We arent gonna vote our way out of this one.
Apes together strong
I 100% agree. Supporting particular leaders doesn’t necessarily mean all you’re allowed to do is vote for them though.
Like, she’s the only viable option at this point, there literally isn’t any other national level politician on the Democratic ticket (under the age of 75) who can rally mass support, as supposed to mass indifference or mass gritted teeth reluctance.
The not-trump side of politics needs an actual win, like, enough of a public mandate to actually push through reforms, not just a barely limping across the line, thin majority. They need a filibuster busting win and a candidate willing to actually make significant reform, and that won’t come from a milquetoast careerist centrist that leans to the right.
We can’t afford an American Starmer.
I’m pretty sure Andy Beshear can do it.
I’m not writing anyone off, but historically speaking women have not done well as candidates 😞
I think that, historically speaking, there was a hell of a lot more than gender identity at play
There are a lot of excuses that come up when its a woman.
But less when they’re young, attractive, and not a cop.
Shallowness can work in more than one way
That is my worry. Dems have tried it twice and lost both times.
Although in fairness they were both centrists who pivoted more center, which imo is a recipe for disaster especially for women candidates who are just never going to capture significant rightwing votes. Kamala in particular started out really really strongly and lost more and more support as she gave up leftwing talking points
I think this is the critical point. Women candidates will continue to struggle with voters that are center to center-right, so a woman presidential candidate really needs to have broad appeal on the left to succeed. They can’t afford to lose many, if any, likely leftist or liberal voters. Both Harris and Clinton were deeply unpopular with the American Left. Many were willing to swallow their pride to vote for Harris, but then she refused to call a genocide a genocide, and many dropped their support in response. A female candidate cannot afford to alienate leftists on such a critical issue.
I don’t think you can hold those two specific candidates against women in general. Hilary Clinton was godawful on a legendary scale (although of course still better than Trump), and Kamala Harris was in no way shape or form prepared for the globe-spanning contest that was suddenly thrust upon her to win with a few seconds still on the clock. AOC is actually popular, which is a rare thing in a Democratic candidate and not to be taken lightly I think.
If we’re going to resort to the statistics of small numbers and ignore all the other shared traits that lead to the failure of two neoliberal campaigns by uncharismatic candidates trying to be the Democrat for Republicans, then the only correct demographic to choose is a black man with a Muslim sounding name. It’s a guaranteed success.
Does that strike you as maybe not the best reasoning?
Especially not ones that seem to be drifting towards supporting Israel.
ehh…the actual concrete actions AOC has taken that they disagree with are quite weaksauce:
We recognize that AOC has taken many courageous positions on Palestine such as co-sponsoring several House Resolutions (3103, 786, 496), naming Israel’s genocide as well as opposing House Resolution 894. However, members have raised their concerns regarding a number of her votes, including a vote in favor of H.Res.888, conflating opposition to Israel’s “right to exist” with antisemitism.
HR 888 primarily condemned the October 7th attack by Hamas, but also included language about “denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism”. it passed with only one dissenting vote (Thomas Massie, R-KY) and one present vote (Rashida Tlaib, D-MI)
Ilhan Omar voted yes, as did Pramila Jayapal (my representative, and chair of the Progressive Caucus, who’s generally very good about opposing the Gaza genocide) and every other Congressional Democrat besides Tlaib. so I don’t think a yes vote on this alone is sufficient for me to discard a politician as having been captured by Zionism or the military-industrial complex or whatever.
AOC also co-signed a press release on April 20, 2024, that “support[s] strengthening the Iron Dome and other defense systems”
they don’t cite their sources so this one took a bit of digging, but they seem to be referring to this. 20 Democrats, including AOC, voted against the “Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act” and put out a press release with their reasoning.
so they took what IMO is the correct position - voting to deny additional offensive weapons to the Israeli military. and the DSA is cherry-picking one phrase out of the 5-paragraph statement to paint her in a bad light. if you read it in context, they’re talking about opposing offensive weapons but being OK with defensive ones.
Finally, AOC recently hosted a public panel with leaders from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, lobbyists for the IHRA definition of antisemitism. On this panel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism were conflated and boycotting Zionist institutions was condemned.
…
Correction: “She conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism” was edited to read “On this panel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism were conflated” after the statement was posted.
the other two are debatable. this one isn’t. this is just fucking sloppy bullshit.
again, doing the DSA’s work of citing their sources for them - her announcement and the video itself
it’s a 36 minute long Zoom call. AOC hosts it, with two other people.
their original statement claimed she conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. they clearly didn’t put much effort into checking that, because after they published the statement they had to backtrack and make the correction that it was someone else on the panel.
they call it a “public panel” but it was just a YouTube stream. in more than a year it’s only gotten 10k views. and someone else on the stream said something that DSA members disagreed with? that’s just absurd levels of guilt by association.
Thank you, I appreciate the time you put into researching and debunking this! Consider my mind changed
you’re welcome! I had seen some rumblings elsewhere about AOC & Israel, but hadn’t taken the time to look into them, so I used this as an opportunity to see for myself if there was any truth to them.
I’ve been a DSA member for a long time, but god they can be their own worst enemies. This is the exact kind of nitpicking and misrepresentation of non-perfect candidates that I’ve seen the anti-reformist lot push.
