^ At least the heel is obvious. When a Manchin says he won’t oppose the parliamentarian, and his party’s boss spent weeks setting up the fallacy that the parliamentarian matters (including a signal to her about which way he wants her to go)... It’s a WWE script & everyone’s a wrestling fan apparently.

(short clip from the floor of the House)

“AOC stands up to Biden” (TYT Investigates)



The mealymouthness is borderline offensive it’s so pathetic. Open with equivocation in a statement meant to draw distinctions about the balance of power (& crimes against humanity). Then when transitioning from Puerto Rico to the present parallel, “forget” to fucking NAME the place where the present crimes are being endured, so that the intended emotion stays with the personal sob story & not where the rage should be focused. Next: double emphasis on the gall of disallowing members of Congress into Israel, and then - amazingly - hinting at the reason for the mealymouthness in the first place: saying “if we are SCARED to [point out Israeli crimes]”... might it be bc of a reluctance to acknowledge US crimes on its own border.

Holy fucking shit.

It’s funny to see how much she wanted to be extemporaneous, yet kept getting dragged back to the bullet points in front of her, and then struggling to make them as opaque & ambiguous as her supporters might let her get away with - after her thoroughly shit takes on Israel lately. But that ‘border’ pivot was amazing. No, AOC, in your trembling voice and literal hand-wringing, you’re scared that the next few years of death threats won’t be just from country bumpkins, but from professional killers & spooks, including within your own government.

In the final minute, she glances at her script again to insert the bit about blocked UN resolutions - another confounding bullet point for her, bc the marbles in her mouth yielded vagueness and avoidance again. And no, it’s not complicated: you can name names, and you can list facts. That’s all a vote on resolutions is: a roll call on a list of facts. Jfc, the cowardice.

“Do Palestinians have a right to survive?” was her punchline. Again, obfuscation & vagueness masked as poignance.

It’s whatever. I mean, foreign policy isn’t her thing anyway, she would’ve been justified in just saying to reporters “I honestly don’t know enough, but I know who does”. Her colleagues (Omar & Tlaib) don’t have that excuse. Everyone’s just fucking scared of... of... introspection about the southern border. Lmfao.

Ok, Jimmy Dore.

Jimmy Dore’s probably got sound ideas about a few things - but I’m actually not Jimmy Dore. Do you have anything substantive to say about this issue involving real people’s lives and the politicians that affect them?

I think all the Jimmy Dore leftist types who are trying to run AOC out of town have got no business bitching about the Dems being too right wing.

Substantive, Seabass.... substantive! That means when you frame your extreme opinions derived purely from your emotion, couch them as fact.

What is she obfuscating, I don't get it? Her personal anecdote was probably unnecessary but I don't see harm in that either.

Seabass wrote:I think all the Jimmy Dore leftist types who are trying to run AOC out of town have got no business bitching about the Dems being too right wing.

I don't think Jimmy Dore is a leftist. He's a Dore-ist. And unbearably annoying to listen to.

Seabass wrote:I think all the Jimmy Dore leftist types who are trying to run AOC out of town have got no business bitching about the Dems being too right wing.

You mean actual leftists who hold her to account and try to get her to do what she actually campaigned on? She got elected on those promises and then, while doing her platform occasional lip service, proceeded to suck up to Dem party core together with her other so-called "progressive" colleagues.

As for Dems being too right wing, if tomorrow the Dem party core changes their badges to Republican, literally nothing will change for an average American, people will still have no healthcare, no minimum wage increase, there will still be idiotic wars fought overseas to prop up military-industrial complex. Joe got elected so MSM renamed "refugee kid cages" to "migrant housing facilities" while factually nothing has been done. That's the true essence of Dems being right wing.

The_Piper wrote:What is she obfuscating, I don't get it? Her personal anecdote was probably unnecessary but I don't see harm in that either.

Can't keep it short, sorry. Too layered, and it's mostly backstory. Kudos for responding to the substance of the post. My answer is the 4 paragraphs after this one - the remainder of the post addresses the rest of the speech. Puerto Rico was a minor observation, but it's telling. I don't expect "the history of Palestine" to make these emotional deflections obvious... and if it's subtle, it's because she's signaling. She/her staff put a lot of thought into the speech (that's why her difficulty in sticking to the bullet points in front of her is also telling: it means she/her staff haven't fully landed on a message).

Anyway - the anecdote. It's about US terrorism against Puerto Rico. Far from being unnecessary, it's a sharp criticism of US foreign policy, so it applies here. I'll skip the tangent about Puerto Rico as a window into US crimes against humanity - if you're interested, check out the history... and if you do, please consider Cuba and the Philippines too, as those 3 territories are the same skeleton in that massive closet. I suggest Philippines first, and squaring how T.Roosevelt talks about the territory with how his deputy Taft does as governor there. Goes a long way in explaining the modern world.

The people she's signaling to are her constituents, many of whom swarmed the streets of New York waving Palestinian flags & screaming about crimes against humanity. Right before that happened (which has obviously caught most politicians by surprise) she was trying to cozy up to conservative Jewish organizations in her city. By their own account, it was a long time coming (Jewish Insider). That's important in understanding AOC's political calculus after 2 years in office. She's taking specific steps to build alliances within Congress, by ingratiating herself to influential groups her conservative Dem colleagues rely on. A year ago she got a lot of shit for refusing to pay into the DNC mafia racket, and she's now sending checks to right-wing Dems who don't want her money because she's still in Pelosi’s doghouse (ignore the Politico framing... the point is she's sending checks to campaigns who'd be getting paid through DNC - a direct reversal of her stance a year ago). Money from small dollar donations her voters were pretty sure were earmarked for progressive causes.

Anyway, her pivot to conservative Jewish orgs is part of that same stealth rebranding effort (I'll leave guesses about why she's trying to rebrand for another time). The April 6th Jewish Insider article refers to an interview she gave the day before to JCRC-NY, 29 minutes into which, the host finally asks a question about Israel, and she gives a tortured answer that tries as much as possible to equivocate (that's why it's tortured). I queued up the question, but you can skip exactly 2 minutes ahead for her answer. The question is only interesting because it says outright that "American Jews" support a 2-state solution contingent on Israeli security - which is borderline slanderous, because American Jews are now mostly turned off by that argument. Many flag-wavers are among them.

Those^ 3 paragraphs come together in the anecdote like this: The US committed crimes against humanity in Puerto Rico; and the US is now committing crimes against humanity in Gaza, via Netanyahu. But that part’s missing, see? I strongly suspect her notes made it clear (albeit more tactfully than I just did), and that she adjusted on-the-fly (during the speech or right before)... and I sensed this "adjusting" throughout. So the Puerto Rico thing hangs like a Florida chad, which is exactly why you thought it was "unnecessary", when in fact it was the point of the speech. Material for a staffer memoir, maybe.

...
The speech, snapshot:

- concerns are apparently over "the rights of Palestinians and Israelis alike that have been impacted..."
- but then says "this is not about both sides", it's "about an imbalance of power"
- wonders if communities in PR "were practice for this", but doesn't make the US role explicit, though she comes close. Only the people she's signaling to will likely get the analogy, making it (I think) deliberately weaker, and even irrelevant to most others. (See quoted post)
- double emphasis on Congresswomen being barred from entering Israel, with more indignation here than anywhere else in the speech
- absurd claim that there’s no ‘standing up’ for Gaza because that would "...force us to confront the incarceration of children at our border", which we're "scared" to do

The last one's a double-whammy... 1) Who's she talking about? Her colleagues in Congress? And who'd they be standing up to, if not Biden? (Even the TYT producer thinks that's what she means.) The simplest explanation is that she's too scared to directly call out the administration's actions in Gaza... yet that's what she's criticizing in the same breath. And 2) the reason we don't stand up is now the embarrassment of the southern border? It's not the billions of dollars in cash and military equipment, plus logistical support, that she SIGNALED was the reason when she brought up Puerto Rico? Of course it is. Then what were the mentions of children at the border (and Gazan children) if not props in response to criticism about her seesawing stance on border detentions in the previous 3 months? (Meaning it’s awkward & opportunist, in addition to distracting from the Gaza question.)

Anyway, I bring a generous assumption... suggesting she's in over her head with foreign policy, and that this is her stumbling through it. That would be fine, up to a point. But she's sharp, and it shouldn't take more than a few weeks of conversations with her staff & any number of experts (or her 2 colleagues) who'd be thrilled to educate her on a messy (if not exactly complicated) history. What Palestinians need is for people like her to eliminate - not regurgitate - ambiguity, false equivocation, and diversion.

But realistically, that’s just a suggestion/excuse - I don’t think it’s the case. I think this is a politician trying to please everyone & anger no one (which itself displays the same naïveté I guess).

Added: almost forgot. "Do Palestinians have a right to survive?" is a gimmick talking point, designed to mask the real question, which is "Do Palestinians have a right to defend themselves?" (Those two are linked: the reason for Israel's unilateral cease-fire a few days ago is Palestinians quote-unquote "surviving", in part thanks to Iran/Hezbollah.) Her back-room dealing & sucking up to conservative Dems & their right-wing donors explains the watered-down talking point. What's weird is, her ambiguous comment about the US blocking a statement at the UN is also related, I think accidentally. She's talking about China's Sec.Council resolution calling for a cease-fire, which the US blocked several times. (China is a de facto ally of Israel - so infer what that says about the US here.) The US has blocked dozens of resolutions on behalf of Israel over the decades, including some that broadly affirm all people's right to self-defense against occupation & apartheid.

The word “apartheid” is also not new for West Bank & Gaza. Apartheid S.African governments were Israel’s steadiest allies since the 40's, alongside the US (infer what that says about the US here) and the Mandela revolution saw the freeing of Palestine from occupation as a natural extension of itself. In the earliest days (40s & 50s), when the US’s dual role as the world’s main arms supplier & last global enforcer of white supremacist colonialism hadn’t fully gelled (the latter is bc France & Britain would be expelled almost everywhere... Middle East history is a microcosm of that power shift between the 3 empires, but so are Indochina & most of Africa) one could frame this racist support in terms of preserving the state of Israel as a kind of British mistake. US governments since then have shown their cards by explicitly defending Israel’s illegal occupations, illegal attacks on Gaza, illegal expansion of settlements, and illegal apartheid laws, bc Israel is their best non-NATO customer for weapons & their best leverage against the Arab states.

There’s a reason it’s mostly young, uncorrupted Americans protesting: standards have shifted. The US position has corroded even “civilized” conversation about Palestinians. Used to be, political Zionism itself was being questioned. Today, when Bernie is asked if people should be using words like “apartheid” to describe Israeli apartheid, he says no. That’s the degrading effect of US policy on good people’s values.

Seabass wrote:I think all the Jimmy Dore leftist types who are trying to run AOC out of town have got no business bitching about the Dems being too right wing.

This kind of reply is intellectually dishonest & cowardly. My post has substantive criticisms, and you've addressed none of them - haven't even indicated that you noticed them. Which means you're reacting to a nonspecific attack on AOC (your main underlying fallacy) and then conflating it with someone else's attack on AOC (second fallacy). All without even pretending to have read anything I actually wrote. I'm amazed that people posting in this forum aren't embarrassed to engage this way.

If this isn't just intellectual cowardice, then we're left to speculate why anyone would react in such an unthinking way, in a "rational skepticism" discussion forum. It can't be simping for a politician who doesn't know you exist, right? Then, what - regurgitating social media style attacks because that's the limit of your curiosity & critical thinking? No one is compelling you to trolling like Spearthrower... you choose to. That's stunning.

arugula2 wrote:

Seabass wrote:I think all the Jimmy Dore leftist types who are trying to run AOC out of town have got no business bitching about the Dems being too right wing.

This kind of reply is intellectually dishonest & cowardly. My post has substantive criticisms, and you've addressed none of them - haven't even indicated that you noticed them. Which means you're reacting to a nonspecific attack on AOC (your main underlying fallacy) and then conflating it with someone else's attack on AOC (second fallacy). All without even pretending to have read anything I actually wrote. I'm amazed that people posting in this forum aren't embarrassed to engage this way.

If this isn't just intellectual cowardice, then we're left to speculate why anyone would react in such an unthinking way, in a "rational skepticism" discussion forum. It can't be simping for a politician who doesn't know you exist, right? Then, what - regurgitating social media style attacks because that's the limit of your curiosity & critical thinking? No one is compelling you to trolling like Spearthrower... you choose to. That's stunning.

Dude. She's just a politician. She's not a savior, she's not a superhero, she's not a saint; she's just a politician. And moreover, she's a young, inexperienced politician. But all the Jimmy Dore style leftists have decided that they're going to tear her down and run her out of DC because she's failed to live up to some idealized, fictional version of AOC that only ever existed in their heads, who was supposed to swoop in and transform the US into Norway overnight. It's absurd and childish. Here you are dissecting a four minute speech of hers like it's a sacred religious text, ascribing all sorts of motives onto her that you can't possibly know. It's obsessive and weird. Why aren't the other 534 members of congress going under your microscope in this way?

AOC isn't going to save us. She was never going to save us. I don't "simp" for politicians. I don't put them up on pedestals in the first place, so that when they eventually disappoint me, I'm not devastated. I am too old and I've seen too much to put my faith in individual politicians.

I will say this, however. I'd rather have AOC in congress than 90% of the motherfuckers in that building because I want the Democratic party to move more to the left. And chasing the most left-wing Dems out of Washington when they fail to live up to ridiculous, idealized standards isn't the way to accomplish that.

Kudos for aragula's take on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in post #1970 and Seabass's reply to it and to post #1971.

Seabass wrote:Dude. She's just a politician. She's not a savior, she's not a superhero, she's not a saint; she's just a politician.

[Reveal] Spoiler:

And moreover, she's a young, inexperienced politician. But all the Jimmy Dore style leftists have decided that they're going to tear her down and run her out of DC because she's failed to live up to some idealized, fictional version of AOC that only ever existed in their heads, who was supposed to swoop in and transform the US into Norway overnight. It's absurd and childish. Here you are dissecting a four minute speech of hers like it's a sacred religious text, ascribing all sorts of motives onto her that you can't possibly know. It's obsessive and weird. Why aren't the other 534 members of congress going under your microscope in this way?

AOC isn't going to save us. She was never going to save us. I don't "simp" for politicians. I don't put them up on pedestals in the first place, so that when they eventually disappoint me, I'm not devastated. I am too old and I've seen too much to put my faith in individual politicians.

I will say this, however. I'd rather have AOC in congress than 90% of the motherfuckers in that building because I want the Democratic party to move more to the left. And chasing the most left-wing Dems out of Washington when they fail to live up to ridiculous, idealized standards isn't the way to accomplish that.

(I'm using spoiler tags just to shrink the space - and it'll still be too long a reply, sorry.) Yes, agreeing with Hermit, this^ is a reasonable stance.

But it's not a response to the critique - I don't think anyway. It's still mostly a response to someone else's problems with AOC. I don't have illusions about any one politician's capacity to stay true to their mission. And feeling no devastation whatsoever when AOC does several about-turns from what she was elected to do. She wasn't elected to save the world, imo (this is a fallacy - I'm not saying you're deliberately using it, but that's what it is). She was elected to do what she set out to do: to more-or-less always speak up for what's right. I think this speech (and many recent interviews in the last few months) were AOC sincerely thinking she's still doing that, despite the compromises.

For quick reference at the bottom of my long reply to The_Piper, I call out Bernie's compromising on the language of "apartheid". There's no serious person left alive who doesn't think of greater Israel in terms of apartheid - and I think Bernie is a serious person. He's simply refraining from speaking up for what is right (on the narrow topic of apartheid, that is... because he still speaks up for Palestinians). Bernie's generation of Jews learned not to compromise on the truth, if compromising on the truth means betraying people's right to life and dignity. I'm saying flat-out, he betrays (even if he thinks it's just a little bit & with caveats) that principle when he answers that question in the negative. It is OK to call him out on it.

Just as it is ok to call out AOC on those (many, many) compromises inside the span of a rather short speech. And my take was as generous as it could be, because I'm also trying to pinpoint the pressures that lead her to those compromises. (Those are hinted at in the longer follow-up post, btw... my initial post was shorthand.)

I don't put my hopes on individuals... the closest I came to in recent memory was that 2-month window when I thought Bernie might win the primary. Not because it would signal the beginning of transformative policy, but because it would signal the beginning of transformative politics. I'm of the mind that momentum hasn't died out, but as a realist, I tried to imagine an individual coming that close to sealing the deal, who wasn't Bernie, and my imagination is barren. The reality in America is any fucktard can fool enough people to win the presidency. We came this close to that fucktard being a non-fucktard, and... we blew it. That's all. Nothing about what he would do once in office - always 'lowest expectations, highest aspiration' for me, it's the only way to go about it.

That's also why I refuse to compare AOC to the 90%... the 90% are actively destroying the world. I think the bar should be whatever people like AOC stand for when they decide to run. The ideas themselves matter more than the person - and that's the point.

When the ideas are betrayed, the person is replaceable. I'm cynical enough to think most politicians are garbage. I'm not cynical enough to think there aren't enough good people to fill all those seats 1000x over, and many of them can be found, recruited, funded, and amplified. That's literally AOC's story. The next AOC will do even better.

arugula2 wrote:

Seabass wrote:Dude. She's just a politician. She's not a savior, she's not a superhero, she's not a saint; she's just a politician.

[Reveal] Spoiler:

And moreover, she's a young, inexperienced politician. But all the Jimmy Dore style leftists have decided that they're going to tear her down and run her out of DC because she's failed to live up to some idealized, fictional version of AOC that only ever existed in their heads, who was supposed to swoop in and transform the US into Norway overnight. It's absurd and childish. Here you are dissecting a four minute speech of hers like it's a sacred religious text, ascribing all sorts of motives onto her that you can't possibly know. It's obsessive and weird. Why aren't the other 534 members of congress going under your microscope in this way?

AOC isn't going to save us. She was never going to save us. I don't "simp" for politicians. I don't put them up on pedestals in the first place, so that when they eventually disappoint me, I'm not devastated. I am too old and I've seen too much to put my faith in individual politicians.

I will say this, however. I'd rather have AOC in congress than 90% of the motherfuckers in that building because I want the Democratic party to move more to the left. And chasing the most left-wing Dems out of Washington when they fail to live up to ridiculous, idealized standards isn't the way to accomplish that.

(I'm using spoiler tags just to shrink the space - and it'll still be too long a reply, sorry.) Yes, agreeing with Hermit, this^ is a reasonable stance.

But it's not a response to the critique - I don't think anyway. It's still mostly a response to someone else's problems with AOC. I don't have illusions about any one politician's capacity to stay true to their mission. And feeling no devastation whatsoever when AOC does several about-turns from what she was elected to do. She wasn't elected to save the world, imo (this is a fallacy - I'm not saying you're deliberately using it, but that's what it is). She was elected to do what she set out to do: to more-or-less always speak up for what's right. I think this speech (and many recent interviews in the last few months) were AOC sincerely thinking she's still doing that, despite the compromises.

For quick reference at the bottom of my long reply to The_Piper, I call out Bernie's compromising on the language of "apartheid". There's no serious person left alive who doesn't think of greater Israel in terms of apartheid - and I think Bernie is a serious person. He's simply refraining from speaking up for what is right (on the narrow topic of apartheid, that is... because he still speaks up for Palestinians). Bernie's generation of Jews learned not to compromise on the truth, if compromising on the truth means betraying people's right to life and dignity. I'm saying flat-out, he betrays (even if he thinks it's just a little bit & with caveats) that principle when he answers that question in the negative. It is OK to call him out on it.

Just as it is ok to call out AOC on those (many, many) compromises inside the span of a rather short speech. And my take was as generous as it could be, because I'm also trying to pinpoint the pressures that lead her to those compromises. (Those are hinted at in the longer follow-up post, btw... my initial post was shorthand.)

I don't put my hopes on individuals... the closest I came to in recent memory was that 2-month window when I thought Bernie might win the primary. Not because it would signal the beginning of transformative policy, but because it would signal the beginning of transformative politics. I'm of the mind that momentum hasn't died out, but as a realist, I tried to imagine an individual coming that close to sealing the deal, who wasn't Bernie, and my imagination is barren. The reality in America is any fucktard can fool enough people to win the presidency. We came this close to that fucktard being a non-fucktard, and... we blew it. That's all. Nothing about what he would do once in office - always 'lowest expectations, highest aspiration' for me, it's the only way to go about it.

That's also why I refuse to compare AOC to the 90%... the 90% are actively destroying the world. I think the bar should be whatever people like AOC stand for when they decide to run. The ideas themselves matter more than the person - and that's the point.

When the ideas are betrayed, the person is replaceable. I'm cynical enough to think most politicians are garbage. I'm not cynical enough to think there aren't enough good people to fill all those seats 1000x over, and many of them can be found, recruited, funded, and amplified. That's literally AOC's story. The next AOC will do even better.

Just three quick points:

1. You don't know that Bernie was lying. You're not clairvoyant. Maybe he has a different understanding of the word "apartheid" than you.

2. If you refuse to compare AOC to the other 90% then you are judging her completely removed from the context in which she exists. You are removing all context and history and creating a standard that no politician can live up to.

3. If you expect politicians not to compromise, then I don't think you understand how politics works.

That wasn't a careful enough reading...

Seabass wrote:1. You don't know that Bernie was lying. You're not clairvoyant. Maybe he has a different understanding of the word "apartheid" than you.

Go back and read it, please. I didn't say he was lying. I suggest you follow the link I provided (easy to find, it's at the very bottom of that earlier post); the question wasn't whether Israel does or doesn't have apartheid, the question was whether people should be using that word when criticizing Israel's policies (i.e. when criticizing apartheid). I am under no illusion that Bernie doesn't think it's apartheid, nor did he hint that's the case. Of course he thinks it's apartheid. I'm criticizing his stance on whether people should be using the word. I think I gave a thoughtful explanation of all this in that paragraph - but you even misunderstood what my claim about him was.

2. If you refuse to compare AOC to the other 90% then you are judging her completely removed from the context in which she exists. You are removing all context and history and creating a standard that no politician can live up to.

No, of course not - I'm contextualizing her throughout. Please fully read the post. This is merely a word game (not necessarily deliberate). When I say I "refuse to compare" her to the 90%, I'm clearly saying I refuse to judge her actions against the 90%. I was drawing an explicit contrast to what you stated you do do, in your own post.

3. If you expect politicians not to compromise, then I don't think you understand how politics works.

Again: please read more carefully. I do the opposite. I have no faith in politicians to stick by their principles (this is exactly what I said in my post). We need to be always on the lookout for politicians with the right principles, and then replace them when they betray their principles. I'm not yet sure how complete AOC's transformation is, I'm still trying to figure it out. But SHE is not important (beyond her personhood). Her standing up for those principles is - precisely because we need to be multiplying these types of politicians, not watching their numbers shrink. It's not complicated. Only an irrational attachment to specific individuals makes it seem more complicated than it is.

But overall: several misreadings of what I thought was a straightforward response.

arugula2 wrote:Then, what - regurgitating social media style attacks because that's the limit of your curiosity & critical thinking? No one is compelling you to trolling like Spearthrower... you choose to. That's stunning.

And the above is meant to be serious, deep, contemplative, refined discourse. Where you put someone down who's not even involved in the exchange, just to boost your own ego. The kind of discourse we idiots at "Rational Skepticism" should aspire to....

There's a huge gap between who you are and who you think you are.

arugula2 wrote:That wasn't a careful enough reading...

Seabass wrote:1. You don't know that Bernie was lying. You're not clairvoyant. Maybe he has a different understanding of the word "apartheid" than you.

Go back and read it, please. I didn't say he was lying. I suggest you follow the link I provided (easy to find, it's at the very bottom of that earlier post); the question wasn't whether Israel does or doesn't have apartheid, the question was whether people should be using that word when criticizing Israel's policies (i.e. when criticizing apartheid). I am under no illusion that Bernie doesn't think it's apartheid, nor did he hint that's the case. Of course he thinks it's apartheid. I'm criticizing his stance on whether people should be using the word. I think I gave a thoughtful explanation of all this in that paragraph - but you even misunderstood what my claim about him was.

How do you know this? Can you read minds? Have you discussed it with him?

arugula2 wrote:

2. If you refuse to compare AOC to the other 90% then you are judging her completely removed from the context in which she exists. You are removing all context and history and creating a standard that no politician can live up to.

No, of course not - I'm contextualizing her throughout. Please fully read the post. This is merely a word game (not necessarily deliberate). When I say I "refuse to compare" her to the 90%, I'm clearly saying I refuse to judge her actions against the 90%. I was drawing an explicit contrast to what you stated you do do, in your own post.

Distinction without a difference. Politicians don't exist in vacuums so it makes no sense to judge them as if they do. They ALL end up breaking promises. They ALL end up changing once they become part of the system. They ALL have the idealism beaten out of them once they get beyond the campaign and run face first into real politics. What's more important in my opinion is the direction of the party, and for the first time since the Republicans strangled the unions, there is actually a slight chance that the Democratic party can once again become a left-leaning party of the people thanks to internet fundraising, and AOC is one piece of that puzzle. I don't want the toxic part of left to ruin that.

arugula2 wrote:

3. If you expect politicians not to compromise, then I don't think you understand how politics works.

Again: please read more carefully. I do the opposite. I have no faith in politicians to stick by their principles (this is exactly what I said in my post). We need to be always on the lookout for politicians with the right principles, and then replace them when they betray their principles. I'm not yet sure how complete AOC's transformation is, I'm still trying to figure it out. But SHE is not important (beyond her personhood). Her standing up for those principles is - precisely because we need to be multiplying these types of politicians, not watching their numbers shrink. It's not complicated. Only an irrational attachment to specific individuals makes it seem more complicated than it is.

But overall: several misreadings of what I thought was a straightforward response.

Replace her? Already? With who? She's barely had time to do anything. Why the fixation on her? What about the other 534 congresspersons? Why her? Is she the worst of the bunch? Or have you just bought into media hype?

Why the fixation on her? What about the other 534 congresspersons?

It's bizarre, isn't it?

A few years back I remember a guy who continually fixated on Aung San Suu Kyi with respect to the Rohingya atrocities despite her not actually being in control of the policies or the army which were taking the violent actions, and never was there any criticism of all those murderous men who were actually making the policies and taking that violent action.

Now, that's not to say that she bears zero responsibility, but the fixation on her comparative to the others is bewildering. It provokes questioning, skepticism, and imagination to explain what might be generating this seemingly irrational fixation.

I can understand US right-wing dislike of AOC - she's a woman, she's Hispanic, she's socialist, she's not in the neolib club, she speaks her mind and connects well with younger voters. They're obviously going to tear her down.

But I don't recognize any notion of 'progressiveness' in supposedly 'progressive' criticism of her; in some cases, weapons-grade ideological purity appears to induce people to believe that anything which isn't perfect is the enemy, even when it's actually quite good comparative to so many other factors much more deserving of attention and disdain.

As mentioned above, I agree politics is necessarily about compromises - more so in a democracy than anywhere else - because other people are always going to have different ideas of perfection. Winning politically in most democracies is about finding commonality, not just in the electorate, but between like-minded parties in forming coalitions. I actually think it's fairly aspirational and idealistic as well: to seek shared values rather than always looking for things that divide.

Spearthrower wrote:
But I don't recognize any notion of 'progressiveness' in supposedly 'progressive' criticism of her; in some cases, weapons-grade ideological purity appears to induce people to believe that anything which isn't perfect is the enemy, even when it's actually quite good comparative to so many other factors much more deserving of attention and disdain.

That's pretty much my view of it. Of all the turds stinking up the hallowed halls of Congress that they could be directing their rage at, they've decided to take it out on AOC. This is what happens when you put a politician up on a pedestal. They put her in a friggin' comic book for god's sake.

Don't get me wrong—I like her, compared to most of them—I'm just saying, let's try to keep a little perspective...