I don’t mind that AOC isn’t all “viva la revolution!” all the time, but this pusillanimous inability criticize her own party’s leadership when it’s warranted is contemptible. You’ve got the most prominent profile of any Congress critter that isn’t in leadership, your electoral base isn’t dependent on their kind graces, they’re not going to give you shit anyway, stop playing nice with them. Oh no, Nancy Pelosi said something mean to you? Then tell her to fuck off!
I recently read the new book Ryan Grim just put out related to “the squad.” (this is not a plug. It is relevant. Full disclosure I pirated the audiobook and ebook. I don’t care if you buy it. I’ll show you the torrent link I used myself)
He’s a reporter for the Intercept and I’d describe him as a socdem. For those unaware he’s one of the few US journalists who ever pushes back on the ghouls at the press briefings which is what interested me to see his inside-view towards AOC, etc.
So blah blah blah obligatory statements aside, I left that book with, I suppose, better understanding of who AOC is and isn’t. I don’t think she ever intended to be nor wants to be any sort of actual “revolutionary.” She was just a fairly normal person who held generally left-leaning ideals on a bunch of issues, especially compared to most Americans, and was able to beat out a powerful piece of shit right wing democrat in her district.
I don’t know if Grim meant to portray her as naive, or a liar, or too willing to go along to get along. I THINK he’s very sympathetic to her. But the stuff he writes about her in a matter of fact way often made me go “holy shit he wrote this? She won’t be texting him anymore insider shit.” (He references personal texts between himself and various progressive US reps throughout the book)
I left the book disappointed in her but I guess I kinda get it. She never intended to be like Ilhan Omar who legitimately does seem to not give a single fuck. Ironically Pelosi is better friends with Omar, which seems to be for the purpose of driving a wedge between her and the rest of the progressive women in congress. I have no idea why Omar maintains such a relationship unless Ryan’s characterization is inaccurate (always possible). Like, fuck Pelosi. Fuck Jeffries too. He’s an even bigger PoS.
The only reason he ever seems to cite, and again he draws heavily from quotes most of the book, is they don’t want to be mean to the people they work with. Their peers in congress.
I’m not joking. A lot of underlying reasoning seems to be personal like/dislike of individuals and wanting to curry favor with them. A cynical view would lead me to believe that’s only to make sure she doesn’t allow them to be primaried (although this is Jeffries’ job now: and he IS allowing it anyway!).
It does seem that whether she knew it or not (and I’m ok giving her benefit of the doubt) Pelosi and the DNC as a whole has successfully reigned in any sort of leftist electoralism by picking the weakest, least principled progressive and getting her to bend of leadership over and over to dishearten, cause disengagement, whatever else and send the ultimate signal that “it doesn’t matter if you send 100 or 400 members like this to congress. We will break all of them. We are all unprincipled and you cannot win.”
Obviously Pelosi, et al. wouldn’t word it like that. They’d view as like “see! AOC is a team player and she’s benefiting from it and her district too!” Or some sort of BS.
In any case, Grim, I think unknowingly to a large degree, laid out a case for anti-electoralism. He was overly positive (he’s a socdem after all) about the legislation and ideas AOC managed to push. None of it is meaningful ultimately, imo. Is it something? Sure. But if it’s not enough then it doesn’t matter with climate change or genocide in Gaza.
Also the book taught me Josh Gottheimer legitimately needs to be in a supermax prison. He’s a fascist freak. I didn’t know much about this Nazi fuckstick until recent Palestine events, but holy fuck is he disgusting. And these are the people (same party!) that AOC ultimately is ok being friends with or trying to be nice to by voting to explode more children.
I feel like I wrote one of those 7th grader “prove you did the reading” book reports. Fuck.
I really think she’ll just do anything to keep the comfortable lifestyle and sense of self-importance. I’ve known several former MPs, none of whom I thought were particularly great in the first place, and with the exception of one they were all desperate to get elected again even though they had achieved very little and talked nonstop about how much they hated to politics of it. And the reason was simple; it was a highly paid job with a shitload of benefits, loads of trips and freebies, and a constant sense of importance (however thin it might have been).
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