I like AOC a lot. She started as any other member of The Squad but has actually learned how politics work and is doing a, mostly, spectacular job of balancing ideology, the will of her constituents, and generation of political capital. In so many ways, she is what Sanders would have been if he got his head out of his ass twenty some odd years ago.
If she runs for POTUS in 2028, she is a god damned idiot. I am still skeptical if this country will EVER elect a woman for POTUS. But she is also still quite young but has almost an entire Hilary Clinton worth of chud-hate and attacks. Whereas Senate makes perfect sense for her.
That said? I could see a world where AOC could… once again be the anti-Bernie. Run for POTUS in the primary. Energize basically the entire youth of the nation. Then lose and immediately endorse the winner while leveraging her influence to get important action items on the ticket. But… I want AOC as a leader and not just as the bait and switch.
I am still skeptical if this country will EVER elect a woman for POTUS.
I’m not sure that’s a reasonable takeaway from the last two times a woman was a major party nominee.
Hillary Clinton was not especially charismatic, which is arguably what wins general elections in most cases. She was also unpopular with progressive Democrats, and widely seen as having secured the nomination unfairly when Sanders might have been both more popular with the party and a stronger general election candidate.
Kamala Harris was severely handicapped by the combination of being nominated without a primary process, starting her campaign very late, and positioning herself as a continuation of Biden at a time when Biden’s popularity was very low.
If AOC were to win the nomination, she would be in a much stronger position for the general election than either Clinton or Harris.
Agreed. When people say they lost cuz America is too racist or sexist I think they miss out what bad candidates we had each time. Either bad in who they are, how they ran the campaign, or factors outside them that killed the campaign, or all 3
Yeah, thank you. The problem with Hillary and Kamala is nobody liked them. Now sure you can argue " maybe people didn’t like them because they’re women and they have a bias against women". I never heard anybody online saying " wow! I would sure love to have Kamala as president but I just don’t think other people will vote for her". I see lots of people saying that about AOC. At some point you have to look around and be like oh wait…lots of people are saying they’d vote for her.
AOC has a message that people want is a key thing. Harris kept it too safe to really sway anyone that wasn’t already sold, unfortunately. That’s not to say Harris didn’t have a published policy list, but it wasn’t what people were seeing or hearing. If Harris came out as a progressive, which I believe she was, then I think she would have swayed middle America.
The problem I think is that harris said she was going to continue Bidens economic policy when a lot of people really are feeling like the economic policy from both sides is benefiting only the wealthy. If any policy helps the little guy then it is such a minor help that it goes unrecognized.
Inequality skyrocketing, wages stagnating, and then you say you want to continue the policy? Not great campaign. Trump lost in 2020 and won in 2016 and 2024 because he was anti status quo. Most people don’t really care about “all the other” stuff and are too stupid to realize anything outside of “do I want change RIGHT NOW?” and then vote yes or no based on that
We also have to ask ourselves why no one liked them. Some of it can be attributed to sexism and or racism, yes. But I think we can attribute a lot of the unpopularity of those candidates to their lack of charisma, weak seeming positions and advocacy on progressive points of interest (such as Gaza, the Palestinians, border climate change, etc), and what seemed like stupid meddling and sabotage by the consultant class.
Biden himself ran for president and won on the third shot. But, since two woman ran for president and lost, thats a sign that no woman can get elected.
Its not that women can’t win. Its that centrist dems than run on the status quo when the Democratic party is polling abysmally can’t win.
Honestly, I think unfortunately gender/sex does play a factor, in addition to race. If this administration has taught us anything, is that there is that much hate within our country.
Also think of cultures where historically their culture doesnt value women. Even if there are people who immigrated here, some still may never vote for a woman. Some will decline because they are racist. While we are all Americans, we are deeply deeply divided ATM :(
This is without even factoring the candidates political platform in yet.
I like when people claim racism was a major factor in Harris’s loss, given that Obama was elected in 2008 with a larger piece of the popular vote than any President since.
It was one of many factors. Obama winning didn’t prove that racism didn’t exist. He won despite the racism. Harris had racism, sexism, a lack of a primary process, the lack of experience as an executive, and so on against her.
In a lot of ways, Obama winning kind of broke the country.
He was a Democrat that people genuinely loved because of how charismatic he was (which was REAL nice after Dubyah…). Or, as a certain Former President put it, he was a Clean And Articulate Gentleman.
The problem being, his very existence set off all the chuds. It completely destroyed their minds that a black man could possibly be President. And it is a big chunk of what set for the “never again” mindset we are seeing.
Obama winning didn’t prove that racism didn’t exist.
But it did prove that racism does not have enough of an impact to move the needle in any substantial way—it failed so hard to move the needle that, again, literally no candidate since has even matched, let alone topped, his popular vote %.
Given the close margins I would say it surely played at least a part for Harris losing. Obama won by large enough margins that even if all the racists stayed home that he still won in a landslide.
If even 2% of the population would never vote for a women or a person of color then it was enough to have mattered when others are sitting home for other reasons. It’s certainly not the main cause of Harris losing as you pointed out, but when the margins were that close every vote did matter.
I believe that you are mostly correct, although the actual motivations for these folks are complicated. Some may value a few extra bucks in government support, having social security, and having Medicare programs. So there are some economic reasons they may vote for Democrats on occasion, but their bigotry could get in the way of their best interest.
So, some of those people probably just stay home for election night. While a good chunk may be getting convinced to vote for Republicans if they feel their bigotry is being rewarded.
Given that, while Trump got ~3 million more votes in 2024 vs. 2020, and Harris got nearly 7 million fewer votes in 2024 than Biden did in 2020, and that the US’s population increased about 8 million in that span of time, are you suggesting that there’s that much misogyny and racism among the Democrats?
The total population is not the total voting population. There was also a pandemic between 2020 and 2024 so I would expect the total amount of eligible voters would be different as a result of the pandemic.
I think that’s an uncharitable takeaway from what I’m talking about to say that the misogyny and racism were the core reasons that Harris got less votes. There were notable other factors that made it a close election, which I mentioned was the case. My point was more that because the margins were that close that those smaller details did matter more.
Yeah, I think there is a substantial portion of Americans who won’t ever vote for a woman, but I think it was still just a small part of the larger issues in both their campaigns
His antics don’t work on you, or on me, or likely on most people you or I would be friends with. They clearly work on a huge swath of the population though, or we wouldn’t be where we are today.
2016 Trump ran on the idea of being the good businessman who was going to clean up the swamp and get this company’s country’s act together. Just like any other CEO selling to investors. I have friends who, halfway into his campaign, were like, “I kinda like this Trump guy, he tells it like it is,” and by the time of the election they had completely 180’d on him because of the details of what he was promising.
One of these friends is super into cults and true crime, and he says that listening to Trump is eerie because he sounds exactly like Jim Jones. Then, and now. Back then he sounded like Jim Jones in his prime (and read Hitler’s speeches as bedtime stories according to an ex-wife, which would explain why all his campaign promises match up with Hitler’s). Today, he sounds like Jim Jones making his death speeches while you can hear them forcing the cultists to drink the Flavor-Aid and gasping, choking, and dying in the background of the recordings.
The people who liked Trump the first time and didn’t change their minds then were never going to change their minds the second time. They’ve already bought into the cult. And that’s what Trump is - a cult leader. He promises them a solution to their misery by giving them an obvious target to take their aggression out on, and people eat it up because they want a simple solution that absolves them of any blame.
How could anyone buy that, given his well known complete failure as a businessman? Only a stupid person would.
Anyway, it’s besides the point of our main discussion. I don’t know who Jim Jones is, and you’re right about Trump’s populism and MAGA being a cult, that still doesn’t make him charismatic though.
Jim Jones, of the Jonestown Massacre. The cult leader who we got the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” from (though they actually were too poor to get Kool-Aid and they laced Flavor-Aid, the off brand version, with cyanide instead). When he started out, he was actually a very influential Civil Rights activist who is responsible for the policies that would later become the foundation of the civil rights laws in his home city. But he later became a crazy cult leader and by the time of the cult’s mass suicide, he ranted like Trump does today.
As for how anybody could believe that Trump’s a good businessman, many people only know him as that guy from The Apprentice, not the businessman who has bankrupted multiple casinos, an airline company (and beauty pageant for young girls who he flew around the country with in his private plane - just him, the girls, and a man by the name of Epstein), and who couldn’t even sell steaks to Americans.
trump back in 2016 was genuinely charismatic… to his base. He was able to quickly spin nonsense schoolyard bully insults against anyone who went up against him (“Little marco rubio” and so forth). Combine that with Hilary having almost two decades of smear campaign tactics against her at that point and not committing one way or another towards decorum or “you fuckers are weird” and… yeah.
trump in 2024 won because the left blames Biden for the economy and the chuds wanted their hitler back.
Still a big risk to take. We need progressives to win at least the next two elections to have any shot at winding back the damage from two Trump administrations and a largely impotent Biden administration.
But I agree that if she wins the primary, that’s the part that really matters and what Harris was missing.
Both Hillary and Kamala were unenthusiastic campaigners, depending on democrats to anoint to victory. AOC isn’t very popular outside of the northeast, and she doesn’t appear fiery enough to excite those who don’t know her.
Worth noting as I almost missed it myself from not RTFA, but: AOC is “gearing up for a big campaign for a bigger office in 2028 – they’re just not sure which.”
I align with your view that I really thought AOC would be better to primary against Schumer. Not only is it arguably more attainable, it addresses our problem with stagnant Congressional AIPAC-representing leadership.
That said, I part ways in the belief that a female president is not capable of being elected for a couple of reasons which I’ll try to lay out point-by-point:
There is no actual evidence that a gender-bias led to Kamala’s loss that I have seen.
The Venn Diagram join of sexist misogynistic bigots and Never-Dem deep-red maga is a circle; in other words, we were never going to get these people no matter if we put Trump fused with Reagan in and mirrored their platform word-for-word.
In 1937, the first time the public was asked by Gallup about its willingness to vote for a female president, the question included the caveat “if she were qualified in every other respect.” Gallup removed that phrase, with its implications, and tried a new version in 1945, asking, “If the party whose candidate you most often support nominated a woman for President of the United States, would you vote for her if she seemed best qualified for the job?” The results remained the same, with about one-third saying yes.
In 1948, the country was split on a new version of this question, which identified the woman candidate as qualified, but not “best” qualified. The final wording became settled in 1958 and has been asked repeatedly since. Large gains were made over the 1970’s and the proportion answering yes has continued to rise, reaching 95% in the most recent poll.
Americans may say they are willing to vote for a woman, but when asked to assess the willingness of others, people have not been as optimistic about women’s chances of winning the presidency. In 1984, when NBC asked likely voters if they were ready to elect a woman president, only 17% said yes. Substantial shares of the population have remained skeptical, though the most recent poll found the lowest proportion who believe the country is not yet ready.
I think part of the problem for the Hillary and Harris campaigns were that they were running for the status quo at a time when that wasn’t working. Both Obama and Biden ran on change and, while it wasn’t the amount of change people wanted, it was at least a recognition that things need to shift.
This is the same take I have. Both Hillary and Kamala are slimy neolibs, exactly the kind of people that nobody trusts. Gavin Newsom is the same and would be a catastrophic nomination. AOC would have a real shot, especially if she sticks to her grass-roots techniques and reaches people face-to-face. No debates, no mass media, just homegrown down-to-earth human energy.
But what am I talking about, there won’t be any more elections. The fascists have taken over and dismantled everything from the federal to local levels. The cancer, having been fed instead of removed, is now terminal.
I think there were many contributing factors to Kamala’s loss, but I I think this is pretty low if non-existent among them, and it risks gatekeeping qualified, charismatic candidates like AOC out of fear of past milquetoast candidates that were unpopular from the outset and deeply lacking in charisma.
I’m wondering if Gallup has tried asking if people would vote for a woman if she made it clear she intended to help the citizens of the country and not the oligarchs who own everything.
Funny that you say she’d be an idiot for running in 2028, then present a great case for why she might run in 2028…
You’re right, though, that Senate would be the right move. But that has its own disadvantages. If Schumer doesn’t retire, it would be very tough to beat him.
Being a losing presidential candidate could raise your profile. I’m not sure the same applies to a senate candidate.
Also, I would say the hate for AOC is much different than the hate for Hillary. There were plenty of liberals that hated Hillary (🙋♂️). I don’t think this applies as much to AOC. The hate is coming exclusively from the right.
She could easily beat schumer. I never met another nyer who likes that guy. Largely he wins now because nobody (or nobodies) primary him, and the alternative is a republican which just is not an option right now.
Schumer has seniority in the Senate, which is why many have not tried to primary him.
Seniority is a big deal in the Senate in terms of committee assignments. Just because AOC could replace Schumer’s seat, it does not mean that she will gain the current amount of power that he has for a long time. Now it may well be worth replacing his seat just so the current spokesperson for Dems in the Senate changes, but it’s not going to be AOC for a while.
An alternative is for her to grow to become the Speaker of the House, which she could do by continuing to stay in her current role over the next several decades.
Otherwise, she may look at a run for Governor, although then that is much less federally focused.
She could run for President or take on the role for VP. If she were to be VP, I think it would almost guarantee she would be able to win the Presidency at some point. Although, if she joined an administration that caused a lot of baggage, like Harris received from being VP to Biden, then it would make that route more difficult.
The far right isn’t voting for any democrat though.
I honestly think if she ran for president it would be about raising her public profile. There’s many republicans and democrats whose names I know only because they ran for president.
AOC would make an amazing VP pick. Could bring a lot of energy to a campaign and get youth/working class support. Then transition that into a presidential campaign later on.
People have a very weird idea of what the veep actually is. In theory, it is the person waiting in the wings, learning from the POTUS, picking up the slack, and preparing to take command if needed. In practice? It is someone The Party saddled the POTUS with and is an active threat to their legitimacy and legacy. For the past few decades, the frigging First Lady seems to have more accomplishments than most VPOTUSes.
And considering that Biden became increasingly infirm over his term and there are good odds trump straight up dies in office (woo!), a lot of eyes will be on the VP. Which has good odds of triggering the palin effect of “oh dear god… what if the old white guy dies and we are left with THAT???”
With a POTUS who genuinely likes AOC and believes in her politics? Yeah, it would be spectacular. In the world and DNC we live in… expect the same “What the hell did she even do?” smear campaign Kamala has been getting since late 2023 (I wonder why).
be the anti-Bernie. Run for POTUS in the primary. Energize basically the entire youth of the nation. Then lose and immediately endorse the winner while leveraging her influence to get important action items on the ticket
How the fuck would doing EXACTLY what Bernie did make her “the anti-bernie”?
I get what you’re saying but consider that her participation in the primary will energize progressives. If she really has the courage, immediately after the 2026 election she should announce that she’s forming a progressive party. Get people like Tim Waltz, Katie Porter, and others on board. But my guess they lack the numbers to really pull numbers away from the correct Democratic party.
That said, I could see a Waltz/AOC ticket being hugely popular.
She started as any other member of The Squad but has actually learned how politics work and is doing a, mostly, spectacular job of balancing ideology, the will of her constituents, and generation of political capital.
She only had to, you know, compromise on genocide and not ever get anything done. AOC is nice to have, but if she is what it looks like when a progressive “learns how politics works,” then I’d rather progressives not learn how politics work.
If she runs for POTUS in 2028, she is a god damned idiot. I am still skeptical if this country will EVER elect a woman for POTUS. But she is also still quite young but has almost an entire Hilary Clinton worth of chud-hate and attacks.
Harris had a ton of support early on so being a woman isn’t a decisive factor, and AOC-hating chuds were never going to vote blue.
I am not going to pretend I agree with how AOC handled the Anti-semitism Panel or whatever it was.
But I will say this: NYC tends to be very Jewish and Jewish friendly. And people are stupid. Explaining “I am opposed to anti-semitism but I am not opposed to anti-zionism. Okay, let me explain to you what the difference is” isn’t going to fly. Hell, just look around any message board (including these) and see what happens if you actually link someone to an article or page explaining why they misunderstood something.
And… a lot of the verbiage early on (mostly when Hamas still had any meaningful capabilities in the region) really WERE crossing the line. Stuff like “from the river to the sea” is really hard to support in a good faith reading of the conflict in the region. Which is why most politicians have stopped using phrases like that while arguing for Palestinian survival.
Which gets back to the realities of politics. In theory, an elected official is there not to push their own politics but to represent the will of the people who elected them. And if it is going to take a ten minute history lesson to explain why you snubbed a panel on Anti-Semitism to the people who voted for you…
Which is also why all of this is so insidious. Because the zionists know that they have these actually very reasonable stances to take and use them to cover for genocide.
But, as the DSA themselves admit in that press release, AOC has voted heavily in favor of Palestine in many resolutions.
But I will say this: NYC tends to be very Jewish and Jewish friendly. And people are stupid. Explaining “I am opposed to anti-semitism but I am not opposed to anti-zionism. Okay, let me explain to you what the difference is” isn’t going to fly.
That is literally what Mamdani did. And it, in fact, flew.
Stuff like “from the river to the sea” is really hard to support in a good faith reading of the conflict in the region.
You seem to be well-meaning, but that’s Zionist propaganda. The full phrase is “Palestine will be free, trom the river to the sea,” and there is literally nothing objectionable about this. It’s not like Palestinians within Israel aren’t also living under apartheid, so the phrase is very appropriate. Also I see no evidence at all that rhetoric around Palestine has gotten less radical as time went on.
Which is why most politicians have stopped using phrases like that while arguing for Palestinian survival.
Except the most progressive of them—you knowz the crowd to which AOC supposedly belongs. There are people who will he tricked by this sort of Zionist propaganda, but usually those tend to not support progressive politics in general, so this is a problem that solves itself.
I hope Mamdani proves he can pull it off. We’ll see what happens in the general. And I really hope he can continue to push a hard line once he gets on a stage where bills are so intertwined that it is nigh impossible to NOT support evil in the form of pork and the like.
My suspicion is that we are going to see a lot of concessions at even the Mayoral level. Let alone if he moves on to Congress. My hope is that we have actually achieved progress (hey, look at that) and the baseline of education has advanced that we can continue to push the line farther and further and actually oppose anti-semitism while also vehemently opposing zionism.
You seem to be well-meaning, but that’s Zionist propaganda. The full phrase is “Palestine will be free, trom the river to the sea,” and there is literally nothing objectionable about this.
It is Zionist propaganda in that the Zionists actually said it too in the past as justification/motivation for stealing the land from Palestine et al to begin with.
There are definitely well meaning individuals who use that and I don’t think it inherently means someone is part of Hamas or the IDF. But it is a phrase that literally began as Zionist propaganda to justify their occupation of the region and it is one that, in most readings, fundamentally precludes a two state solution. It is saying that the entirety of the region must belong to one group/subset of groups.
Now, whether a two state solution has been possible for closer to 50 years than not is a much more depressing topic. But when your statement of peace is also largely synonymous with past and present efforts to ethnically cleanse a region… maybe pick some different words.
Which… brings us back to the balance of politics and ideology and not trusting the masses to sit and listen to your long winded explanation of why your slogan just sounds bad but is actually good when you use it.
I like AOC a lot. She started as any other member of The Squad but has actually learned how politics work and is doing a, mostly, spectacular job of balancing ideology, the will of her constituents, and generation of political capital. In so many ways, she is what Sanders would have been if he got his head out of his ass twenty some odd years ago.
If she runs for POTUS in 2028, she is a god damned idiot. I am still skeptical if this country will EVER elect a woman for POTUS. But she is also still quite young but has almost an entire Hilary Clinton worth of chud-hate and attacks. Whereas Senate makes perfect sense for her.
That said? I could see a world where AOC could… once again be the anti-Bernie. Run for POTUS in the primary. Energize basically the entire youth of the nation. Then lose and immediately endorse the winner while leveraging her influence to get important action items on the ticket. But… I want AOC as a leader and not just as the bait and switch.
USA has no problem electing a woman (see below). But I am still skeptical the dems will EVER nominate a non-fascist for president.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/only-michelle-obama-bests-trump-alternative-biden-2024
I’m not sure that’s a reasonable takeaway from the last two times a woman was a major party nominee.
Hillary Clinton was not especially charismatic, which is arguably what wins general elections in most cases. She was also unpopular with progressive Democrats, and widely seen as having secured the nomination unfairly when Sanders might have been both more popular with the party and a stronger general election candidate.
Kamala Harris was severely handicapped by the combination of being nominated without a primary process, starting her campaign very late, and positioning herself as a continuation of Biden at a time when Biden’s popularity was very low.
If AOC were to win the nomination, she would be in a much stronger position for the general election than either Clinton or Harris.
Agreed. When people say they lost cuz America is too racist or sexist I think they miss out what bad candidates we had each time. Either bad in who they are, how they ran the campaign, or factors outside them that killed the campaign, or all 3
Yeah, thank you. The problem with Hillary and Kamala is nobody liked them. Now sure you can argue " maybe people didn’t like them because they’re women and they have a bias against women". I never heard anybody online saying " wow! I would sure love to have Kamala as president but I just don’t think other people will vote for her". I see lots of people saying that about AOC. At some point you have to look around and be like oh wait…lots of people are saying they’d vote for her.
AOC has a message that people want is a key thing. Harris kept it too safe to really sway anyone that wasn’t already sold, unfortunately. That’s not to say Harris didn’t have a published policy list, but it wasn’t what people were seeing or hearing. If Harris came out as a progressive, which I believe she was, then I think she would have swayed middle America.
The problem I think is that harris said she was going to continue Bidens economic policy when a lot of people really are feeling like the economic policy from both sides is benefiting only the wealthy. If any policy helps the little guy then it is such a minor help that it goes unrecognized.
Inequality skyrocketing, wages stagnating, and then you say you want to continue the policy? Not great campaign. Trump lost in 2020 and won in 2016 and 2024 because he was anti status quo. Most people don’t really care about “all the other” stuff and are too stupid to realize anything outside of “do I want change RIGHT NOW?” and then vote yes or no based on that
We also have to ask ourselves why no one liked them. Some of it can be attributed to sexism and or racism, yes. But I think we can attribute a lot of the unpopularity of those candidates to their lack of charisma, weak seeming positions and advocacy on progressive points of interest (such as Gaza, the Palestinians, border climate change, etc), and what seemed like stupid meddling and sabotage by the consultant class.
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Biden himself ran for president and won on the third shot. But, since two woman ran for president and lost, thats a sign that no woman can get elected.
Its not that women can’t win. Its that centrist dems than run on the status quo when the Democratic party is polling abysmally can’t win.
Honestly, I think unfortunately gender/sex does play a factor, in addition to race. If this administration has taught us anything, is that there is that much hate within our country.
Also think of cultures where historically their culture doesnt value women. Even if there are people who immigrated here, some still may never vote for a woman. Some will decline because they are racist. While we are all Americans, we are deeply deeply divided ATM :(
This is without even factoring the candidates political platform in yet.
I like when people claim racism was a major factor in Harris’s loss, given that Obama was elected in 2008 with a larger piece of the popular vote than any President since.
It was one of many factors. Obama winning didn’t prove that racism didn’t exist. He won despite the racism. Harris had racism, sexism, a lack of a primary process, the lack of experience as an executive, and so on against her.
In a lot of ways, Obama winning kind of broke the country.
He was a Democrat that people genuinely loved because of how charismatic he was (which was REAL nice after Dubyah…). Or, as a certain Former President put it, he was a Clean And Articulate Gentleman.
The problem being, his very existence set off all the chuds. It completely destroyed their minds that a black man could possibly be President. And it is a big chunk of what set for the “never again” mindset we are seeing.
But it did prove that racism does not have enough of an impact to move the needle in any substantial way—it failed so hard to move the needle that, again, literally no candidate since has even matched, let alone topped, his popular vote %.
Are you sure? Maybe Obama would have swept all 50 states if it hadn’t been for the racism. Maybe the only reason it was at all close was the racism.
Given the close margins I would say it surely played at least a part for Harris losing. Obama won by large enough margins that even if all the racists stayed home that he still won in a landslide.
If even 2% of the population would never vote for a women or a person of color then it was enough to have mattered when others are sitting home for other reasons. It’s certainly not the main cause of Harris losing as you pointed out, but when the margins were that close every vote did matter.
I suspect the majority of that 2% would also never vote for a Democrat.
I believe that you are mostly correct, although the actual motivations for these folks are complicated. Some may value a few extra bucks in government support, having social security, and having Medicare programs. So there are some economic reasons they may vote for Democrats on occasion, but their bigotry could get in the way of their best interest.
So, some of those people probably just stay home for election night. While a good chunk may be getting convinced to vote for Republicans if they feel their bigotry is being rewarded.
Given that, while Trump got ~3 million more votes in 2024 vs. 2020, and Harris got nearly 7 million fewer votes in 2024 than Biden did in 2020, and that the US’s population increased about 8 million in that span of time, are you suggesting that there’s that much misogyny and racism among the Democrats?
The total population is not the total voting population. There was also a pandemic between 2020 and 2024 so I would expect the total amount of eligible voters would be different as a result of the pandemic.
I think that’s an uncharitable takeaway from what I’m talking about to say that the misogyny and racism were the core reasons that Harris got less votes. There were notable other factors that made it a close election, which I mentioned was the case. My point was more that because the margins were that close that those smaller details did matter more.
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Yeah, I think there is a substantial portion of Americans who won’t ever vote for a woman, but I think it was still just a small part of the larger issues in both their campaigns
If charisma wins elections how did Trump win?
Edit: forgot that he most likely didn’t, at least the second time. Still, how did his potatoe charisma get him the first win?
Have you seen the man work a crowd?
His antics don’t work on you, or on me, or likely on most people you or I would be friends with. They clearly work on a huge swath of the population though, or we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Work a crowd, as in talking barely comprehensible gibberish and hurling insults at people? So charismatic…
2016 Trump ran on the idea of being the good businessman who was going to clean up the swamp and get this
company’scountry’s act together. Just like any other CEO selling to investors. I have friends who, halfway into his campaign, were like, “I kinda like this Trump guy, he tells it like it is,” and by the time of the election they had completely 180’d on him because of the details of what he was promising.One of these friends is super into cults and true crime, and he says that listening to Trump is eerie because he sounds exactly like Jim Jones. Then, and now. Back then he sounded like Jim Jones in his prime (and read Hitler’s speeches as bedtime stories according to an ex-wife, which would explain why all his campaign promises match up with Hitler’s). Today, he sounds like Jim Jones making his death speeches while you can hear them forcing the cultists to drink the Flavor-Aid and gasping, choking, and dying in the background of the recordings.
The people who liked Trump the first time and didn’t change their minds then were never going to change their minds the second time. They’ve already bought into the cult. And that’s what Trump is - a cult leader. He promises them a solution to their misery by giving them an obvious target to take their aggression out on, and people eat it up because they want a simple solution that absolves them of any blame.
How could anyone buy that, given his well known complete failure as a businessman? Only a stupid person would.
Anyway, it’s besides the point of our main discussion. I don’t know who Jim Jones is, and you’re right about Trump’s populism and MAGA being a cult, that still doesn’t make him charismatic though.
Jim Jones, of the Jonestown Massacre. The cult leader who we got the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” from (though they actually were too poor to get Kool-Aid and they laced Flavor-Aid, the off brand version, with cyanide instead). When he started out, he was actually a very influential Civil Rights activist who is responsible for the policies that would later become the foundation of the civil rights laws in his home city. But he later became a crazy cult leader and by the time of the cult’s mass suicide, he ranted like Trump does today.
As for how anybody could believe that Trump’s a good businessman, many people only know him as that guy from The Apprentice, not the businessman who has bankrupted multiple casinos, an airline company (and beauty pageant for young girls who he flew around the country with in his private plane - just him, the girls, and a man by the name of Epstein), and who couldn’t even sell steaks to Americans.
trump back in 2016 was genuinely charismatic… to his base. He was able to quickly spin nonsense schoolyard bully insults against anyone who went up against him (“Little marco rubio” and so forth). Combine that with Hilary having almost two decades of smear campaign tactics against her at that point and not committing one way or another towards decorum or “you fuckers are weird” and… yeah.
trump in 2024 won because the left blames Biden for the economy and the chuds wanted their hitler back.
That’s not charisma… maybe little kids would find that impressive, although I doubt it.
Don’t kid yourself. It takes a ton of charisma to lead a cult of personality.
Still a big risk to take. We need progressives to win at least the next two elections to have any shot at winding back the damage from two Trump administrations and a largely impotent Biden administration.
But I agree that if she wins the primary, that’s the part that really matters and what Harris was missing.
Both Hillary and Kamala were unenthusiastic campaigners, depending on democrats to anoint to victory. AOC isn’t very popular outside of the northeast, and she doesn’t appear fiery enough to excite those who don’t know her.
Worth noting as I almost missed it myself from not RTFA, but: AOC is “gearing up for a big campaign for a bigger office in 2028 – they’re just not sure which.”
I align with your view that I really thought AOC would be better to primary against Schumer. Not only is it arguably more attainable, it addresses our problem with stagnant Congressional AIPAC-representing leadership.
That said, I part ways in the belief that a female president is not capable of being elected for a couple of reasons which I’ll try to lay out point-by-point:
I think part of the problem for the Hillary and Harris campaigns were that they were running for the status quo at a time when that wasn’t working. Both Obama and Biden ran on change and, while it wasn’t the amount of change people wanted, it was at least a recognition that things need to shift.
This is the same take I have. Both Hillary and Kamala are slimy neolibs, exactly the kind of people that nobody trusts. Gavin Newsom is the same and would be a catastrophic nomination. AOC would have a real shot, especially if she sticks to her grass-roots techniques and reaches people face-to-face. No debates, no mass media, just homegrown down-to-earth human energy.
But what am I talking about, there won’t be any more elections. The fascists have taken over and dismantled everything from the federal to local levels. The cancer, having been fed instead of removed, is now terminal.
I think there were many contributing factors to Kamala’s loss, but I I think this is pretty low if non-existent among them, and it risks gatekeeping qualified, charismatic candidates like AOC out of fear of past milquetoast candidates that were unpopular from the outset and deeply lacking in charisma.
I’m wondering if Gallup has tried asking if people would vote for a woman if she made it clear she intended to help the citizens of the country and not the oligarchs who own everything.
Replacing Schumer would be a big step forward,
Funny that you say she’d be an idiot for running in 2028, then present a great case for why she might run in 2028…
You’re right, though, that Senate would be the right move. But that has its own disadvantages. If Schumer doesn’t retire, it would be very tough to beat him.
Being a losing presidential candidate could raise your profile. I’m not sure the same applies to a senate candidate.
Also, I would say the hate for AOC is much different than the hate for Hillary. There were plenty of liberals that hated Hillary (🙋♂️). I don’t think this applies as much to AOC. The hate is coming exclusively from the right.
She could easily beat schumer. I never met another nyer who likes that guy. Largely he wins now because nobody (or nobodies) primary him, and the alternative is a republican which just is not an option right now.
Schumer has seniority in the Senate, which is why many have not tried to primary him.
Seniority is a big deal in the Senate in terms of committee assignments. Just because AOC could replace Schumer’s seat, it does not mean that she will gain the current amount of power that he has for a long time. Now it may well be worth replacing his seat just so the current spokesperson for Dems in the Senate changes, but it’s not going to be AOC for a while.
An alternative is for her to grow to become the Speaker of the House, which she could do by continuing to stay in her current role over the next several decades.
Otherwise, she may look at a run for Governor, although then that is much less federally focused.
She could run for President or take on the role for VP. If she were to be VP, I think it would almost guarantee she would be able to win the Presidency at some point. Although, if she joined an administration that caused a lot of baggage, like Harris received from being VP to Biden, then it would make that route more difficult.
It’s a risk, though. She may decide the risk isn’t worth it.
Also, she this may all be an attempt by AOC to make Schumer rethink running in 2028. I don’t honestly know if he is planning on running anyway.
The far right of the country will never vote for a woman unless its a psychopathic maga woman. Then they just might…
The far right isn’t voting for any democrat though.
I honestly think if she ran for president it would be about raising her public profile. There’s many republicans and democrats whose names I know only because they ran for president.
AOC would make an amazing VP pick. Could bring a lot of energy to a campaign and get youth/working class support. Then transition that into a presidential campaign later on.
And who would you pick for president? Even VP AOC couldn’t make me pick Newsom
Pritzker
Hey good news! *gestures to All This*
- John Nance garner, former vice president to FDR (before truman)
Ehhhhhh
People have a very weird idea of what the veep actually is. In theory, it is the person waiting in the wings, learning from the POTUS, picking up the slack, and preparing to take command if needed. In practice? It is someone The Party saddled the POTUS with and is an active threat to their legitimacy and legacy. For the past few decades, the frigging First Lady seems to have more accomplishments than most VPOTUSes.
And considering that Biden became increasingly infirm over his term and there are good odds trump straight up dies in office (woo!), a lot of eyes will be on the VP. Which has good odds of triggering the palin effect of “oh dear god… what if the old white guy dies and we are left with THAT???”
With a POTUS who genuinely likes AOC and believes in her politics? Yeah, it would be spectacular. In the world and DNC we live in… expect the same “What the hell did she even do?” smear campaign Kamala has been getting since late 2023 (I wonder why).
Couldn’t disagree with you more.
AOC for the win
How the fuck would doing EXACTLY what Bernie did make her “the anti-bernie”?
I get what you’re saying but consider that her participation in the primary will energize progressives. If she really has the courage, immediately after the 2026 election she should announce that she’s forming a progressive party. Get people like Tim Waltz, Katie Porter, and others on board. But my guess they lack the numbers to really pull numbers away from the correct Democratic party.
That said, I could see a Waltz/AOC ticket being hugely popular.
You are on lemmy letting us know how much you like someone with million of followers refusing to even make an account on decentralized social media
narrator: And they never did…
She only had to, you know, compromise on genocide and not ever get anything done. AOC is nice to have, but if she is what it looks like when a progressive “learns how politics works,” then I’d rather progressives not learn how politics work.
Harris had a ton of support early on so being a woman isn’t a decisive factor, and AOC-hating chuds were never going to vote blue.
I am not going to pretend I agree with how AOC handled the Anti-semitism Panel or whatever it was.
But I will say this: NYC tends to be very Jewish and Jewish friendly. And people are stupid. Explaining “I am opposed to anti-semitism but I am not opposed to anti-zionism. Okay, let me explain to you what the difference is” isn’t going to fly. Hell, just look around any message board (including these) and see what happens if you actually link someone to an article or page explaining why they misunderstood something.
And… a lot of the verbiage early on (mostly when Hamas still had any meaningful capabilities in the region) really WERE crossing the line. Stuff like “from the river to the sea” is really hard to support in a good faith reading of the conflict in the region. Which is why most politicians have stopped using phrases like that while arguing for Palestinian survival.
Which gets back to the realities of politics. In theory, an elected official is there not to push their own politics but to represent the will of the people who elected them. And if it is going to take a ten minute history lesson to explain why you snubbed a panel on Anti-Semitism to the people who voted for you…
Which is also why all of this is so insidious. Because the zionists know that they have these actually very reasonable stances to take and use them to cover for genocide.
But, as the DSA themselves admit in that press release, AOC has voted heavily in favor of Palestine in many resolutions.
That is literally what Mamdani did. And it, in fact, flew.
You seem to be well-meaning, but that’s Zionist propaganda. The full phrase is “Palestine will be free, trom the river to the sea,” and there is literally nothing objectionable about this. It’s not like Palestinians within Israel aren’t also living under apartheid, so the phrase is very appropriate. Also I see no evidence at all that rhetoric around Palestine has gotten less radical as time went on.
Except the most progressive of them—you knowz the crowd to which AOC supposedly belongs. There are people who will he tricked by this sort of Zionist propaganda, but usually those tend to not support progressive politics in general, so this is a problem that solves itself.
I hope Mamdani proves he can pull it off. We’ll see what happens in the general. And I really hope he can continue to push a hard line once he gets on a stage where bills are so intertwined that it is nigh impossible to NOT support evil in the form of pork and the like.
My suspicion is that we are going to see a lot of concessions at even the Mayoral level. Let alone if he moves on to Congress. My hope is that we have actually achieved progress (hey, look at that) and the baseline of education has advanced that we can continue to push the line farther and further and actually oppose anti-semitism while also vehemently opposing zionism.
It is Zionist propaganda in that the Zionists actually said it too in the past as justification/motivation for stealing the land from Palestine et al to begin with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea
There are definitely well meaning individuals who use that and I don’t think it inherently means someone is part of Hamas or the IDF. But it is a phrase that literally began as Zionist propaganda to justify their occupation of the region and it is one that, in most readings, fundamentally precludes a two state solution. It is saying that the entirety of the region must belong to one group/subset of groups.
Now, whether a two state solution has been possible for closer to 50 years than not is a much more depressing topic. But when your statement of peace is also largely synonymous with past and present efforts to ethnically cleanse a region… maybe pick some different words.
Which… brings us back to the balance of politics and ideology and not trusting the masses to sit and listen to your long winded explanation of why your slogan just sounds bad but is actually good when you use it.
You don’t have to explain it. Puritans will always find fault. It’s why they’ll also never hold power to do the things they want.