating the further advancement of capitalism which in the end makes it more unsustainable as imperialism is a necessity e.g continuous expansion to acquire resources.
What is the benefit of critical support for AOC? At this point it is becoming more and more some vague abstract concept of a pipeline, but to what exactly? The answer here is what should define the point in which you'll say AOC bad and never go back.
The whole idea of critical support is there is something we get in return
But that's just been in the last three months. What has she done for me lately?
What is the benefit of critical support for AOC?
The same benefit you get from critically supporting Bernie Sanders or Ro Khanna or Nithya Raman or Lina Hidalgo. You get a high profile left-wing voice that Americans genuinely like and support to say and do things that you generally support.
AOC's continuing to bust ass endorsing mutual aid, unionization, universal health care / education / mass transportation, defunding the Pentagon, energy policy reforms to mitigate climate change, higher minimum wages, and a host of other leftist economic goals.
Haters look for anything to complain about and highlight them, almost inevitably fixating on foreign policy, as though that's anywhere in her wheelhouse to begin with. Then they shout down anyone who disagrees and turn AOC-bashing into a litmus test for True Leftism. And the end result is the self-destruction that's plagued the Left for a century.
At a certain point, you need to fight on the issues and not the people. AOC is good on a litany of issues. She's often better than people give her credit for (ie, when she wanted to focus on Min-Wage increases rather than going nuclear on M4A). Saying "AOC Bad" when she breaks from your orthodox view on anything blinds you to every other item on the agenda, in an effort to play at purity politics. Critical support for AOC is about supporting the things both you and AOC support, not about putting AOC on a pedestal like she's the second coming of Ho Chi Mein.
Haters look for anything to complain about and highlight them, almost inevitably fixating on foreign policy, as though that’s anywhere in her wheelhouse to begin with.
In a country like America I would say Foreign Policy is the first thing to look for. You could make American into a utopia and still destroy the rest of the world to extract what you want. If you can't be principled on that then I would claim such a person is dangerous to support because if they are successful that would just mean a more efficient empire. (I would imagine if China were to actually want to dominate the world they would be far more successful as they do a better job of distributing the spoils and are good at administration)
In a country like America I would say Foreign Policy is the first thing to look for.
Spoken like a guy who doesn't work in an Amazon warehouse
Spoken like a guy who doesn’t work in an Amazon warehouse
You are speaking like someone who has not lived in the third world :)
Their exploitation doesn't erase the fact that their role in the warehouse is just efficient distribution of the spoils of the empire. I am not suggesting that Americans don't care about the people around them but if you truly believe that you can ignore the cost of the American system on the rest of the world then you are an enemy to most of the world. Shouldn't it be the responsibility of every American leftist to be able to articulate a way to help Americans while being able to dismantle the empire. If you think that is impossible, I would be interested to hear your reasoning behind it. It would help clarify some of the questions I have about the movement in America.
i mean she firstly moved right on venezuela and then somewhat left so overall she isnt to the left of where she started
i i considered that thing a move to the right from her initial pre election positions on us sanctions and us meddling in the latin america being bad
this has always been said before but the amount of times she goes from "good" to "bad" is fucking hilarious. Like you should be able to know by now her foreign policy is pretty shit in a lot of ways. I think a lot people put stock in her and have a harder time admitting one of the favs is just good in comparison to how cartoonishly evil so many US politicians are, it warps your idea of "good."
Most people I think saw her as a successor to Bernie, but that hasn't really been the case for them (even me). Idk really what to think of her. I can't truly convince myself she is bad, but I can't label as good. Most of the best socialists in America will not be politicians. As for what to do with her, I'm sorta convinced if we are to yell at her, twitter isn't the place. Probably will just start emailing her or something. Hopefully some further left people live in her district can yell at her in town halls. I can't bring myself to view her as a completely lost cause. Maybe I've naive, but who knows.
agree. the thing too is like it's not wrong to want politicians to be good, it's wrong to make excuses for them when they get it wrong. I did hope she would be a successor of bernie as well, and I'm also not even anti-AOC, she still speaks on important things that happen here, especially in a way most politicians wont even comment about. There is just some areas she is objectively bad, as with most people, no one is perfect.
i mean it's a meme now to say, "were gonna push x left" but i don't disagree with the idea, if you're in a position to hopefully influence any politician into a better position, do it. Takes a few minutes to bang out some tweets or make some calls or whatever you feel like you can do. I try to not be a nihilists about shit because it's not good, even if it feels right sometimes. Hope is an important thing in this fucked up world, it's also important to have if you're serious about change happening.
The only way a socialist of any flavor can stay true to the cause is if they are unambiguously elected as a socialist of a socialist workers party, while understanding the whole point of them being in office is to use their position of power to publically undermine the State and empower peoples councils.
mmm that's because AOC is already a leftist sweetie 💅
Like 90% of these AOC struggle sessions are "body language expert" tier analysis. Her positions are basically the same as what they were two years ago and like most human beings contain some good and some bad.
Some of y'all who conspiracize about whether she's actually a commie hiding her power level or if she's been captured by the Pelosi deep state or whatever should go touch some grass. She's your average DSA person: nothing better, nothing worse.
She kinda sucks and its only going to get worse. Accept it now so you don't embarass yourself by making increasingly poor excuses for her as she moves rightward.
She kinda sucks
Can't believe a woman trapped in the DC echo chamber, struggling against the tide to do entryism in a corporate party that reviles her, isn't doing more performative leftism that I can upboat and re-twat.
If AOC doesn't film herself running foot-naked through the halls of Congress doing a Rambo II: First Blood reenactment against the bourgeoise class that has captured our national legislature, how can I ever award her a digital Gold Star for Leftism?
This is the first "AOC good/AOC bad" event that has actually changed my opinion on AOC at all
What even happened this time? Is this cuz she said the democratic party is a worker's party now?
She accused people who criticize the Biden administration of "privilege" and "bad faith"
edit: but looking back at her remarks that now they're definitely still dumb but not really as bad as I thought they were, so maybe I take back what I said about my view on her being changed. It looks like she was specifically talking about people who say that Biden has "done nothing" and making the point that "no, he has actually done slightly more than nothing" which is technically true but pretty asinine.
Imo the cure to endless AOC discourse is to realize that she is both a force for good and very flawed/insufficient in many important ways. That's been my position the whole time and it's why I've never really been gotchaed by anything she's done.
