Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has issued a dire warning to her party about the chaos that could ensue if they succeed in pushing President Joe Biden off the ticket. And she criticized Democrats who’ve given off-the-record quotes that suggest the party has resigned itself to a second Trump term.
In an Instagram Live video on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez warned liberals that a brokered convention could lead to chaos, in part because she says some of the Democratic “elites” who want Biden out also don’t want Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee in his place.
“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP be the nominee,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed none of the people she’s spoken with who are calling on Biden to drop out — including lawmakers and legal experts — have articulated a plan to swap out the nominee without minimizing the serious legal and procedural challenges that are likely to ensue.
Ocasio-Cortez also highlighted the racial, ethnic and class divisions that appear to have formed between the majority of those pining to blow up the ticket — led mostly by white Democrats and media pundits — and those elected officials who feel they and their constituents have too much at stake to upend the process at this point and so are willing to do the work to re-elect Biden-Harris. She alluded to this cultural divide in her video when she spoke out against anonymous sources expressing a sense of fatalism on behalf of Democrats about what might happen if Biden remains on the ticket:
What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose. For me, to a certain extent, I don’t care what name is on there. We are not losing. I don’t know about you, but my community does not have the option to lose. My community does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.
AOC and Bernie are both saying this and I agree 110%. In all occasions. The most important thing is we all make a plan to go out and vote. Talk to other democrats and make sure they fight that demoralization and go out and vote. There is so much at stake with Project 2025 that I dont even care about these headlines anymore.
Agreed. She also pointed out that early voting ballots go out in September. A new campaign would have an eight week runway if it started now.
His health is declining fast and way too many people think he looks too old (both candidates are) and too mentally busted to last 4 more years. Let alone him even staying coherent another 6 months. He is 100% unable to coherently and quickly speak anymore and it’s not going to magically get better. The real issue is that they should have done something about it 4 months ago so a better candidate could have been picked and it could have looked like Bidens choice to no run for a second term.
I still think the best chance is to put in someone else, but it’s pretty much too late for them to get their shit together.
This whole issue is happening because he decided to try for a second term. That is the origin of this cluster fuck. Because he said he wasn’t going to.
He never said he wasn’t going to. A media outlet reported on rumors he’d only committed to one term and everyone took that as gospel. Turns out he sort of maybe signaled it one interview with Slate as a maybe, he never said he’d only do one term.
I’m beginning to think the play is for Joe to only last till the election because there’s no fucking way the country is going to learn about and be excited by one single person with the amount of time the completely incompetent DNC has left us with. If Joe decides he’s too banged up on day one, he can leave the office then.
Likely, but the problem is that people don’t want to vote for the guy that may have alzheimers, and Harris isn’t very liked. They needed to do something months ago. Either a different candidate or a shit ton of good PR for Harris.
Thank you. I’ve been saying this for years now and usually get downvoted for it, which makes me sad – not because I care about downvotes but because so many people seem not to understand that this is 1933 and we need to be all-in against fascism right now.
Biden just stepped down, so it’s even more important that we unite against the threat. I don’t care who’s on the Democrat ticket – whether it’s Kamala or anyone else, even Biden’s bitey dog – this isn’t the time to debate policy. We need to vote and convince everyone who isn’t a fascist to vote against this. If we don’t, they will kill us, and that’s not hyperbole.
Please vote.
This is a good fucking take, have to say. She very obviously knows what she’s talking about extremely well, has the best interests of those she represents at heart, and knows how to express it all clearly for the average layperson. You don’t get a lot of politicians of that caliber.
No wonder the Republicans hate her so much!
I can’t understand the people who dislike her. My sisters don’t like her either and think she’s “dumb” but every time she speaks, she makes what seems to me to be well thought out, rational arguments.
Because she’s actually left and they know it. Most Democrats are centered left or even right.
I see a lot of people who hate her for not being left enough. Whilst I sympathise with that stance to an extent, from the perspective of someone in the UK, the US seems so shockingly right wing that I’m surprised that a figure like Ocasio-Cortez exists at all. That is to say that I wish America had more left wing politicians, but given the current lack, AOC is a refreshing presence.
Supporting Genocide is never left. She is a centrist.
Do you ever get tired of huffing your own farts?
Does defending Genocide ever get tiring?
The dumb person is your sister.
Because they’re gobbling up the mainstream media narrative that labels both progressives, and women who are politicians, as irrational and naive. AOC gets the whole venn diagram of bullshit thrown at her.
Yes, even women can internalize misogyny. You only have to go as far as your local fundie churches to hear women saying FeMaLEs are too emotional to be president or that women should be subservient to their husbands because women just no brain good compared to men.
I wouldn’t say I dislike her, but I don’t like the AOC worship here.
Yes, she voices what we’re all thinking. She elevates our voice.
The problem is that she’s also unrealistic in expectations, and that can cause a rift. I wouldn’t say her comments cause a rift in the party itself, but among voters.
For example, she was all in on the expanding the SCOTUS bandwagon. Functionally, it’s untenable. Any politician should know that. There’s some loophole that would allow you to do it with simple majorities in house and senate, but that loophole is sketchy and likely won’t work out. And if it does, that opens Pandora box to completely railroad this country next time Reps get simple majorities in both houses. Which may be half a year away.
But it seems like a brilliant workaround on the surface. And people who bought into that pipe dream became extremely disruptive, causing fights amongst blue voters.
And this isn’t the only time. She’s a consistent voice of the Progressives. Which is fine. Idealist should have a voice. But I would prefer it if her and Bernie would also include pragmatic expectations with their ideas in a way that doesn’t put their more moderate colleagues on blast for no reason.
To give it a real world hypothetical we can all probably relate to. I’m a programmer, so I’ll put it in those terms, but this applies to pretty much any job one way or another.
Let’s say you’re maintaining a code base that has a lot of problems. Maintaining it is a nightmare. Ask an experienced engineer, I have identified a number of solutions of varying effort and effectiveness.
The best solutions would require giant re-writes and would require parallel effort from other teams to support our effort. Risk is large
The next best requires extensive refactoring of our teams code base, but can be done in isolation from other teams for the most part. Risk is still large because we’re going to need to swap out major parts of our internal infrastructure, but no impact to other teams.
And then there’s the shortest path. Fix problems as they come up, make small refactors as you can to help relieve some headaches. Let’s you move fast and not be disruptive, but the underlying problems stay around. Smallest risk.
Now, having brought these to the table, management chooses the least risky option because they can’t or won’t commit to larger scale efforts because of other priorities.
Do I talk shit, be extremely negative, try to get other non-management colleagues to join my outcry for the “right” solution? I could. I have. But if I do, I’m putting my employment / influence at risk. And sometimes it’s more appropriate to just keep the ideal solution on the backburner, do what’s immediately effective, and bring the best solution to the table at a better time.
To me, AOC and Bernie are those coworkers that won’t shut up about the “perfect” solution. And maybe even attack their colleagues for not supporting them in their pursuit of perfect when they’re just trying to tread water and get the easier wins to the finish line.
Damn straight! Us software developers know better because we’re expected to learn any domain. Obviously the government works a lot like software and that makes me a theoretically political scientist.
Fuckin tech bros are worse than doctors and the “as a mom” people
And what specific points do you disagree with.
Great job ignoring the point.
Wisdom is choosing when to pick a fight. AOC is intelligent, but not very wise.
She’s very popular with the progressive crowd who want to hear their problems and solutions echoed by a prominent politician. But she’s also tact-less. Stirring up shit that has zero chance of becoming reality.
And again, I think it can lead to healthy discussion of what things could be like. If we had a possible super majority and could really reform the government. If it were phrased as such, I wouldn’t have any problem.
But in practice, I find her antics to be more screaming into the wind than being productive. And it has only served to weaponize the “leftists” against the party to the point we’re losing votes and not gaining anything.
You make a lot of claims and generalize from there, but I am not sure what specifics you are talking about. In the specific case of Kamala, it seems she was right and got her way (breaking news). So really, your point (which I am not sure if it goes beyond personal attacks) is rendered moot.
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I like AOC, but do you really think she has her constituents best interest at heart if trump is leading the polls?
How does that logic make any fucking sense?
There’s a fun thing that happens when people are deep in rabbit holes. They get led to insane conclusions by a breadcrumb of bullshit, usually starting out with a semi reasonable premise.
But then sometimes when they pop out of their rabbit hole they just jump straight from A to X, without explaining the chain of bullshit that led them down to X.
It’s why Trump and other MAGAs say shit that is insane, not like as a metaphor but like stuff that has zero connection to reality, regardless of what politics you believe in. You just haven’t followed their path of increasingly absurd propositions, but they followed it because each new proposition was only slightly more out there than the last.
In this case, I suspect there was something like
(A) Trump is leading polls --> (B) Biden cannot beat trump --> (C) we need to replace Biden --> (D) replacing Biden is the best thing to do for the nation --> (E) anyone who supports Biden is acting contrary to the best interests of the nation
By this logic, the more (A) is happening, the more (E) is correct. But he skipped B through D, so it’s more clear how absurd the conclusion is because you didn’t get the frog-in-boiling-water parade of misinformation and propaganda.
Mad props for trying to explain the mental gymnastics.
My conclusion is not insane, it’s practical. I was a 100% Biden supporter, defended him vehemently. You can check my history here and in Kbin. He was my pick in 2016 (ironically though, after Kamala and Booker dropped from the race). Hell, I fucking stood up and cheered during the SOTU. My wife calls him her grandpa.
And then I watched that disastrous debate. He clearly isn’t all there anymore. And my eyes opened entirely. The signs have been there for years.
I love what he’s done for our country. I love his cabinet. I follow politics probably more than 90% of y’all here and have for decades. I was there for Bill when he won against all odds. I was decimated when Al Gore, who was probably our best shot for climate change policy, lost to Bush and Nader. And again I was spurned when Hillary lost by thin margins in swing states while trouncing the popular vote.
Hell, I’ll likely run for some office someday. How many else of you would actually belly up to the bar rather than just bluster here?
Our guy’s mind is deluded. The tip of our spear has blunted. It’s time to take grandpas keys away before he wraps our family’s only car around a lightpole.
Bullshit. If you actually loved Biden’s cabinet and his team, and if you actually believed that his cognitive ability was in decline, you’d tell us to vote for him and then have him step aside AFTER the election, so the EXTREMELY WELL-ESTABLISHED PROCESS of taking over from an incapacitated POTUS can begin.
I’ll vote for his corpse, but I’m not sure Joe voter in Pennsylvania will.
Joe voter in Pennsylvania will absolutely not vote for “insert Dem here”.
Disrupting the Democratic campaign is a right wing strategem.
Ah, yes, you were with him up UNTIL the debate. Would’ve been more believable if you said genocide instead, lol. Totally believable, not a flagrant lie at all. How does this argument even have to do with what you originally said?
I’ll be 100% honest with you here. My feelings on the Jewish / Palestine conflict are very mixed.
If you care about the Palestinians because you disapprove of war and genocide, then I think you should also understand that Hamas made their bed when they murdered and raped Jews at the start of the conflict. And believe me, I know the cassus belli for this have been there for even before my parents were born.
I also am aware that most of you will downvote my opinion on this matter. That’s your right, but the world is indeed nuanced, neither side is in the right here and the evangelicals will only continue to fan the flames until their perceived Judgement Day has come.
If you care what’s happening there, you should also care about what’s happening in Ukraine, Darfur, with the Rohingya, the Congo, Yemen, the Uyghurs and the First Nations in America, and likely more that I don’t even know about.
But the way through those is to ensure we have a strong state department. You know who would tear down the state department like he did in his first term?
Again, what does any of this have to do with your original statement. You’re all over the place.
Hamas did not rape any Jews on 7oct. In fact the UN and recent HRW report stated there is no evidence of any rape on 7oct
You are confusing Hamas with israel who mass rapes Palestinians through history.
Being the president isn’t a televised debate, it’s a 3,000+ person job of leading the executive branch. Biden has a speech impediment, and the older you get the more difficult it is to hide those shortcomings.
He has done an amazing job considering the absolute catastrophe fuckface draft dodger left for him. Given the choice between old draft dodger bitch and old guy who loves his children and has a speech impediment, it’s not a difficult choice.
Sure, I get what you’re saying 100%, but it’s not me and 99% of the people on here that you need to convince.
I get it, and these people are the same reason we got Trump in the first place. They are willing to forgo voting for Biden because he is not the perfect candidate, or their candidate.
Instead we get “their” candidate which is abortion and porn banned, increased taxes for all of us, corpo tax breaks, and much less freedom. But they will turn around and say “it’s not my fault, democrats should have ran someone else to make me happy to vote”.
People lack the ability to be adults about voting and vote against literal fascism.
Trump is beating Biden by a wide margin at this point. So pushing for Biden is likely leading to a Trump win
This usually happens after the respective party conference every four years.
Polling is also massively inaccurate as everyone younger than 45 mutes/blocks phone calls from these people.
Polls were historically accurate in 2022.
But I know the facts don’t matter, only the narrative that you bought.
I think most of these polls came out of the debate.
And unfortunately, the discrepancy between polling and election results has had a tendency to skew in republican favor. But its not like weve got any say in biden staying in or not at this point, lets see how the polls look after the democrat convention.
i don’t think pushing for Biden is leading to a Trump win, because i don’t see many people pushing for Biden. i see a lot of people (social media, talking heads, news outlets) complaining about Biden.
if Dems and progressives want to defeat Trump, well, you coulda fooled me because that’s not what their behavior accomplishes. it looks like a great many are weakening and undermining our current path to success. right now, with no compelling alternative, that means a Trump win.
as far as i can tell, we can support Biden or continue to shoot at our own feet in a panic which only makes the opposition stronger.
i don’t think pushing for Biden is leading to a Trump win, because i don’t see many people pushing for Biden.
this is…incoherent. I dont think fire is hot because I dont see many people sticking their hands into fire
let me try this another way. i don’t agree with the statement that a is currently causing b, because i don’t see a happening. b has some other cause.
How are we having this conversation if no one is supporting Biden?
It’s amazing that you seem to think she has a direct influence on how trump and biden are polling.
AOC for President.
It’d be nice to have a competent candidate for once.
Met her briefly at a Sanders campaign rally. Would vote for her in a heartbeat.
see, I have hella respect for Bernie and his heartfelt endorsements (i.e. local, state reps) carry weight. national endorsements are usually more political and harder to guage.
this genuinely creates an internal, personal dilemma.
edit: the deed is done and, I imagine, Bernie is released from any obligations owed for what he got into the biden agenda. will be interesting to watch.
Go back and watch Pelosi’s speeches from the late 70s on C-SPAN. AOC sounds exactly like her, and we’ve seen how out of touch Pelosi and all other politicians are.
That just sounds like Pelosi was straight fire in her prime. Will AOC be stale in 50 years? Maybe, or maybe she ends up a Bernie.
She gonna be a pelosi
So maybe Pelosi shouldn’t be in office for over 50 years then. I’m not throwing away a good thing now because it might spoil later. May as well empty out your fridge while you’re at it with that logic.
She turned me around. I’m riding with Biden. I’m serious. I hope the Democrats don’t fuck this up even more. If Kamala can’t taker her rightful place without the donors get in the way then fuck them all. I’m voting for a mentally compromised candidate. I hate this system.
Dammit Marvin you depressed dipshit, I hate it when you’re right.
Samesies, thank you.
I’m voting for a mentally compromised candidate.
Not if they yank him off the ticket, first. That’s been half the joke of this election.
Biden was never seriously primaried, even as people like Dean Phillips were screaming about his collapsing mental state. Now we’re days out from the Dem convention and suddenly people want to do a quicky re-vote? Its too late you assholes. You blew it.
I’m with AOC that a contested convention will almost certainly produce some kind of horrid ghoul like Joe Manchin at the top of the ticket. Curious to see how disposable the party has Kamala. But the idea that Biden is somehow worth defending is asinine. Backing Biden as he deteriorates in real time is a bad move by AOC and won’t be repaid even if Biden does win the election, because he’s always been a corporate creature with no love for a couple of Brooklyn leftists like AOC and Sanders.
A Manchin that wins is better than an ideal candidate that loses.
Man… I don’t even know anymore. Manchin has only remained a Democrat due to the deep history of unions in his state. He’s the definition of DINO.
If he no longer needed to only worry about the votes of West Virginians, he could drop the farce altogether, and switch parties as soon as he’s sworn in (or at the very least, rule as a Republican would have, and cripple the Democrats in our legislative branch).
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/opinion/biden-west-wing-aaron-sorkin.html
But there’s something the Democrats can do that would not just put a lump in people’s throats with its appeal to stop-Donald-Trump-at-all-costs unity, but with its originality and sense of sacrifice. So here’s my pitch to the writers’ room: The Democratic Party should pick a Republican.
At their convention next month, the Democrats should nominate Mitt Romney.
Nominating Mr. Romney would be putting our money where our mouth is: a clear and powerful demonstration that this election isn’t about what our elections are usually about it, but about stopping a deranged man from taking power. Surely Mr. Romney, who doesn’t have to be introduced to voters, would peel off enough Republican votes to win, probably by a lot. The double haters would be turned into single haters and the Nikki Haley voters would have somewhere to go, Ms. Haley having disqualified herself when she endorsed the leader of an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government.
Does Mr. Romney support abortion rights? No. Does he want to aggressively raise the minimum wage, bolster public education, strengthen unions, expand transgender rights and enact progressive tax reform? Probably not. But is he a cartoon thug who did nothing but watch TV while the mob he assembled beat and used Tasers on police officers? No. The choice is between Donald Trump and not-Trump, and the not-Trump candidate needs only one qualification: to win enough votes from a cross section of Americans to close off the former president’s Electoral College path back to power.
I trust AOCs judgement, although it might just be both options are equal as long as the party can commit to one. The worst possible outcome is non-commitment, as it’s the worst of both worlds.
Stick with Biden, you rally 100% with a flawed candidate and highlight all the good he’s done with a flawed Congress (a majority in name only on progressive issues). Can win if you don’t repeat 2016 mistakes, which at this point I don’t think we’ll be taking the rust belt for granted.
Abandon Biden 100%, you quickly side with an obvious choice and build a campaign. Time isn’t on your side but you aren’t dealing with a much baggage. Can win if the big tent party can agree on things and rally behind the choice even if it’s not their first choice. Kamala is boring but probably would be the pick with least resistance.
The problem is neither is happening, so you get Biden with sub-100% support and buying into the age narrative rather than pivoting to his strengths, which is very much a losing strategy. Those resigned to losing probably know this is our trajectory unless something big happens (e.g. Biden sheds the age narrative somehow or drops out leading to a clear successor.)
My hope? We get a 2016 surprise in our favor: polls say Trump wins 99% odds yet Biden pulls off an upset. Wouldn’t that be sweet irony…
My hope? We get a 2016 surprise in our favor: polls say Trump wins 99% odds yet Biden pulls off an upset. Wouldn’t that be sweet irony…
The Trumpanzees are going to screech about the election being rigged regardless what happens, I’d rather not give them any extra ammo for people to take them seriously about it. I’d like to see Trump absolutely blown the fuck out with votes, I want a 98-2% split in favor of Biden. The only votes I want going toward Trump are Guilty votes from his jury.
Yeah, I’d love a blowout but we know that’s not going to happen. Let them whine, if they want to take up arms I just want to be on the side that still gets to control the drones.
if dems, indies, and the few remaining “sane republicans”. go out and vote, you will see a landslide. binden is not inspiring a groundswell. if the groundswell comes it will be due only to public terror. I would rather get a vote_based_on_terror + passing_of_the_torch_to_our_young_victims_cuz_we_sure_fucked_up vibe from the US population at large
Fuck that. They’ve already proven that they will scream rigged regardless of the outcome.
It’ll be 98-2 in popular vote, but it’ll be 49-51 in electoral college.
Americans have a 2 week memory. There is plenty of time to replace Biden.
That situation won’t happen as Trump would sue and the Supreme Court would agree there is fraud with no evidence to back it up.
I think that’ll more likely be Congress, unless it’s as close as 2000 was. A margin like 2016 would be harder to override through courts, but if GOP gets both chambers I can see them just overriding the vote somehow, January 6 style.
Well they just succeeded. So what now?
Probably Kamala.
Not ideal but then again the Democrats have a history of making stupid-ass decisions.
Now we get to find out if she’s right or not
This is illogical. That’s impossible to know unless you have a looking glass into the alternate timeline where Biden doesn’t drop out, as well as the timelines of different people replacing him.
Or you can look at basic probability. I could totally end up being wrong, but I find it incredibly unlikely that the DNC will nominate anyone but Kamala. They (hopefully) realize they need to get their shit together and choose a candidate ASAP.
Even if Kamala is the only alternative, my point is that Kamala losing doesn’t mean Joe would have won, and her winning doesn’t mean he would have lost.
Probably lose after they put themselves in the untenable position.
Whoever replaces Biden will still immediately get the “I would vote for a literal hamster instead of Trump” crowd which is like 40% of the nation.
Oh you mean reasonable people
Confirmed, would vote for a literal hamster at this point.
That was the only vote that Biden had sewn up. Everyone else was fleeing for the exits.
Yeah, because the “Anyone But Bush” strategy worked so well.
That’s an absurd comparison. This election has nothing in common with Bush’s second election. Bush never would have survived a 10th of Trumps bullshit, he nearly got impeached for politicizing the DOJ using a litmus test. Fairly insignificant in comparison to Trump trying to blackmail Ukraine, and starting the jan 6 insurrection.
Keep deluding yourselves that simply going “Republican is bad” as your only strategy while offering nothing, you’re going to continue to lose election after election because the American electorate has never responded well to that.
But yeah, Democrats have some such a bang up fucking job of losing the House and now leading America down this absolute shit show of political genius here mid-election. Some great political strategy at work.
It worked in 2020.
Can you hear other people when they talk, or are you just waiting for your turn?
That was pre-Tea Party
I’m just stating the absolute floor.
Yeah, sticking with the guy who is losing in all the polls and can’t speak would have been a much better option.
Democrats pretty much put America in a lose-lost situation here. There’s is no good option here.
No arguments from me. I wonder how long Biden’s ego has been an impediment to Dems. Definitely for the past month but I suspect it’s been a lot longer.
Switching to someone with a 40% chance is better than sticking with a 26% chance.
What untenable position?
They have no idea, just doomer division talk
Boooo
She ain’t wrong.
I’m willing to admit that I also wanted this situation sorted out and handled before now with someone energetic and capable of getting people excited to vote. I’ve since decided that this is a problem for the Democratic party to handle, not me. Their candidate could be Minnesota’s very own dog mayor for all I fucking care.
This aged like milk
Aging like milk implies that she isn’t right about what she said.
Give it until November. If the Biden replacement wins by a landslide, then sure, it will age like milk.
Otherwise, so far, it’s aging like fucking fine wine - and I’m not liking it.
That is to be determined.
On paper, her argument is sound. There are plenty of moderates who are still not down for a female president, let alone one as outspoken as Kamala Harris.
I personally think her no-bullshit attitude is exactly what we need, but we will have to see how many people agree
Can you articulate which part you think aged like milk?
If Biden stays in and loses, AOC doesn’t want centrists to blame the left. They will anyway.
If he stays in and wins, centrists will consider it a mandate to continue moving right from a position that includes Trump’s border policy and genocide.
You’re acting like Centrists don’t want climate change legislation, or didn’t support the Inflation reduction act. Or that they don’t support a wealth tax.
Sinema and Manchin do not represent the full body of Centrists. There are hundreds of them in Congress that supported all of these initiatives.
The Problem Solvers Caucus has 32 Democratic members. And they were notably opposed to keeping Build Back Better intact. They very much do not support a wealth tax and are always shaky on climate change. Centrists are a small problematic sliver of the Democratic caucus.
Centrists? Ooohhhh, republicans who would “have a beer with Obama”.
Nah, you all vote straight R. Own your bullshit.
Y’all gotta start thinking strategy instead of getting all emotional.
Humans are surprisingly easy to manipulate. If you come across a centrist, that’s a perfect candidate to hit em with communist propaganda and get them thinking critically about how Republican bullshit is bullshit.
The blame and shame strategy doesn’t work cuz it’s just reactionary.
It’s a little more effort dragging the centrists to the left, but we can do it with a bit of kindness and understanding. Unless they prove to be unwaveringly intolerant, in which case blame and shame into oblivion.
(I say this from experience. I have been pushed from right leaning as a teen, to pretty far left from first seeing how shitty Republicans are, and then from kind internet strangers explaining different leftist ideologies to me)
In the USA at least, they are not centrists.
A centrist here is someone who votes Republican but won’t admit to it. They are worse than republicans because they are cowards and won’t own up to voting for the racist fascists.
I wonder how people like you become so far gone. It’s like you must be extreme left or it doesn’t count. I would love to walk a mile in your shoes and see how you got here.
In my 20 years of voting, I’ve voted for a republican precisely twice, one that was the only judge on the ballot and he was recommended by our state union. The other was a local moderate mayor in a sea of further right whackjobs, there was no dem on the ticket.
Keep an open mind, brother, you’ll learn a lot more in life.
See this is your problem, you think anyone who isn’t progressive is a republican. Nice job adding to their tent and limiting yours.
anyone who isn’t progressive is a republican
Nope. Just less than adequate.
If they vote dem, they’re adequate.
I’m not super happy with “adequate”, but that’s why we call it “adequate”.
Lemme clarify: There are a whole host of issues we need to keep in mind as we do our little part in the hopes of directing our own country:
- healthcare and education as to one’s requirements
- reproductive rights are healthcare rights, as a body-autonomy issue that doesn’t affect others
- safe food, safe water, safe living, safe working, safe expression, safe discussion
- fixing and improving all infrastructure – power, water, waste, data, commute/travel
- ensuring everyone pays their fair share of taxes, including getting homeless+jobless back on both
- long-term care for those who can’t self-care or work for non-resolving reasons
We have a list of basic minimums, and for me they look like that quick list above, but surely with a few more I’m not thinking of right now.
I will judge the character of governments, governors and people according to the completeness of their support for that list. So there’s a long spectrum of increasing inadequacy between progressive people and republicans, and people who are fail the test are just somewhere on that spectrum.
And that’s okay: everyone gets their opinion. Some people aren’t fit to lead, though, nor to manage our consolidated and shared resources (taxes), and those people need to be retrained for a role where they CAN work effectively.
You vote straight R, you are a Republican. What you pander and pretend online doesn’t matter.
Sinema and Manchin do not represent the full body of Centrists. There are hundreds of them in Congress that supported all of these initiatives.
If Sinema and Manchin hadn’t stepped up to represent the full body of all centrists to perfection, some other centrists would step up to do so.
I think you’re buying into the Right Wing kool-aid just a little too much.
Obama was able to pass the ACA even with the Centrists. Biden was able to pass the largest green bill in history after concessions were made for Manchin, who particularly didn’t like the stick part of the act, which would have impacted him personally.
Fucking finally a progressive with some sense (I say this as a progressive myself).
We need to be real here, this isn’t a fucking joke.
‘Could lead to chaos’. Ma’am, that ship has sailed. When even high ranking party members openly doubt the president’s ability to get elected, much less actually lead, you’ve clearly lost control of the situation.
Will replacing Biden at this stage be easy? Of course not. But he shouldn’t have been in the Oval Office in the first place. Running a candidate this frail once was a gamble… doing it twice is suicidal.
Democrat leadership only has itself to blame for this predicament.
When I voted in the primary, there was one name on the ballot: Joe Biden. Anybody who thinks that was a free and fair election is on crack.
There were states with multiple people on the ticket and Biden won them hands down.
Why did some states have multiple people and some only one?
Because there were no serious candidates who filed because the message from party leadership was clear: the incumbent is running, it’s his.
Every state has their own way of doing primaries, is the short answer. Probably people were eligible to run in some states but not in others for varies reasons.
Hopefully someone else chimes in with a better answer than I could give.
It’s annoying that she put this on Instagram where there’s no scrobble function, and she then spends so much time leading up to it.
For those not willing to sit around listening to off-the-cuff meandering, AOC’s points:
- Ohio requires political parties to submit their candidates’ names before the Democratic convention. If the convention is contested, Democrats likely won’t be able to vote there effectively.
- AOC says that swing states might have enough legal ambiguity in the electoral code that Republicans can challenge any voting results, and then let it escalate to the Supreme Court who can throw out the Democratic result.
- Democrats are divided on who would be the replacement candidate, with many of the people calling for Biden to step down opposing Harris as well.
- The Biden/Harris campaign has $100M of campaign funding that will not be able to be transferred to another ticket. (Maybe it can be transferred to Harris? She mumbles a bit there).
- Anecdotally, when AOC sat “in rooms with those people” that call for Biden to step down, they didn’t seem to have a proposed game plan for any sort of replacement. This includes lawyers who ought to know whether this creates legal trouble and people in the legislature.
- There is a risk that if the Democratic convention is contested, it won’t be concluded before the deadline to submit the ticket in more states, which is two days after the scheduled end.
- There are no candidates that poll way better than Biden.
- Many mail-in votes can already be made in September or October. A new candidate would have to have a succesful campaign by that time.
- Biden is systematically underestimated (by Democrats and fianciers?) in his ability to rally ‘demographics typically not cared for’.
- Biden does great with elderly people, which may not transfer to other Democrats.
- Democrats opposing Biden seem to be mostly concerned about big donors, not popular support.
- Democratic party members speaking anonymously to the press is both strategically stupid and undemocratic. They should have either spoken out publicly or kept it behind closed doors. The fact that they did may be why Biden is polling so bad.
- Biden gets energized from having people around him, which was not the case for the debate with Trump.
My personal opinions:
- With regards to Ohio, betting websites put the Republicans at 95% chance of winning the state, and Biden appears to have been trailing by 10 percentage points even before the debate. Losing Ohio only matters if you would have won Ohio with Biden, and that’s questionable.
- With regards to the Supreme court handing the election to Trump based on a bullshit legal ruling, it seems like AOC is making the dangerous and questionable assumption that the Supreme Court cares about the law, and that the outcome of these legal challenges will depend on technicalities rather than on whether they think they can practically succeed at the coup.
- With regards to the $100M war chest, this seems to be cancelled out by her argument that Democrats opposing Trump are mostly concerned about donors. In 2020, Biden’s election got $1 billion in funding while on May 9th, Biden had raked in $170M according to this website. So with upwards of $700M of donations left to collect, a 14% decrease in donations would mean Biden has less money to work with than other candidates.
- With regards to other candidates not doing much better, it seems impressive that they are polling better than Biden even with Biden running a massive election campaign and having spent a hundred million dollars in ads already. I would expect the gap to widen if those other candidates actually start trying to win the election as much as Biden is.
- With regards to the votes in September and October, with regards to the elderly and demographics typically not cared for and popular support, these all seem to be cancelled out by the polls.
- With regards to the Democrat backchannels, the damage is done. It’s fair that she’s mad about it, but it doesn’t affect future decisions.
- With regards to Biden’s energy, either this doesn’t explain the Zelensky-Putin gaffe, or it’s kind of irrelevant. Biden won’t be sitting in the oval office with an audience to work off of.
So from everything AOC says, all that seems reasonable to me is (1) the observation that there is no good Democratic alternative plan, (2) the worry that the convention might run long so the alternative candidate can’t appear on the ticket, (3) the possibility that a succesful Republican coup is significantly more likely with a candidate that might provide loopholes for the Supreme Court to work off of than with Biden, and (4) the possibility of losing Ohio if Biden would otherwise have won it.
However, even here, the parts of the alternative plan she is most worried about seems to be the legal trouble, which she seems most worried about only if the Democrats aren’t on time with selecting a candidate. It seems to me that if only the Democrats are able to rally behind a new candidate before the Ohio deadline two days before the convention, none of her concerns apply more to the new candidate than to Biden. If it happens after the Ohio deadline, it only matters if there is a technicality that disqualifies the new candidate and Biden would otherwise have won Ohio and that technicality determines whether a coup succesfully occurs.
If you view it as a full screen reel and not a regular post in a feed then you should be able to select a time. Instagram is stupid.
Ohhh I gotta see if that’s why I feel like “randomly” I can’t scroll on videos there
Thanks for the synopsis.
In regards to a few of your points:
- There is a reason “generic democrat” polls better in general. It’s because they’re an unknown quantity. People assume they’ll be better. Most people are not tuned in and do not know who Whitmer, Newsom, etc. are. Give it like two weeks of negative ads on them calling them socialists, etc. and boom, the polls drop. I would fully expect the polls to shift for a new candidate but LOWER, not higher. It’s much easier to inspire fear in unknown candidates rather than known ones.
- Biden is a known quantity. He cannot be decried as a “socialist” or any other thing. People know him for better or worse and that’s that.
- Elderly? The most reliable voting block in the country? Ignore them at your own peril for an unknown.
AOC makes solid points and so I take a few things differently from you and say she is precisely right in her analysis. I think if the Dems switch then we get a Humphrey/Mondale mashup where the Democrats are absolutely trounced in the general.
The time for this crap was 2 years ago, not the past month. Democrats need to find a stiff upper lip and back Biden with all their might.
Too late. He dropped out.
Time to see who was right. Im damn positive it will be those who are cheering today who will be crying in November.
It’s going to be a hot mess, that’s for sure.
Is it not called “scrubbing”? Scrobble is music
If Biden can’t make the case for his cognitive ability to fulfill the requirements of the office internally to his own party, how does he expect to stand up and fight the shit storm that the GOP will escalate in the coming months?
If Biden can’t make the case
Media has already decided the case. It’s a rigged court. Any other Dem candidate will get the same treatment.
I mean, did they really have to try that hard? The man said he was proud to be the first black woman vice president.
And Trump has said…damn where do I even begin?
But all the media focuses on is Biden’s gaffes.
So yes, they try REALLY hard.
When he followed up the debate by calling Zelensky Putin and confusing his own VP with Trump, there’s really nothing else to be said. You can’t make those mistakes. Not in that office. There’s simply no denying those clips.
I’m sure one who isn’t a senior citizen wouldn’t struggle to justify their cognitive ability for the role.
No, they’d likely find some other avenue of bullshit to peddle.
Are people here finally understanding the consequences of removing Biden? Will I continue to be berated for asking for evidence of the claims around him?
If Biden is on the ballot, I will vote for him. I also want him off.
But, frankly, we need to scare the pants off the Democratic party if there is going to be any chance they change their behavior.
Where are the five great younger candidates they have have been fostering to be ready for something like this? Nowhere, because they keep putting all their effort into one entrenched candidate and then force them through no matter what. Look how disastrous it was when they kept pushing Hillary when Bernie was doing so well, she lost. Now so many people are saying “no” to Biden, what should we expect will happen?
If history is our judge, we’re going to lose, whether we can afford to or not. Because even if we supported Biden right now with solidarity, a lot of people are going to not vote for him, whether we like it or not.
Would it be better if the Democratic party didn’t see how unhappy people were and we all pretended it would be ok and told them we would just vote for any candidate they give us no matter how bad?
What could possibly go wrong when the higher ups in the party completely sabotage the candidate and use the results of that as justification for telling him to get out?
People have understood. Biden is a sure loss, he literally cannot win. So the next best option is Harris. The question mark is, as AOC points out, will these wealthy donors realize that or will they sabotage the party.
Biden still needs to go. No question. Biden attempting to campaign will put Trump into office.
“Biden is a sure loss, he literally cannot win”
Since you have your crystal ball handy, can you let us know next week’s winning lottery numbers?
did you ever get them lottery numbers?
Biden is a sure loss
Bullshit. This was bullshit yesterday, it was bullshit a month ago, it was bullshit at the beginning of the year, and it was bullshit in 2020.
I wanted Bernie to win. I wanted Biden to decline seeking reelection. I wanted Biden to take a harder stance on Gaza, I want the democrats to be better at messaging. However, there is scant evidence that Biden is likely to lose, and this claim that it’s a “sure” thing is absolutely fucking wrong because it’s far from certain. Fuck you, fuck every single one of you liars pushing this absolutely shit unsupported narrative.
Every single poll that shows Biden losing shows young people voting for Trump, and that’s a clear indicator of unreliability. Every other method of prediction put Biden in the fucking lead, but conviently no one’s talking about that. I fucking wonder why?
You might not like to admit it, but voters do not like Biden. The reason Biden finally stepped down now is because devastating polling just came out of Michigan, ontop of all the other polling you want to deny is there.
Trump is not gaining votes, Biden has been losing them. Trump already has basically all the votes he’s going to get.
voters do not like Biden
I ain’t arguing if people like him or not! If so, good; I hope everyone hates his guts but that’s not the question being asked, is it? The question is “How likely is Biden to win?” and I’m saying your answer of “0%” is unsubstantiated.
devastating polling just came out of Michigan
See, that’s a decent argument (assuming it’s true) of Biden having a disadvantage. It still doesn’t justify your stated position, but at least it’s relevant.
Trump is not gaining votes, Biden has been losing them. Trump already has basically all the votes he’s going to get.
This makes sense, fits roughly with what I’ve seen, and is consistent with my view of things if I modify it to put more weight in the polling data.
All those polls of him losing are within the margin of error, not to mention that polls are, while not completely unreliable, not completely trustworthy, either. Remember when all the polls showed Trump losing?
Show your work or delete this bullshit.
We all saw the debate
I didn’t, and frankly none of what I’ve heard was particularly surprising or concerning, and my decision of who to vote for would never be effected. Biden was a low-energy flubster, Trump told obvious lies, the sky was blue, the ocean is salty, and bears shit in the goddamn woods. Everybody stop the presses! Bear shits in woods! Forest Rangers contemplate the potential necessity of eurhanizing bear due to woods-shitting incident.
The last few weeks have been a fucking clown show.
I didn’t and didn’t need to. I’m voting for his administration. Not him. I’m voting AGAINST Trump. Not FOR him.
That’s great and that’s what every committed Dem voter is doing. Given that the race is more about stopping Trump than anything else, wouldn’t the best way to approach that be to back the candidate who is most likely to beat him?
If you watch the debate, it’s abundantly clear that Biden is not that candidate. Things like optics and vibes shouldn’t matter in an election, especially when the other side’s policy positions are as abhorrent as Project 2025. Unfortunately, when it comes to courting votes in battleground states, they do matter.
Yes, Harris is articulate and assertive. She is clearly a better choice. The public wants someone sharp and focused. While I believe Biden is a capable president, public image affects votes whether we like it or not. Currently, his image has many Democrats feeling discouraged, though they would likely still vote for him. However, I think Harris can change that once she starts campaigning.
And I’ll back whoever they put up against Trump. I don’t care about Biden. I care about not having Trump.
It isn’t about who you vote for. It’s about who everybody else is voting for.
The Democrats were never worried about the “vote blue, no matter who” crowd. They’re worried about independents, and the polls were saying that Biden would lose. If there were enough voters who would vote for anybody with a D next to their name, this wouldn’t even be a question.
The MAGA trolls here pretending to be leftists won’t ever see the reason in this.
