Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused establishment Democrats of treating her “like shit” as progressive activists urged her to run for president in 2028.
In a 100-minute long video posted on Instagram, the 37-year-old congresswoman from New York said that the party had a “remarkable opportunity” to pass left-wing policies after the midterm elections. She also accused the party’s leadership of starving funds from left-wing candidates during the campaign.
“There’s this huge conversation about candidates that were under invested in,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She cited Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who came within 240,000 votes of flipping Florida from red to blue, but ultimately lost to the Republican candidate Ashley Moody.
“If Angie Nixon had just had a little bit of that support, that outcome could have changed. But that money has to come from somewhere and it comes from these people,” Ocasio-Cortez said in reference to the party’s Senate leadership.
Reflecting on the period after she was first elected to Congress in 2018 at the age of 29, Ocasio-Cortez accused senior Democrats of being “horrifically cruel” to her. “I mean I was treated like shit,” she said. “Everybody took a swing at me.”
The Bronx congresswoman is seen as the likeliest progressive candidate to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
The existence of israel guarantees the continued death of Palestinian children. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too.
The rest of your points are fair but I don’t trust her. I don’t trust any Democrat (or other politician) unconditionally, but Ilhan Omar is by far in the lead for me. I hope I’m wrong about AOC but that vote tells me she’s more of a political opportunist than a truly principled person - and changing when the winds blow differently could support that conclusion just as much as it could support the conclusion that she saw the error of her ways.
Right, but the weak leadership of the Democrats (and their corruption in rigging the primaries against their populist uprising in the form of Bernie Sanders) enabled Trump’s rise. So it’s binary in the narrative, but under an oligarchy, it’s really just one choice (so no choice) with different theatrical performances attached.
I think my opinion of Israel and its future existence as a state is independent of Hamas murdering children — regardless of nationality. I’m fairly sure El-Sayed would say something similar.
I do greatly appreciate Ilhan Omar as well, don’t get me wrong! She’s just not in a position to challenge Schumer.
But that’s not the opinion of the very guy for whom they allegedly rigged against, is it?
By all means, I think we have our work cut out for us to clean Democrats up, but the likes of Bernie’s acolyte, AOC, is by no means the problem. Very low if not next to last on the totem pole.
Also I don’t find it performative when we know if Harris won, 600,000 people would be alive who now are not. When we’d still be in the JCPOA and not have bombed an Iranian school and more. When we’d still be in the WHO. When we’d still be in the Paris Climate Agreement.
I’m not sure what you mean by the first line. My meaning is you don’t get to frame enabling Israel’s continued existence via funding for the Iron Dome as being about some sort of net-effect of protecting children when Israel’s mere existence guarantees the opposite, as demonstrated again and again throughout history.
Indeed, Bernie’s movement outgrew him, starting from the day he caved and endorsed Biden. And look what that got us: I was duped into voting for genocide, in the name of “lesser evil” politics. That paradigm is how we ended up in a world where the “lesser evil” is “maybe they’d do a little less genocide than the other guy.”
Harris promised the “most lethal fighting force in the history of the world” or whatever the quote was, and promised “no deviation” from Biden’s openly-genocidal policies. You can dream of a kinder genocidaire, I’ll dream of the end of genocide and empire.
Well I think the cart is being put before the horse; for we must deal with the present reality instead of far-fetched idealism: Israel exists, and that fact isn’t changing anytime soon. If we want to talk about net data: then providing defensive missiles so errant rockets don’t strike civilians isn’t necessarily a bad thing because ultimately a net-reduction of child deaths occur. The absence of funding for the Iron Dome further yields no evidence as to the damage wrought by Israel (e.g., Iranian and Hamas missiles have in no way shape or form deterred Israel from carrying out its offensive strikes of genocide).
It just leads to a net-increase in civilian deaths, overall.
When each child’s life is sacred, I can see why one would advocate to mitigate all. Either way, I suppose this is water under the bridge considering AOC’s position has since shifted anyway and she’s still better than any Republican – which is why every single true dissenter to the war caucuses with Democrats, at least while in elected office. A few Republicans protest, but mostly from the sidelines and having since been primaried out.
Not sure what you mean with respect to Sanders; for independent of the movement outgrowing Bernie, you do see why Bernie continues to caucus and endorse Democratic candidates under the same principle of “lesser evil” politics? Why the man himself does try to play the game of sitting out of elections or partaking accelerationism? Why Ilhan Omar does the same. Even Ilhan Omar endorsed Harris, rightfully so. So how can they be both sides of the same coin when one side is simply better than the other on practically every issue, including Gaza, USAID, and Ukrainian support?
Some of your quotes from Harris are anachronistic. She went further, called for Palestinian self-determination, ceasefire, and two-state solution. In order to deal with the greater evil of Trump, she had to toe the line on battleground swing states with considerable populations of Jewish supporters who at the time were still somewhat sympathetic to Israel (we all saw what happened to Cori Bush). She got scared, tried to play safe by listening to advisors. In spite of this she was still better (again, see Sanders and Omar’s endorsement).
But the ethical stance you have of “protecting all children” is itself the far-fetched idealism you admit we’re not in a position to deal with, given that we can’t really stop Israel from bombing Palestinian children (as it’s proven to do perpetually) as long as it’s recognized as a sovereign state.
Agreed, but it (a) doesn’t stop our pursuit of idealism or perfection, and (b) it doesn’t stop concurrent pursuits. We can both advocate for a two-state solution (whatever framework that looks like where both predominant ethnic groups cohabit peacefully and with share of power), and simultaneously mitigate loss of civilian life overall wherever we can.
Of course the chief offender is Israel, no dispute there. But in theory providing only defensive weapons mitigates future offensive capacities of Israel and thus harm to civilians in Gaza, while also protecting children in Israel just the same. (There is more nuance to this in retrospect, I merit).
Clearly we all also want a permanent ceasefire as another step further, putting an end to the deaths everywhere. But you try every avenue you can in damage mitigation.
Yeah, I mean I don’t see how you could make the case that providing Israel defensive weapons (which, setting aside that they shouldn’t be trusted not to find a way to use them offensively, has the direct and immediate effect of strengthening the continued existence of the genocidal state and thus its ability to continue the genocide) is simply harm reduction. It’d be great if there were a way to dismantle the Israeli state to the extent that they no longer have the capability to carry out a genocide while simultaneously protecting Israeli children from the few attempts Hamas has made at resisting the genocide. I’d support that. But it’s idealistic given our current reality. We can work towards it, but in the meantime, if we want to mitigate the most harm, we need to be taking power and capability away from the genocidal state wherever it exists–including its “defensive” weapons.
Disagree with the starting premise. Rhodesia existed. Then it didn’t. Israel must meet the same end.
If it must, but not at the cost of children killed by unguided rockets and inaccurate missiles.
So you condemn Nat Turner?
All children are innocent. None should be hurt. That’s not the world Israel has built so it may not be the one they receive. Of course the children don’t deserve it, but I won’t tell a people they should exist in subjugation and ethnic cleansing for decades instead of fighting back by whatever means are necessary.