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.
Thats unfortunately not even a little surprising
Her honesty and directness are so refreshing. I wish I could be more like her, just a totally good pure person. It also seems like she genuinely tries hard, like her success is not without extreme effort.
It’s a choice, she chooses that path, every time. Repeatedly, regardless of what she faces, she tries to make the best choices in that situation. And the more you do that the better you get at it. It sounds simple, in writing it out, but it’s usually the hardest choice. It’s choosing to stick to your guns, regardless of social ostracism.
A 100 minute video from AOC? I’d love to watch it, why would she only post it to Instagram? Are there any mirrors out there?
I remember her speaking about this quite candidly not too long ago (I want to say last year or two but time flies these days) about going into a side room off the House chamber and seeing herself giving an interview on a major outlet, and a fellow Democrat – knowing she was there – just shaking his head at the TV.
That cruelty exemplifies what is wrong with the party, and precisely why the likes of Schumer and Jeffries must go.
She needs to overhaul the party. I kind of lean toward her primarying Schumer, but I am amicable to a 2028 run. Whichever she decides, I’m with her.
If she doesn’t, the best compromise I can see that can viably win is probably Ossoff, which given what he said here I think is generally the right message to carry forward.
Edit: I do think it’s worth pointing out that she of course wouldn’t even be viable under the Republican ticket. That like Sanders, she chooses to caucus with Democrats for good reason. Perfect? No. Better? Undeniably so. On every single issue, frankly.
That said, the 2028 Democratic Primaries are officially on, and it’s time to make Democrats a little more perfect.
Of course. Establishment Democrats are anti-labor, and AOC is pro-labor.
Controlled opposition.
I remember Pelosi especially was vicious. AOC didn’t get brave again for a year + after that shit. Great point about Angie, she would have won with minimal support. We need to form a 3rd party, enough is enough.
How about taking over the Democratic Party? That process is already underway, let’s keep it going
We need to form a 3rd party, enough is enough.
“How Republicans Never Lost an Election Again: The Realities of Vote-Splitting”
Might I suggest the Working Families Party instead of forming a new one? Just make sure to take into account the realities of FPtP voting, if your district hasn’t implemented a better system.
Then why does she keep trying to be their friend? I don’t understand. If someone keeps punching me in the face I’m not going to want to be besties with them I’m going to do everything in my power to MAKE THEM GO AWAY. SHE NEEDS TO FUCKING FIGHT! She has an entire coalition that would stand behind her if she would just grow a damn spine.
Friend?
If there’s a quality you want in a politician it’s to be diplomatic with others, full stop.
Consider how Mamdani has handled Trump. Breaking bread with bullies, “reaching across the aisle”, overlooking insults, stroking egos, shaking hands, they are all activities that superficially resemble things that friendly people do. But make no mistake, it’s not friendship in the strictest sense. They might actually hate each other, but they’re able to act “friendly”, regardless. We want our representatives to build relationships with people that hold power so they can operate enough to get things done.
Also, it’s not spineless activity. If anything, the capacity to withhold outward expressions of negative emotions is really hard for most people to do. It takes guts, self control, and strength to act in spite of all that. AOC has more spine than most because keeping your powder dry every single day is her job, and she chooses to do that.
why does she keep trying to be their friend?
Money. Look at what happened in the Montana Senate race this year: a mysterious SuperPAC poured infinite money into getting Alani Bankhead through the primary over several other, more popular candidates. The Democratic leadership then encouraged her to drop out because they figured that while deep-red Montana would never elect a Democrat, they could get Seth Bodnar in as an independent who would caucus with the Dems. So dark money got Bankhead through the primary, immediately vanished, and split the vote so that the Republican won with only 48% of the vote.
Being able to dump infinite money into a primary means that, if you don’t play ball, the neolibs will keep you from office by any means necessary.
Because that’s how the government actually functions? It’s all committees and favors and the longer you’ve been around the more influence you amass. If the progressive arm thought they had the numbers to freeze out the establishment they would be doing so already.
This seems a little like asking why would the right fielder for the Dodgers keep trying to interact with the other players
You can try to get others traded but there’s only so much you can do on that
She’s shooting for a higher goal, she’s going to take them over from the top.
The old guard has helped republicans turn this country into a facist shit hole.
Yes. They’re all ratchet democrats who are in it only for the corporate dollars.
Honestly you are being too generous. They want the oligarchy to rule this country, they just disagree with Republicans on how to accomplish that.
They think they should throw some crumbs to working people and pay lip service to democracy so the people don’t oppose the. Too much.
It’s “fascist”, and Republicans did that just fine on their own.
Thanks for the spelling correction sweet summer child.
The reddification is complete.
You remind me of Reddit.
AOC as presidential candidate would prove some interesting things about the voting populus, but it would also bring some interesting things to light about the current state of the power the wealthy hold.
The old DNC could try hard to oppose her. But there isn’t a single Democrat with name recognition on her level.
They can’t argue against her policy stance in a way that people would support a competitor.
They could argue against her age and experience, but I think the voting populace doesn’t give a fuck about that anymore. They could result to other personal attacks like her being Puerto Rican, or a woman.
The GOP would result to scare tactics that, apparently, have finally lost their edge.
What I’m curious about isn’t the stuff we see in the news. Trump and the oligarchs would stop at nothing to prevent her victory. The ultra rich never had nearly as much wealth and power as they do now, and a lot of people conveniently died as they became too popular.
Dems exist to stop leftists. They do it over and over.
That’s a confusing take.
That worked in 2016. That didn’t work in this election. The current DNC chair started his career as an intern working for Paul Wellstone.
Are you suggesting we just do… nothing?
Why do you think it didn’t work? A few leftists managed to sneak through, but they succeeded in blocking many more in the primaries.
We need to harass our reps until they lose the will to live. Be loud, be annoying and most of all be persistent. Tell them what you want clearly, for example, i don’t want schumer and jeffires in leadership positions, so I’m focusing on that. Also give them an alternate path to vote for, like instead of voting for schumer, please vote for Chris Van Hollen. Then do it again the next day. Phone calls preferably.
Just shouting out Joe Neguse as an alternative to Jeffries. He stopped taking aipac money, he’s generally progressive, already in leadership in the house, and he is black, so it keeps the implicit promise to the congressional black caucus to elect a black speaker.
It’s not about race, it’s about Jeffries.
I’ll look into him, he sounds promising
I’d personally rather see her jump to the Senate for a term, or NY Governor, before trying for the presidency. I’d say the same for any House rep. Governors and Senators have the clearest parallels to the office, as executive and foreign-policy roles themselves.
I think AOC is a high-variance candidate - much the same way Trump was in 2016 - and she will either get much more or much less support than expected in the general election.
I think her biggest electoral baggage will be her statements over the years on the ‘Woke 1.0’ items that the electorate soured on. She has moderated her past statements here more recently, which leaves a lot of doubt as to her actual beliefs and policy goals. She’ll be attacked for that from the left and the right, and it will take oxygen away from a progressive economic agenda that would likely be broadly popular if explained well.
Whoever the dem candidate ends up being, I doubt they can rely on the same level of support as the party received in the midterms. 2 years is an eternity in politics and 2028 will likely be defined by some new crisis that isn’t even on our radar right now. If she runs, I’ll likely vote for her (at least, based on who else seems to be running as of now).
We simply don’t have time, we’re in need of that once in a generation leader right now and she’s the best we’ve got.
Jon Ossoff
I have little idea who this is mostly, but I know he came sort of out of nowhere and has been pushed relentlessly in the media, and that make me suspicious. Why him? Why now? Does he have more corporate-friendly moderate-conservative Democratic views that people with money prefer as the alternative? I genuinely don’t know. I really wonder if conservative money interests are scared of AOC and so they are pushing a more moderate Democrat. I don’t know his policies at all though, so maybe I am wrong?
Definitely check him out, he got elected the same time as Warnock. Look at his record, watch some of his speeches. He’s great.
I don’t know as much about him but everything I have seen/heard is promising.
There are plenty candidates who could jump in and do a great job. The campaign hasn’t even started yet. I genuinely don’t think jumping from the House to President is a good move, someone needs to hold a higher office first to demonstrate their ability to manage a much larger organization than a House office.
The only person ever elected directly from the House was James Garfield in 1880. Most presidents were previously senators or governors. The only person ever elected without holding any prior office was Donald Trump in 2016.
Yeah I like AOC and would vote for her, but I don’t think 2028 is her year. She has a lot of qualities that each individually could lose support: she’s a woman, non-white, vocally progressive, relatively young, only a Rep, and has a long history of demonization by the right.
None of those traits is particularly damning alone (to the general population, I don’t have a problem with any of it personally), but taken together that’s a lot of hill to climb.
I’d like to see her go for a couple terms in the Senate, which would take care of the “relatively young” and “only a Rep”. Plus, hopefully the landscape shifts more progressive which would make her less of an outlier.
I think 47 year old Senator Cortez is a much better bet than 39 year old Representative Cortez, and I’d rather not spoil the former by pushing the latter.
I feel like she could win anyway. She’s just a natural star politician. It’s a mix of things: the model looks, the clear explanation of policy, the fact that she is relatable in a way so many are not. I think she’d easily win. I think she’d even do okay with the racists… she’s just that likable. Why not have 2028 be her year? If not 2028, when? There’s always a reason among corporate elite conservative Democrats to avoid someone too helpful to the poor and middle class, isn’t there?
I’d personally rather see her jump to the Senate for a term, or NY Governor, before trying for the presidency. I’d say the same for any House rep. Governors and Senators have the clearest parallels to the office, as executive and foreign-policy roles themselves
only one sitting house rep has been elected president. ONE. garfield, in 1880. a 9-term rep, and at that time he was already chosen by his state legislature to be a senator… so like a ‘senator elect’ today… which he declined when he won his presidential campaign.
We already tried this with Bernie Sanders, the people’s vote don’t matter because the corporations are in danger
Previous losses should not stop us from trying again. The public is shifting. The scenarios are changing in each election cycle.
The public shifted because gas hit $6/gal. I don’t disagree that class consciousness is growing, but I don’t think it’s as prevalent in the real world as it is online. And more importantly, I don’t think the party apparatus of the DNC is remotely ready to hand over power to the progressive wing. They will use their oligarchs’ money to promote right wingers like Newsom.
All valid points. Although I think conservatives are the ones who are only upset by the gas prices. I suspect the rest of the normally disengaged public may have become engaged in the midterms for the litany of other good reasons as well.
Conservatives obviously can’t change, but my hope is that the normal people will continue to become more and more upset during the remaining time Trump has in office.
By November 2028, if we stay on this course, we might be primed for another dramatic shift left which could affect some components of DNC leadership.
Ejecting conservatives from DNC leadership is the real test, in my opinion.
I like your hope and I want to agree with it, but I also am wary of assuming that normal people are even as aware of news and politics as much as we would hope, let alone care enough about it to do something. I know I live in a bubble of people who care, and Lemmy obviously is its own very specific bubble. I don’t want to take for granted that the majority of people align with my worldview.
They didn’t lose the midterms only on gas prices.
Agreed, there were many things that influenced people in a variety of ways, but cost of living is the one big thing that impacts everybody.
The graph of rise in gas prices maps almost perfectly with lost support for the Republicans.
Those two graphs map like 1:1
I agree with you. Things don’t always have nuance and sometimes correlation does equal causation. There was lots of stuff going on, but that was the main thing.
It’s not the only thing that voters were mad about, but it didn’t help Republicans, that’s for sure.
I don’t get the hate for Newsom. From what I’ve seen he’s doing a good job.
Fighting against a billionaire’s tax, hating on trans people, and sleeping with your best friend’s wife? Count me out! If he’s the candidate, I wouldn’t vote for him.
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He’s a standard corporate Dem that looks out for oligarchs before working people. He recently opposed the ballot measure that would have put a one-time wealth tax on billionaires.
He is fighting against the billionaire tax.
He threw trans people under the bus.
And everyone not in the 0.1%
Not to minimize what he did to us, but to show he’s not only problematic for trans people.
True, true. It was just the first issue that came to mind.
These midterms just proved that numbers are more important than money. It’s not just “possible” to outvote corporate candidates, it should be considered an obligation.
So we should just do nothing
She 100% has my vote.
I love her, but Congress needs to change its makeup first to be all progressive and pass progressive legislations that will turn successful before she has any chance of presidency.
As of right now if she would run I expect she would lose. I think people want to give progressives a chance but likely would still be hesitant until progressives prove themselves.
I’ve literally heard these sentiments my entire life, and progressives keep proving it wrong every time.
The latest was my dad saying, “well of course a progressive could win in New York, but not anywhere else in the country.”
I think the nation has shown multiple times in the past decade that what we really don’t want is another fucking status quo democrat. The country is desperate for change, and if the democrats and people with your sentiment would take their foot off progressives’ necks and stand behind us instead, progressives could actually make this country great (for the first time, btw).
This is exactly why Hillary lost, FWIW. People were tired of establishment dems being in control. They wanted a shakeup. And in response to that, Dems ran the very personification of the establishment. Hillary was the face of everything that people hated about democrats.
As far as the establishment saw it, she had done her time as a good little soldier, paid her dues promptly, sang the party’s songs, danced the party’s dances, and was “owed” the chance at a presidency because of that. Not because she was the best candidate for the people, but because she was the one who best embodied the establishment that Dems wanted to uphold.
Instead, people voted for the candidate who promised exactly what people wanted: A shakeup. Trump wasn’t a good candidate during his first campaign, but he did promise an end to the old status quo. And to a lot of voters, that was the only thing that mattered.
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A bit more context on Clinton: The DNC was pretty much broke and their finances were a mess. Clinton came in and cleaned house and raised a bunch of money and basically saved the DNC from total insolvency. In return for saving their asses, her campaign was given a lot of control over the DNC. She had control of finances and hiring and firing.
How did the DNC get in such bad financial shape in the 1st place? Was it just incompetance or was there also fraud? If you’re a high level DNC leader, do you owe Clinton for saving your job or do you owe her for preventing a scandal that could land you in jail?
All this to say, from the outside it looks like “she put in her time, it’s her turn” but from the inside it’s more “we’ve totally fucked up and if we don’t let her take the wheel we will be jobless, disgraced and possibly sued or jailed”
That Clinton fundraising didn’t save the DNC, it destroyed its soul.
Do you think those millions of dollars of corporate cash came without strings? Of course not. After accepting this money, the DNC was all-in on support for the military industrial complex, wall street, health insurers, etc.
This had horrible effects on DNC policy in the following years- supporting the forever wars, abandoning the public option, bailing out wall street while abandoning working people… So many horrible things were set in motion by this Clinton corruption.
Before the Clinton sellout we had one corporate party and one moderate party. After the sellout we only have 2 corporate parties to choose from.
1/3rd of Democratic voters this election self-identified as democratic socialists. The days when progressive politics were a minor phenomenon are over. Besides, any successful movement needs to keep making swipes at power even if it doesn’t succeed; these moves are part of what legitimizes it and increases its influence.
Bruh, Texas just turned blue. Anything is possible rn.
If you look at the answers to surveys people were providing during voting it looks like top issues were affordability and corruption/concerns about democracy.
Progressives are given a chance and need to deliver on it otherwise they will be treated like trump (remember he promised a lot of that too)
The 2028 might not get the same boost, although I hope it will.
Hey, you should probably pick your head up and look at recent election news you’ve apparently missed completely.
Good. Democrats know how to treat a pile of dirt like AOC. Maybe she will grow a spine one day and be mean back to these people.
A pile of dirt? I don’t get it. How could someone not like AOC? I am not being sarcastic and mean this literally. She’s extremely likable.
She is bending over backwards to support establishment Zionists while they rightfully insult her. How can you possibly like this person.
Anyone got a link around the paywall? Or is the whole article in the subtext of the post?
Oh, I didn’t hit the paywall when I had posted! Apologies! I’ll see if I can dig up a version that isn’t behind a paywall
Edit: No luck so far. I’ll keep looking though!
Thank you!
You’re a tough woman! Fight back.
She did, but it took her over a year to shake off how they treated her, especially Pelosi.
That’s quite literally what she’s doing - she’s planning on running for president despite the horrible treatment.
We don’t have enough of her to go around. We also need her to take one of the New York Senate seats. It’s weird how leadership is not only Zionist but also made up of a significant number of people from the New York metro area.
Mamdani is seeding enough people that can jump into that Senate race if AOC runs for president.
For instance I still contend the long play is to have Brad Lander run for Schumer’s seat
And depending on his ambitions I could see Mamdani running for governor of NY in 2030 and one of the NYC DSA reps challenging Gillibrand.
I would vote for Mamdani so hard for governor.
It’s not weird at all, and doesn’t even require conspiracy. Social clubs, sports clubs, religious sites, and schools.
The way the craven privileged bond and form their cliques, and how easy they are to influence during their early stages of teenage “I know everything”, spoiled rich brat version, are neither imaginative nor mysterious.
No matter how badly the chuds try to give their group chats cool names, they’re always either impressionable fucks trying to outrun daddy’s legacy to make their own, or already compromised by generational favor debts.
The most insulting part of Israel’s puppet up the ass of the world’s wealthy white men, is how fucking embarrassingly easy it was to size the fit.
Why do you think all the pro Zionist arguments (or defenses) right now are emotion based? The most common example is “we don’t feel safe without Israel” followed by “objecting to Zionism or Israel is anti-Semitic!”
When I see these people arguing for Israel I just think, “wow, you’re really unhinged and haven’t addressed the argument being brought forth”
I’m so tired of hearing people use “unhinged”. It’s like one day some kid on the schoolyard said it during recess and now the whole fucking school is using it for everything constantly.
Feel free to substitute any of the following: Deranged, demented, psychotic, disturbed, unstable, unbalanced
Why do I think? The same reason every other issue that is not at all divisive in the face of decency is currently an emotional game of feelings over reality: It’s the easiest form of divide and conquer to effect the manipulation over the largest amount of people, which also provides the required length of cognitive dissonance to meet whatever selfish goal the pricks are using it for with very little upkeep after priming.
The rest of the pieces to make it stick are repeated ad nauseam on Lemmy by many comrades, many whom I would say I vehemently disagree on further finer points, but that’s the crux of it.
Capitalism is not human, and it does not lend itself to engendering human responses to human problems.
Ma’am, with the greatest possible respect, that’s how colored, LGBTQ, First Nations, and immigrant peoples have been treated in America for fucking decades.
She was a working class brown woman; what the fuck do you even mean by this?
This patronizing shit is tiresome, speaking as a “colored”.
You’re absolutely correct. Have you forgotten that she is a woman of color herself?
Nope, but if it’s that bad for her, how much worse it is for those that don’t have her station?
She’s been saying this the whole time she is in office to be fair. It is a great time to remind everyone the way democrats are acting right bow though.
And even now, you think racism the primary driver for progressives not winning in Democrat primaries? You think Democrats are racist?
Those of us that have been paying attention now see an infiltration of Israeli agents throughout the centrist Dems, and we know they are neoliberals anyway which would make them anti-labor. That’s where the divide is, not racism as evidenced by the sweeping DSA victories in the midterms.
