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[sl8]

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[calguy]

1. There she goes again.

[marble falls]

2. And I have no problem with it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Ditto

[Yavin4]

16. Double Ditto. For example, the Maine Senate race needs a thorough explanation.

I get the S.C. senate loss even though Jaime Harrison raised a ton of money, but Maine? Biden out-performed Gideon by 10 pts. Someone explain that to me.

We need to be able to criticize party leadership in order to improve it.

[paleotn]

62. I've asked folks I know over there in Maine...

and they say many Mainer's think they know Collins. She's delivered "bacon" for the state. Gideon would have been a step in faith some weren't willing to take. Trump on the other hand.

[angrychair]

72. Incumbents have a 90% election rate

its incredibly hard to unseat even a mediocre incumbent.

[stopbush]

136. Indeed. The idea that voters in Kentucky would trade the Senate Majority Leader

for a first-term back bencher was a pipe dream, no matter how much $ was raised and spent.

[colorado_ufo]

221. We did it.

[vsrazdem]

20. Triple ditto.

[ancianita]

30. Quadruple ditto.

the party lacked “core competencies” to run campaigns

Let her and the progressive wing -- which I'm a part of -- advance what those core competencies are.
I'll let her go first.

[NurseJackie]

42. Joe won this election. Not her. It's Joe's choice. Not hers.

She's really not in a position to be making threats or demands. It's a shame that the insults and smears and undermining rhetoric have already begun in full force... less than 24 hours after Joe's victory. This isn't helping.

And I have no problem with it.

Why? All I'm trying to point out is that this really serves no good purpose. It does nothing to promote unity, healing or trust. Instead, it only promotes division and suspicion and resentment. This is a very short-sighted strategy and one that won't serve her (or her cause) very well at all.

[pandr32]

81. Agreed 100%

[marble falls]

82. We keep trying to tone it down for dissatisfied GOP, Blue Dogs, and it only seems ...

to dilute the party message further. We've toned it back so far we've lost unions, the young, a lot of minorities, threatened safety nets like Social Security. Made it 'safe' for a lot of Democrats to vote Red.

Its time to be progressive again.

[NurseJackie]

88. Ridiculous.

Did you read our party's platform? Our "party message" isn't being diluted.

[marble falls]

91. Sorry you feel that way. I still consider you a close DU friend.

[dflprincess]

116. But we don't do much to advertise the platform

And white we can't expect every candidate to agree with all of it, we need to establish some core beliefs thst every Democrat adhered to. Too often the party will support anyone willing to put a D after their name.

[NurseJackie]

123. What are you saying?

Too often the party will support anyone willing to put a D after their name.

So... are you suggesting that people shouldn't vote for the Democrat if they fail a purity test? Or that it's okay to "send a message" by voting for the Green candidate, or by writing-in some other name?

But we don't do much to advertise the platform

That's not how elections are won.

we need to establish some core beliefs thst every Democrat adhered to.

That's not how elections are won either. That's not the purpose of the platform. This notion that Vermont-style politicians can be easily elected in West Virginia is totally absurd. Cookie-cutter candidates that all look the same and all sound the same will never work.

[radical noodle]

160. I agree

There is no one simple solution for all. What AOC said sounded more like a threat than a suggestion to me... like, do what I want or I'll sabotage the 2022 elections.

She has a right to her opinion, but she couldn't win in many places other than her own district.

[dflprincess]

185. The party has been moving right and losing elections

since Reagan was elected. It either decides to stand for something and stick to it or we'll continue to struggle to hold majorities in Congrees.

[jaxexpat]

145. It's the younger voters and minority concerns that won this election.

They participated because voices like BLM and AOC were out there on the Democratic side of the stage.
This is the opportunity to move the platform, Democratic values/dreams further into reality.
We will require those voters to achieve our goals. We must not let them feel abandoned AGAIN. We must not abandon them AGAIN.

Democratic candidates in the HEARTLAND tend to lose because they're unknown to their constituents. Only the Democratic minority even knows the Democratic candidate's name until they see it on the ballot. Money thrown at TV ads is mostly a contest of who has the wealthiest donors and it's nearly impossible to get local money to invest in low energy performances. The Democratic party at the local level does a poor job of motivating people to participate. It's because they choose their candidates from a smaller pool that the Republicans. That's why their candidates are usually less energetic, less motivated and less genuine compared to their GOP competitors. They treat the party like it's a club. The same people always chair the same committees. Inevitably less effective as the years go by and people get older and less energetic. Jobs done out of habit. They won't demand higher standards for themselves or their fellows. The level of commitment on everyone's part diminishes to a dangerously low level. Pretty soon you get exactly what we have today. A party that, except for the coasts and the cities, exists only as did the "Washington Generals" so that the GOP "Globetrotters" will have someone to play. Then on the odd occasion when fate decides we do win, we're trapped into the opponent's script, doing nothing until the next election.

The general electorate is fed up with such a directionless government. That's why so many in their desperation and their Fox induced coma, voted to install Trump. They're more fed up than they are afraid of change. Something will change. It will be a closer track to either fascism or socialism. If the changes come too slowly for people to sense it they will blame the government formula. Then we will see vapid, ill-conceived notions rule the conversation. Notions like, "radical talk of socialistic change prevented the election of moderate Democrats" will occupy the space where defining progressive goals should reign. That, too, plays into the hands of the opposition.

They wore their Trump camouflage with a vengeful pride. Except for the BLM and AOC types, we held our Biden flags with hopeful timidity. That is the main problem.

Blah Blah Blah

[eilen]

223. Her message did not resonate in upstate NY

Katko won because Balter was seen as being very closely associated with AOC. The M4A, Defund the Police--the violence in general across the nation --those things disincentivised voters. It is very important to know your constituency. Not every candidate runs in a highly liberal urban district.

[jaxexpat]

225. I'm sure it didn't. Truly conservative people don't like young know-it-alls because they're.....

always trying to fix things. Balter was the wrong candidate to take on a Republican defending a seat he took when Obama was battling for health care reformation, 2014. She was also running under the wing of "miss gad fly" Gillibrand. I doubt that helped. There may have been no Democratic candidate who could have beaten Katko.
I have a question though. Did Balter try in any effective way to make Trump the reason to vote Democratic in 2020? Or was it all sort of "high ground-ish"?

[rwsanders]

201. I did. There are other MAJOR environmental issues than just climate change.

If you want an EXTENSIVE list I can provide it.

[Chemisse]

112. Keep in mind that we lost a lot of swing votes because of the fear of 'socialism'.

We should have had a blue tsunami, but many voters feared too large a jolt to the left.

What happened this week is a good example of why we need to tread carefully. I want to shift leftward, but the more you publicize that that's what Dems are pushing for, the more worried the swing voters will be.

AOC has to blare it all over the media so now it becomes a challenge and everyone is going to focus on it and notices any little movement that could have been done with some discretion otherwise. Why not make this plea in person or phone calls to the individuals who will be making the decisions? Why not use a little finesse?

[Mr.Bill]

158. And we just won the presidency.

I hate to say it, but we wouldn't have won it with a farther left candidate. Someday, perhaps. But not now.

[mjvpi]

174. Exactly. The constant compromise to the right that started with Reagan.

Mitch McConell is back in control. Big business controls the courts and one major party. Do you see or hear any talk of compromise from the Republicans? I haven’t since pre Gingrich. Is the Lincoln Project still a part of our party or they now on team Mconnell?

[Cha]

216. Joe Biden & Kamala Harris Got 75 Million

voted on Rebuilding Obamacare. All across our Nation.. not just in super Blue Districts.

Joe Biden is the guy who won us the Presidency.. NOT AOC.

There's only one President Elect & that's JOE BIDEN.

[SayitAintSo]

227. Amen

We owe a lot to AOC and her progressive ideas, not only that but, the grace and eloquence the progressive caucus mustered in support of Joe Biden, before and after.

[ancianita]

89. So you take The Guardian's spin that we've been in a "truce"? As if we've been embattled?

I take her at her words. Not what The Guardian says to characterize what's been going on in our party.

I'd like to hear more, Guardian "report" aside.
I think she's in description mode. Part of her description likely involves the new voters in the party, and their interests and priorities.

It doesn't hurt the party for Biden and Pelosi to listen and decide.
It's not as if AOC's got anywhere else to go.

[Gary 50]

95. Why?

You are right. This divisiveness doesn't help. Whose divisiveness? The ones who are trying to blame our less than stellar performance on the left wing of the party. How dare AOC fight back. A short sighted strategy indeed.

[DanieRains]

138. I Watched The AOC Interview This Morning On CNN

She is 10000000% correct.

Where was the ad with the cop on George Floyd's neck?

Where is the ad showing people burning to death in out of control wildfires?

Where is the ad showing 10,000 Republicans saying "Drill Baby Drill"?

Where is the ad showing total taxes paid by the middle class compared to the crazy rich per total wealth?

I could go on all morning. Republicans are lying scum and only sell fear. Fear is powerful. We need to shock the drooling imbecile voters into REALITY.

The ice is melting and the planet is literally on fire. All Republicans want to do is drill more, frack more, and mine more coal. Remove any regulation limiting corporate pollution, and give billionaires tax free status.

Republicans simply want everyone dead, after the rich steal all their money.

Maybe someone could run an ad......

AOC IS CORRECT.

How could anyone vote for any Republican unless they are committing suicide....

[58Sunliner]

151. "We need to shock the drooling imbecile voters into REALITY."

That will never happen. But we can energize our base into feeling like they are voting and acting with a purpose and telling the truth will allow us to do so. Take environmental pollution and the resultant health care and health care costs that are associated with it. Highlight the cost to human lives and the financial burden people and states struggle with. It is just not that complicated on some issues. Then tie into the whole strategy of green energy and green jobs, along with corporate profits and responsibility. Why do the rich in DC allow these corps to poison us?? Who bears the brunt of those policies? The rates of asthma have rocketed. It is insane that we can not forge a cohesive strategy to highlight these issues.

[DanieRains]

155. Republican Supporting Billionaires Spend A Billion A Year On Think Tanks

Pumping out lies and distortions.

Convincing people taxing them will cost jobs.

You hear it every day.

Dems don't have that.

[58Sunliner]

169. No they don't but phrasing it as taxes instead of

corporate liability and class warfare is a farce. That is what needs messaging.

[DanieRains]

182. 1.15 Billion Budget Of 21 Think Tanks 2016 More Now

https://www.transparify.org/blog/us-thinktanks-budgets-2016

Yes my friend they do spend a billion a year tricking people into blaming welfare queens and immigrants for their problems.

[58Sunliner]

198. I smell graft and corruption. I believe it.

[Alpeduez21]

104. So you ask for cohesion but are unwilling to see progressives

as beneficial to the discussion. You're fine with cohesion as long as everyone does what you want. What is wrong with universal healthcare? What is wrong with a decent minimum wage? What is wrong with debt forgiveness? What is wrong fighting like hell for the rights of minorities? All I can see is wrong with these things is discussing them makes conservatives uncomfortable.

[Rebl2]

130. Totally agree!

Making threats does not help her cause.

[tiredtoo]

144. She is not making threats or demands

She is pointing out a fact. The Democratic party is still not reaching the public with their messaging. If we continue on this path, we have a bleak future. Doesn't have to be a move to the left, which I prefer, but we must make some changes. Breaking down this election we find the republicans won in all areas except the presidency. Having a Democratic president with a hostile legislative branch accomplishes little or nothing. This is not about her (or her cause) this is about Democratic causes.

[MojoWrkn]

206. Shouldn't she bide her time as others before her have done! Remember, she supported Bernie Sanders

who would not have won this election! I don't support her and I think her notoriety has gone to her head and made her think she's more than she is!

[NurseJackie]

208. Your thoughts are shared by many.

[H2O Man]

53. Same here.

[Bettie]

60. Me too

Why is it that progressives are NEVER supposed to advocate for their positions?

[NurseJackie]

79. Nobody said that.

[Gore1FL]

78. I hope she has a lot of against to keep going with!

[pnwmom]

85. Maybe the incompetent people were the ones who decided a good slogan was "defund the police"

instead of reform the police, or decriminalize drugs, or fund mental health treatment, or any number of better slogans that wouldn't alarm average voters.

[Lebam in LA]

127. Exactly

Dumbest slogan ever!

[FoxNewsSucks]

137. De-militarize the police.

[pnwmom]

179. Yes, another better slogan.

[erpowers]

237. Bad Idea

It was really a bad idea to promote a policy of defunding the police. Even people who would support some type of police reform were likely to reject defunding the police. Many people would think what are we supposed to do without a police force. Many people would likely think even if there are problems with police forces that does not mean we do not need, or should not have police forces. Many people would likely think we need police forces in order to protect law abiding citizens from individuals who seek to harm others.

Even if groups like Black Lives Matter only, for the most part, wanted to reduce and/or redirect funds from police forces, saying "defund the police" was not a good way to push that idea. They really needed to speak more clearly about what they wanted in terms of police reform.

[Susan Calvin]

94. Ditto. nt

[brush]

110. It's not the green new deal and certainly not BLM that's to blame...

for our losses. IT'S BEING SMEARED AS SOCIALISTS. I'm still at a lost why she and others don't get that yet.
Having prominent Dems calling themselves democratic socialists is not smart as it's so off-putting to millions of Americans. And I know, many will say repugs are going to call us socialist anyway, but it wasn't always that way. We have to be smarter than to give them such easy and effective messaging material. All they have to do is mention Bernie Sanders and AOC in their attack ads and it works. It works.

It works because three generations of voters, the Greatest generation, Boomers and GenXers were schooled on the toxicity of socialism all during their formative years—the iron curtain, failed communist collectives, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, the Cuban missile crisis, fallout shelters, etc. Many of those voters outgrew that knee jerk anti-socialism reaction (mostly us Dems) but millions haven't and any candidate who doesn't understand that has the depth of knowledge about their own country as that of a sidewalk puddle.

We've got to get smarter. We have to present a center left to center unified image to win—the absolute point or we're just wasting our time—and once we win, we install our progressive policies.

It's not rocket science. Outsmart the MFers.

[ancianita]

210. Maybe we outsmart their pejorative use of the word "socialist," by showing everyone how they

Last edited Mon Nov 9, 2020, 10:21 AM - Edit history (1)

purposely twist it into something scary.

Like Medicare for All, Social Security that they already have. Being a little sarcastic because the use of "socialism" and "socialist," as you say, are meant only for a small audience of those barraged by right wing radio that claims every damn day that we're really "hiding" our scary evil intent to make this country into grandpa's Stalinist socialism. Truman was right. They use socialism for any new thing that helps people, while the fascism they've adapted to, erodes their trust in society, as in "social."

I'm a boomer, and this is my public Facebook cover photo. I ask "So which socialism is better?"
In a few words it covers a lot of ground the public occupies. Just sayin'.

[brush]

215. I get you. We're on the same page as socialism not being the bogeyman...

Last edited Mon Nov 9, 2020, 10:07 AM - Edit history (1)

republicans continually smear it as. But do we really want to try to deprogram millions of indoctrinated deplorables who don't want to be?

Getting paper ballots back that have to be hand counted is a goal as the mail-in ballots this cycle showed can't be flipped or hacked. And of course getting more Dems registered. It won't be easy as the word socialism has such a deeply negative connotation to so many.

It's sad but true.

[ancianita]

224. Doing teaches deplorables and Dem moderates better than talking.

do we really want to try to deprogram millions of indoctrinated deplorables who don't want to be?

Nope. Doing.

When we do what we say, we will remind them that their party may NOT take credit for the material improvements in their lives, then show a lot of photos of life under Trump.


Biden is already showing the progressive politics of doing.

He's publicly stated that he's already listened to AOC's advice, will probably get her in charge of something, maybe digital messaging, and keep that youth vote.

The best point about her right now is that the Repubs will substitute her name for their scary words Pelosi and socialism. So get ready like Joe is. When they can't beat him down with TrumpTrash talk anymore, they'll switch from "he's too old" to "she's too young." They will beat only themselves. Repubs in this election and in 2020 have lost ALL the arguments.

We have to make sure to keep their arguments nailed to them all the way to 2024.

[SayitAintSo]

229. I like that!

Stealing.

[SayitAintSo]

226. Ditto as well

The progressive Wing did their part let's give them they're due.

[certainot]

71. she's right but democrats AND progressives like her keep letting 1500 radio stations, the

only media advantage the cons have, decide who and what is too 'left'.

buttheads like romney, kasich and even dems like claire mccaskill are out there warning dems basically have to bend over for limbaugh because we let 1500 radio stations licensed to operate in the public interest call global warming and COVID hoaxes, single payer communist, etc

she couldd move the whole party and the country left 10 -15 pts left merely by getting the dem party to stop ignoring talk radio

[Tumbulu]

132. YES!!!!!!

Why, after all this time and all this damage, do they simply ignore this cancer?

It is not going away, it has already spread to the point of killing the nation.

Trump was only the first to capitalize on these delusions ignored for generations now.

[DownriverDem]

152. My problem

is that we need to get rid of the progressive label. It's too divisive. We are all Dems. Some of us lean more left than others. To attack life long Dems like myself just POd many of us. To throw out ideas with no details scared many of us. To come across that we are taking over so get out of the way just didn't get it. We don't need the progressive label. We need to focus on beating the repubs.

[totodeinhere]

189. Yes, there she goes again telling the truth.

isn't it refreshing to have a politician who tells the truth and actually says what she thinks?

[Javaman]

207. And you know what? I hope she keeps saying it.

Either you bend with the wind or you break.

She’s the future, get used to it and learn

[TwilightZone]

3. She might want to look at what happened in 2018.

One of the primary reasons we didn't win more seats - and lost a couple - this cycle is that we won everything in sight in 2018. Context is important, and many have completely forgotten that we picked up dozens of seats in 2018. We simply weren't going to repeat that in 2020.

Could we have done better? Sure, but it's nowhere near the disaster that many seem to be insisting happened.

She might also want to look at what happened at the top of the ticket.

[ancianita]

32. What happened at the top of the ticket?

[DownriverDem]

175. Nothing

Joe ran as a unifier. Is that okay with you?

[WhiteTara]

181. And he brought Kamala Harris to the forefront

and she is going to provide that progressive platform.

[sweetloukillbot]

188. Are you saying you have an issue with our president-elect?

[ancianita]

212. That Joe is a unifier is more than okay.

I asked because I thought the "top of the ticket" statement still referred to the header line.
An honest question. Is that okay with you?

[OneCrazyDiamond]

86. I recall losing Senate seats in '18.

Had we flipped it, RBG's seat would have been held. Now we have to fix the courts.

[George II]

4. That didn't take long. A day or two ago she was bashing Conor Lamb's campaign for his loss....

EXCEPT THAT HE WON!!!

[LisaL]

9. Yep, I am posting a link if anybody wants to see.

She bashed him for not spending enough on facebook to win, but Conor won his election.

"Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the Year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/aoc-biden-progressives.html

[Archae]

15. Let's hope Nancy Pelosi lowers the boom on Ocasio-Cortez.

Because Cortez is only throwing a tantrum, and as was said, Conor Lamb WON.

[vsrazdem]

22. That's a really smart move, since they need every member they have.

[Archae]

26. There are times a Speaker does have to call for actual discipline.

Back in the 1960's, Adam Powell was one of the most corrupt congressmen in the House.

He was kicked out, and was re-elected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_Jr.#Political_controversy

[vsrazdem]

49. Members do not get disciplined for voicing their opinions. We live in a democracy.

[Archae]

64. She lied about Conor Lamb.

And I have yet to see her even say "Oops."

[llashram]

5. Oh please!!!!

stop this...we really are on the same side...so-called progressives... She sounds more like an enemy than a partner in maintaining our republic.

[JudyM]

23. She is responding to an attack, not initiating one.

Last edited Sun Nov 8, 2020, 12:22 PM - Edit history (1)

ETA: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2621565
Centrist House Democrats lash out at liberal colleagues, blame far-left views for costing the party Source: Washington Post

[llashram]

27. if you say so

this has been constant. attacked or attacker.

[George II]

31. What attack was she responding to? Did you see her off-base attack on Conor Lamb yesterday....

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/aoc-biden-progressives.html

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the Year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet.

And I’ve looked through a lot of these campaigns that lost, and the fact of the matter is if you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders.

Conor Lamb WON!

[Archae]

133. Even when it's pointed out to Ocasio-Cortez that Lamb won...

She still keeps bitching about "not being on all cylinders."

Sheesh.

[zentrum]

33. That's true.

[jalan48]

39. +1

[TheRickles]

55. Yes, Abigail Sparnsberger started it (sounds childish to say)

Here's some background, with people like John Kasich and Rahm Emanuel already calling for more centrism. AOC points out that every Dem Congressional candidate who supported Medicare for All won, while every candidate who opposed M4A lost:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/07/every-single-one-ocasio-cortez-notes-every-democrat-who-backed-medicare-all-won

[melman]

63. Yes

And responding very graciously at that.

[paleotn]

65. Grow thicker skin.

and keep your powder dry for use at the right time. Now isn't the time. She has much to learn.

[Chemisse]

117. So rather than learn something, she digs in further.

The 'attack' seems like it might be a fair takeaway from what happened.

I think we should be taking our steps leftward carefully, while controlling the messaging. They need to look like what they are - obvious steps that need to be taken to benefit the people and our planet. When she does this, we lose control of the messaging and become vulnerable to GOP attacks that can stick.

[George II]

143. Thanks for adding the context. The fact is that politics are different....

....in different parts of the country.

That wasn't really an attack on her, it was a sensible (maybe too emotional) "attack" on people trying to impose their politics in areas where they simply don't work.

One only need go back to the 2018 Congressional primaries. Many of the incumbent or so-called "centrist" candidates were primaried by progressives. Each and every one lost either in the primary or general election.

Examples:

Sharice Davids primaried by Brent Welder, won and won her seat against incumbent republican Yoder, flipping the seat.
Lacy Clay primaried by Cori Bush, won and retained his seat.
Gretchen Whitmer was primaried by Abdul el-Sayed and flipped the Michigan Governor seat.

These were the most prominent, there are others.

The fact is, again, politics are different in different parts of the country - what works in New York or California won't necessarily work in the Midwest or South. This is what Spanberger was saying (and again, maybe too emotionally) and also what was pointed out by Tammy Duckworth in that now famous 2018 brouhaha. As it turned out, Duckworth was proven correct.

[Duppers]

217. Yep. "AOC: 'In any other country, Joe Biden and I would

''In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party.''

And she labeled House Democrats' centrist wing "the tea party of the left."

Ouch!


But my son thinks she should make a run for the WH in a few yrs!

[llashram]

228. exactly, and I think

Of course, she has a right to run as a BS surrogate, yet our system of elections to all leadership and representation offices needs some cleaning up. Like getting rid of Electoral College being a priority in my book. It can and does circumvent the WILL OF THE PEOPLE. And any other area that can do with a deep cleaning. So to continue she has the right to run, yet I think people will see BS written all over her candidacy. She will be rejected.

[BainsBane]

235. I don't see that working out.

[nycbos]

7. Someone who is in a D +29 district shouldn't be lecturing...

... someone who represents a marginal seat how to run a campaign.

[George II]

21. According to Progressive Punch her progressive score puts her at #169 in the House....

....behind New York City members of Congress Carolyn Maloney (12), Nydia Velazquez (15) Grace Meng (19), Adriano Espaillat (27), Yvette Clarke (29), Jerry Nadler (39), Eliot Engel (53), Hakeem Jeffries (64), Gregory Meeks (67), and Jose Serrano (119).

For perspective, the squad ratings are Pressley at #122, Tlaib #139 and Omar #162.

https://progressivepunch.org/scores.htm?topic=&house=house&sort=overall-current&order=down&party=

[NurseJackie]

50. Fascinating. Not what I would have expected. --- It reminds me somewhat of...

... my sense of surprise when I learned that Bernie didn't really "vote with the party 99% of the time" (and that it was closer to 80% instead.)

All I'm saying is... it just goes to show that you can't always trust the popular talking-points when it comes to things like this. It's always better to look at the data in order to get a clear picture of what's really going on.

Thanks for the link, George II. That's very helpful.

[My Pet Orangutan]

56. I would. The Holier Than Thou crowd

protest too much.

[Nasruddin]

68. Absolutely Right!

You said this well & I want to repeat it:

It's always better to look at the data in order to get a clear picture of what's really going on.

AOC is not quite what some are trying to make her into -AND-
She is asking important questions about the effectiveness of Dem campaign strategy, & they need to be answered.

Is the money going to useful places?
Are the wonderful LP ads & on-air people effective? Or counter-productive?
Are candidates selling the right issues? In this case, the Spanberger - Ocasio-Cortez debate is essential to hear out

Even if the polling nowadays is pure crap, some of these questions should be quantifiable.

Why does this matter now? We have 2 deadly serious runoff elections in GA. Stacey Abrams accomplished a Herculean feat in GOTV organization. But these southern runoffs are notoriously awful for turnout - we are going to need the best messaging we can muster for the state. Starting now.

[dansolo]

238. This is because they vote against a lot of progressive bills

They like having protest votes where they pick one aspect of a bill that is not as progressive as they feel it should be, and vote against it so they can get their name in the papers. That is why their claims of being so purely progressive is a bunch of bullshit.

[George II]

239. Unfortunately some of those "protest votes" were off-base. The most visible one was a vote....

...against an important bill because it contained funding for ICE.

Unfortunately that bill didn't contain funding for ICE! Much ado about nothing.

[treestar]

213. Yes. A district that easy to win

Won’t make you the expert. And in fact, she did not have to run against a republican! So who the heck is she to decide what is competent ?

[groundloop]

8. I do wish we could keep these policy discussions out of the media until after Jan 5th

I take this as nothing more than an inevitable and necessary discussion of Democratic Party policy moving forward. Unfortunately the media will blow it into 'the Democratic Party is ripping apart at the seams', and we really need to project calm and unity until the last two Senate seat races are decided in Georgia. ESPECIALLY since we have an honest chance at winning those seats and control of the Senate.

[Lucky Luciano]

11. I agree with AOC...and I agree with you.

[Clearly fogged in]

19. according to the audience is, etc, the guardian may be the culprit

If the Guardian wants to take something being said in a discussion, and relevant to that discussion, in a proper setting and misrepresent it or malign it, then it's a different matter. I couldn't read the entire paywalled piece to learn the venue. Generally don't give much weight to them.

[tulipsandroses]

10. There the media goes again, and there some of us will go again lapping this shit up

They salivated at the leaked phone call criticizing progressives and blaming them for losses. Then the media seeks out their favorite progressive boogie man/woman for a response and democrats can't wait to trip over themselves to eat our young.

[dlk]

12. Democracy is messy...

[EarlG]

13. Interesting

I just saw her on CNN with Jake Tapper and everything she said sounded completely reasonable. She didn't trash moderate Democrats, she said she understood that races in swing districts have to be run differently. She said that -- as she saw it -- the party's campaign apparatus has problems, but she specifically singled out the digital apparatus where she said we have been getting outplayed by Republicans.

She said that the biggest problem we have is that Republicans can effectively message against things like "socialism" and "defund the police" but that as far as she was aware not a single Democrat actually campaigned on those things. Instead, those are the things that Republicans use to message against us, and we need to do a better job defending against them.

She said that the best way to do that is to unite as a party and stop attacking our own, because working together is key to coming up with a better strategy to defend against Republican messaging attacks, and when we attack our own side we're just playing into their hands.

Not that the Guardian is a right-wing paper, but their choice of headline is pretty interesting here, since nowhere in the article could I find her using the word "incompetent" to describe the Democratic Party as a whole -- she's talking about the party lacking "core competencies" specifically in the digital space.

But you can see how this will now be spun into "AOC called the Democratic Party incompetent -- there she goes again!"

[LittleGirl]

25. I just watched that too

She made some great points. We need to work on our messaging to counter these attacks. We have to educate the public about policies that help citizens like the police, fire, libraries, interstate highways and Medicare for all. I watched Romney complain to Tapper about all of those programs and wanted to throw a shoe at the guy when he called them too far left. Sheesh

[EX500rider]

34. I would not consider the Guardian as right-wing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Political_stance_and_editorial_opinion

[EarlG]

51. I know it's not

Which is kinda Ocasio-Cortez’s point. She’s saying we need to stop attacking each other and start working on better messaging that will defend the entire party against GOP talking points.

To get that started, members of our own party could do a better job of not buying into GOP messaging — ie. Abigail Spanberger immediately after the election saying that Democrats need to stop using the word “socialism.” Ocasio-Cortez pointed that no Democrat actually ran on “socialism.” Things like “defund the police” come from outside activist groups, they’re not Democratic Party positions. But when members of our own party buy into the GOP’s messaging, we’re basically doing their work for them.

And when we also buy into the media’s lazy framing of certain Democrats, we’re doing the same thing. The Guardian — not a RW paper — will get plenty of clicks out of this headline screaming “AOC calls Democrats incompetent!” and I’m sure a lot of discussion will be generated here over it.

But instead of talking about how we can unify and improve our messaging — which is what Ocasio-Cortez would like us to do — we’ll be arguing about whether she’s evil or not for saying something that she didn’t even really say, which will get us nowhere.

[BainsBane]

150. Look at her Twitter feed

and then tell me how she is arguing for unity.
You're off base on this one.

[EarlG]

171. Fair enough

I'm just going off what I saw on TV this morning. It seems that every time I see her speaking -- which is not actually that often -- she never comes across as bad as the way I hear her described in the media or here on DU. Believe it or not I don't actually read Twitter, beyond what gets posted here on DU. I'll go and have a look though.

[EarlG]

173. First tweet I read on her feed

was exhorting people to fill out their census forms. The second one said this:

"...the argument here isn’t ideological- are purple communities not on the internet? You can run a moderate message & not change it at all & my message still applies. Dems must run like it’s 2020, not like it’s 2005. That has nothing to do with ideology. It’s about capacity."

Then she gave props to Biden and Harris, then she bashed John Kasich. Then she had some harmless beef with the Lincoln Project. Then she reiterated her point that the Democratic Party would do well to consider its digital strategy and spend more money on Facebook in swing districts.

I guess I'm not seeing it...

[BainsBane]

183. She tweets a lot

So it can be hard to see things. It's not that any one tweet is so bad, but that she spent yesterday systematically attacking different parts of the Biden coalition when the rest of us were celebrating.

I saw party consultants take over a Congressional swing campaign operation this year and was it wasn’t good.

The blind impulse to blame activists and the left both demoralizes a key constituency and distracts from asking real Qs & fixing serious operational issues.

Link to tweet

What I've seen is people congratulating activists in GA and Philly, specifically Stacy Abrams and African American organizers. Yet somehow that doesn't register with AOC.

One thing I’ll say: for the last two years, I and progressive candidates have been unseating powerful Dem incumbents supported by DCCC.

Not *once* has anyone in the party asked me what weaknesses I’ve found in their operation.

If they stop blaming progressives, we can help.

Link to tweet

A lot of focus on me here.

A few different tweets attacking the Lincoln project and John Kasich--who were part of the Biden coalition.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC

·
22h

US House candidate, NY-14
John Kasich, who did not deliver Ohio to Dems, is saying folks like
@IlhanMN
, who did deliver Minnesota, are the problem.

Please don’t take these people seriously and go back to celebrating and building power Party popper

Link to tweet

As someone who spent months making phone calls for the Biden and the coordinated DFL campaign in MN, I object to the notion that Omar "delivered" MN. I don't recall seeing her at any of the GOTV events (or mentioned in emails about virtual events) unlike Keith Ellison who was a force for turning out MN-05 (Minneapolis, Hennepin County) when he was congressman. Now, Omar may well have helped, and I'm grateful for anything she and everyone else did, but she certainly didn't "deliver" MN, or even CD-5, by herself. Also, AOC's positioning of MN and OH as somehow on equal planes regarding blue vs red is odd.

Lincoln project

And for folks who think it persuaded Republicans, I’d be interested to see data on how effective their videos and NYC billboards were at persuasion. Especially data that justifies $67,000,000.

It’s not that persuasion doesn’t work, it’s a Q of if this was persuasion at all Downwards arrow
Quote Tweet

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC

US House candidate, NY-14
· Nov 6
Replying to @AndrewBeatty
It’s not the general “Never Trump” message that’s a failure per se, but the kind of videos they made are pretty well shown to not be persuasive for a Never Trump message. Explicitly insulting anti-Trump content isn’t what gets people to move. If anything it digs their heels in.

Link to tweet

You can see by responses to some of these tweets that people didn't take them well.

I've been impressed by some of AOC's actions as congresswoman, but I don't think being on Twitter serves her well. I've seen more confrontational tweets in the past. She and her career could benefit from learning some tact.

[EarlG]

194. I'm not a fan of party infighting

That said, I think there is plenty of room to debate strategy, particularly if that debate is over things like campaign infrastructure and where and how to spend money, rather than over specific policies. And that seems to be what is going on here.

Right after the election a bunch of moderates came out and trashed progressives for costing the party seats. Kasich started going on about how we now need to listen to all the people who didn’t vote for Biden, as if we haven’t been forced to listen to them constantly for the last four years. I appreciate the Lincoln Project’s support in the election, but I trust them about as far as I could throw them, and I have a bad shoulder.

I’m just not that bothered about people like Ocasio-Cortez pushing back on that, particularly, as I said, when the pushback seems to be about how to best to spend money, not policy arguments.

Ultimately I’m a pragmatist who thinks that the best and only way to get Democratic policies passed is to win elections. There are many different takes on how to do that, and Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestions don’t seem like they should be immediately dismissed out of hand, to me at least.

[BainsBane]

202. It's not like we're talking about a pool of Democratic money

The Lincoln project spent their own money. In an alternate university, it might be nice to reallocate that money to grassroots groups, but it wasn't AOC's or the Democratic Party's money to spend. Regardless of whether one trusts those Republicans, they spent their funds to elect Biden, and I'm grateful for it. I do agree, however, that there should be discussion about how Dem money is spent. The party was swimming in it, but in races other than president, it didn't prove terribly effective.

I claim no expertise in what wins elections, but AOC's assumption that she knows how to win across the country is not based on a track record. Presidential Primary results indicate that self-described progressives can't even win a majority of Democrats. Winning in deep blue districts like the Bronx or Minneapolis is not the same as Ohio or Kentucky. She did acknowledge that on CNN today, but in her tweets she doesn't; in fact she suggests the opposite (eg. her tweet about the DNC not asking her how to win) and others in which she said progressive candidates won while moderates lost. That general ethos goes far beyond AOC. It was the a predominant narrative on DU after 2016.

I'm not suggesting that her views be dismissed out of hand. She clearly has a considerable following. Many like her firebrand approach. I myself have been impressed by some of her actions in congress but critical of others. I do wish that she and her opponents hadn't spent this post election week attacking one another, especially yesterday.

As somewhat of an aside, I was struck by Jim Clyburn's comments on CNN today. He talked about how he and John Lewis had a discussion about the slogan "defunding the police." They saw it as damaging to the police, and he criticized the general focus on sloganeering over substance. There is also a great deal of emphasis on other slogans. I don't think they serve the party or their causes.

[LiberalLovinLug]

154. Thank You.

Some folks in here define any criticism of the Democratic party, even by its own elected members, as traitorous.
I don't get that. How does a party grow if it can't self reflect? Especially after once again, not doing as well as we'd have liked in an election, not that I'm complaining. And we can be too easily triggered, one way or the other, by misleading headline writers.

[PatrickforO]

177. Ah, thank you!

We do indeed need to talk about how we can unify and improve our messaging.

Also, we need to do some deep canvasing around racism. AOC's full quote on this, from the actual NYT interview, is in my post down thread.

[mountain grammy]

193. Agree. Well said.

We absolutely do need better messaging.

[Steelrolled]

230. I put the Guardian in the category of "new media"

They aren't new, but new to extensive US reporting.

I haven't been impressed by "new media". This is why I have stopped watching cable news a few years ago.

[c-rational]

35. Well said. Bernie Sanders was just on MSNBC and he put it well, the progressives are an integral

part of the Democratic Party and should and will be represented in the Biden Administration. He sounded a good note. The article and prominence of the term "core competences" does not play well. It is used to divide and not as constructive criticism.

[ancianita]

38. It's important to watch for who does that spinning.

But you can see how this will now be spun into "AOC called the Democratic Party incompetent -- there she goes again!"

Any ideas who would do it?

[George II]

52. In that NYT interview, she was bashing Conor Lamb's "losing" campaign because he didn't spend....

....enough money on ads on Facebook?

Conor Lamb won.

I wish Democrats would spend more time taking on republicans than their fellow Democrats.

[EarlG]

67. I too wish Democrats would spend more time taking on Republicans than their fellow Democrats.

It would certainly be nice to see less friendly fire around here, wouldn't you agree?

Having not read the NYT article, when I watched Ocasio-Cortez on TV this morning it seemed to me that her message was that Democratic campaign operations need to do much better in the digital space. That was the takeaway I got from her appearance.

I just went and checked out the NYT article and she seemed to be saying the exact same thing there (my comments are in italics):

I think it’s going to be really important how the party deals with this internally, and whether the party is going to be honest about doing a real post-mortem and actually digging into why they lost. (Here she is talking specifically about Democrats who lost their seats in this election.) Because before we even had any data yet in a lot of these races, there was already finger-pointing that this was progressives’ fault and that this was the fault of the Movement for Black Lives. (Yes, this happened.)

I’ve already started looking into the actual functioning of these campaigns. And the thing is, I’ve been unseating Democrats for two years. I have been defeating D.C.C.C.-run campaigns for two years. That’s how I got to Congress. That’s how we elected Ayanna Pressley. That’s how Jamaal Bowman won. That’s how Cori Bush won. And so we know about extreme vulnerabilities in how Democrats run campaigns. (Is there any reason why we wouldn't want to listen to what our vulnerabilities might be?)

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the Year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet. (I actually think that it's a little disingenuous to spin this comment as her saying Conor Lamb lost. She's pointing at a Democrat in a swing seat and saying it's political malpractice that his campaign only spent $2000 on Facebook the week before the election. Then she's saying that *anyone* who doesn't have a strong Internet campaign in 2020 and then loses their seat should not be pointing the finger at other people. She ran the two thoughts together and it's being spun into something it isn't.)

And I’ve looked through a lot of these campaigns that lost, and the fact of the matter is if you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders. (Sounds like a pretty good point to me, what is wrong with this?)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/aoc-biden-progressives.html

Notice that in the excerpt above she's not saying a single thing about the candidates actual messaging or political positions -- she's not saying they were too conservative, that they weren't progressive enough -- she's talking about the fact that they could have done better with their Internet strategies.

[Susan Calvin]

98. Thank you. nt

[Bettie]

69. That's what I heard and saw too

but people see her name and immediately say she's wrong, no matter what she said.

Literally, she could say the sky is blue and there would be people screaming about how the sky is not "blue" but rather, pink or orange, because there are sunrises and sunsets.

[marble falls]

87. My opinions, only stated far better than I could ever do.

[hlthe2b]

14. Let's not buy into the pot-stirring with some of these out-of-context interviews...

I'm in a wait and see mode as none of the progressive wing is stupid and I do believe they see what is possible and what is not at this point. That said, I will NOT remain silent for another ugly ageist (and misogynistic, in some corners) attempt to push out Pelosi if she chooses to run for the speaker as occurred for a period in 2018.

[bucolic_frolic]

17. Republicans overperformed this year down ballot because of Trump on the ticket

More Republicans voted because some of them were there to vote for Biden, and cast down-ballot for Republicans.

We caught them by surprise in 2018. This 2020 election was 2018 with a competitive Republican turnout.

GA Senate races may be helped with no national candidate on the ballot.

AOC's progressivism doesn't play as well outside NYC. She will find that a hard lesson, and it is hurting the party nationally.

[Nasruddin]

75. I don't think so

More Republicans voted because some of them were there to vote for Biden, and cast down-ballot for Republicans.

We caught them by surprise in 2018. This 2020 election was 2018 with a competitive Republican turnout.

To your title, we need to understand why that happened. Despite your second point, it looks like about 10% more people voted for the Trump regime garbage than they did in 2016, even after 4 years of incredible nonsense stupidity and malevolence.

To your first point, we need to find that out for sure. It looks like it might be true in some states.
To your 2nd, we definitely did not. The Kavanaugh hearings mobilized a lot of Republican turnout. I think that's been quantified elsewhere. We did well in the House races but look at what happened in the Senate.

[LiberalLovinLug]

167. Excapt this....

"'Every. Single. One.': Ocasio-Cortez Notes Every Democrat Who Backed Medicare for All Won Reelection in 2020"

And every Dem who didn't.....lost.

Its always the same: "Progressives better swallow their disappointment in not getting the candidate they preferred and back the centrist nominee 100%" Which overwhelmingly they do, and also pound the pavement for them. What's their reward? Any perceived dip in election support, or loss, is blamed on them. And so at the same time the party veers further to the right, spending money against progressive challengers, thinking this is the way to entice more Republicans over. Rinse....repeat.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/07/every-single-one-ocasio-cortez-notes-every-democrat-who-backed-medicare-all-won

?itok=QZ8wN7mr

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

203. It looks like the list was cherry-picked.

"Every Dem who didn't back M4A lost re-election"?

There were more than ten Dems up for re-election, right? For example, Debbie Dingell was no fan of M4A, yet somehow hung onto her seat.

What is this list trying to illustrate?

[LiberalLovinLug]

205. That was my clumsy add on

AOC was just adding a few that don't back M4A that lost for comparison. Not all. That was my bad.

Her point remains, that every candidate that DID want M4A won their races. And not all that wanted it won.

From the same article,

As Common Dreams reported Friday, while corporate-friendly Democrats have continued to go to bat for the for-profit healthcare system that lavishes billions of dollars each year on insurance companies, for-profit hospitals, and pharmaceutical giants, a new poll this week—put out by Fox News no less—shows that 72% of all U.S. voters would prefer a "government-run healthcare plan." And the poll is far from an outlier, with numerous surveys in recent years showing this trend.

Baffles me that even though 72% of ALL Americans want M4A, and something like 90% of Democrats. How did that 10% of Democratic voter opposition to it happens to be on DU? Its such a slog in here just defending it. Why wouldn't the party embrace a policy that almost everyone wants? And could help so many people while saving the country millions. It couldn't be that top Democrats have stakes still in the private medical insurance field could it?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

222. M4A, or something similar, may be the goal of many Dems

How to get there is a different matter. I (a "centralist" bozo) think that we might get there incrementally. Strengthen ACA, restore the mandated insurance w/ penalties, make it a better plan than most private insurance.

Going "full M4A", butting heads with the insurance industry, will probably fail. The insurance industry has enough money to buy many politicians, including Dems. It would be like the passage of Medicare Part D, in which politicians were bought by pharmaceuticals.

Improving ACA will be tough enough, with R's controlling the Senate. Even if we get the two GA runoffs, we don't get the supermajority necessary to pass legislation.

I wish politicians had to use ACA for themselves and their families. Improvements would be fast and large. They're not personally motivated as they get very good insurance from their employer (you and I).

[quaker bill]

18. I generally agree with her

The only position that had merit in this election was pro-Trump and anti-Trump. Some D candidates got caught in the backwash and lost recently flipped seats in light red districts. I do not think any of the 'progressive' positions had anything to do with the results. Trump drove red turnout to record levels and blue incumbents in reddish districts were always going to be in trouble under these circumstances.

Trump will not be on the ballot in 2022. Take a deep breath and get back to work.

[BainsBane]

129. So why doesn't AOC move to KY or South Carolina

and run for Senator there since she knows so much about winning elections in red states?

[quaker bill]

232. This is unproductive

now is not the time to form a circular firing squad.

This election was never about ideology. Trump drove R turnout to new highs in red states. The line was that every democratic candidate was a communist and enemy of the people. It drove turnout in blue states and red states, it just did not make a meaningful difference in the blue states. Where I live, my D congessman had the closest race ever against a pro-Trump former AR-15 camo bikini model with no political experience. It had nothing to do with issues or ads as there was no debate and very few ads at all. She was just a pro-Trump gun toting bikini babe.

Debating issues is nothing but confusion. This was all about keeping or disposing of Trump. We kept the republic and it cost us a few seats. Settle down and start working on the GA runoff and planning for 2022.

[BainsBane]

233. tell that to AOC

and her fans. Maybe she could ease up on the flame throwing?

I agree with your assessment of the election.

[PatSeg]

24. Can we please just enjoy this major victory

for a few days before attacking fellow Democrats? Just now I heard Bernie Sanders on MSNBC. Before he even congratulated Joe and Kamala on their victory, he said, "I'm going to hold Joe accountable". Democrats are still basking in the joy of winning. Let this be a week of celebration, without a bunch of finger-pointing. There will be time enough for this kind of politics down the road. People are exhausted and want to embrace this moment.

[olegramps]

36. Personally, at this time silence is golden. I am a rational progressive. What is reasonable.

Just what can be logically accomplished is the path to accomplishment of major goals. Is it a matter of compromise or should we adopt the rigid position of the obstructionist Republicans?

[PatSeg]

73. "Rational progressive"

I like that and it pretty much describes me. Personally, I embrace most progressive ideals easily, but experience has shown me that we need to be realistic and rational in our expectations. Throughout history, most major change has come incrementally. At times, it may seem to have happened overnight, as with LBJ's Great Society. In reality, it took many years and persistent effort to reach that point.

The best recent example is the Affordable Care Act. So many of us, including myself were very disappointed, but it helped many people and was a step toward universal healthcare. If Obama could have given us a public option, he would have. Just because we don't get exactly what we want, doesn't mean we throw away the whole package.

Governing is a whole lot different than running for office, especially if you are the president, who has to represent the whole country. If someone wants more progressive policies, they need to focus on state and local races. That is where your change will manifest and if enough voters agree, it will work its way up.

We are a diverse party in an extremely diverse nation. Without compromise, we will accomplish pretty much nothing.

[bucolic_frolic]

37. Bernie is misreading what America voted for

but then his brand of Independent derives from his roots in NYC area, now the center of WFP

[PatSeg]

77. Yes, I think you're right

His voice is a much needed one, but it certainly isn't the only one. Meanwhile, a lot of people in this country are very happy and optimistic. Personally, I am really tired of being angry and combative. We have plenty of important fights ahead of us and I would rather focus on holding republicans accountable, not our next president.

[llashram]

41. BS-AOC et al the squad

are a small part of our way forward. I have learned to ignore their divisiveness and need to be overwhelmingly relevant to our Party.

[PatSeg]

80. "Oh very young, what will you leave us this time?"

Time will tell. Many very seasoned and competent politicians were once young and inexperienced as well. We'll see who among this crop of freshmen learn and survive. First big lesson might be, you can disagree with members of your own party, without making them the opposition. What stifles our progress is usually across the aisle and that is where our primary focus should be.

Their voices are needed and wanted, but Joe will be president.

[llashram]

92. ++this

[totodeinhere]

191. Getting rid of Trump is a major victory of course.

But that's about it. We lost seats in the House when we had been projected to gains seats. And we stand a good chance of remaining in the minority in the Senate when most pollsters had us taking the Senate. Those are not major victories.

[PatSeg]

192. Yes, we are all aware of that

and we know our job is not done, but after four hideous years, we need to take time now and celebrate the victories we have achieved.

[NurseJackie]

28. Jesus Christ.

[Docreed2003]

29. AOC is not the only person saying similar things

I've heard other progressives suggest that Dems lost in tight districts because they didn't "embrace progressive policies". Thom Hartmann was blasting this message every day since the election, even going so far as suggesting that Dems who lost had not embraced the "base of the Democratic Party" which he defined as workers and progressive causes.

I consider myself a full throated liberal, but damnit I refuse to knee cap this administration before it even starts. Some folks will not be happy unless our leaders do exactly what THEY think is the right policy moves. This is incredibly dangerous territory and, frankly, if we're not careful we'll be looking at a repeat of 2010 in 2022

[olegramps]

43. I agree totally. Let us pursue what is possible. That is why Biden won. A reasonable measured path.

[bucolic_frolic]

44. "2010 in 2022"

Yup. Biden will be demonized and muzzled from the right, and bled from the left, just like Obama 2010.

We need policies to sell to red county families too, that aren't based on racism and guns. Policies like opportunity, better wages, support for home-gig workers.

Biden-Harris promised a lot of very good things, but also inherited a mess that will stifle their initiatives, and an opposition determined to make them fail. Same ol' America.

[shotten99]

164. Wait until the right rebrands itself: We're going to miss the alt-right, the Tea Party and neo-cons.

[ancianita]

46. Knee capping can only happen if we let The Guardian use words like "truce" and presenting AOC

as anyone but a Democrat who believes in internal discussion.

There's no "truce" because internally, the Democratic Party hasn't been "embattled." That's a Republican framing that we don't have to accept from The Guardian.

[tiredtoo]

40. Too early to rain on our parade?

We did unite to eliminate trump but otherwise we did not do well in this election. Lost seats in the house, did not win in Senate, republicans gained governorships and state legislators. There are influential Democrats on this site, hopefully they make adjustments to our messaging. Currently we are still not getting through to at least 70 million Americans. Changes needed badly.

[NurseJackie]

45. At times like this, she'd be well-served to ask herself "WWND?" (What would Nancy do?)

The real problem, said Ocasio-Cortez, was that the party lacked "core competencies" to run campaigns.

Ridiculous!

[Chemisse]

118. LOL - WWND! I love it! n/t

[Roy Rolling]

47. The Curse of "More"

Asking for “more” when you haven’t yet been served is rude.

And more importantly, bites the hand that feeds Democratic politicians. What plays in her district may be deadly in other districts.

We’ve had four years of “shock leadership”, it doesn’t work for 350 million people. And if Democrats follow the Trump model and go rogue, rather than seizing control internally, the party will suffer the same fate.

“More” isn’t a plan.

[pazzyanne]

54. + 1 nt

[gab13by13]

48. I know this,

without Black Lives Matter we lose Georgia. BLM brought enthusiasm that brought out the black vote.

Try winning those 2 Senate seats coming up in Georgia by running as moderates.

Jason Johnson said it best on msnbc a couple of days ago. Republicans "are" the enemy.

[Duppers]

218. +100000. THIS ⬆⬆⬆⬆⬆

[KG]

57. I lulz'd

again.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

58. Hey lady, the results have not yet been certified! Maybe its PTSD from

previous elections, but I still at the back of my mind wonder "what if" the repubs pull something out of their bag of dirty tricks that stalls everything in court or makes the outcome less certain. Of course that looks highly unlikely at this point but... who knows. Can we present a cohesive front at least till the results are certified.

One core competency of a politician is good timing - knowing when to speak out and when to hold back.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

134. Speaking of core compentencies, one for elected reps is

GOOD TIMING. Knowing when to speak out, and when to hold back.

Also rutimentary knowledge of election process - results are not certified until various audits and if required recounts are complete.

[paleotn]

59. AOC, I love you, but....

shut the hell up please. You're not helping. I think she needs a strong mentor. Someone to help her learn and to focus her vast amount of positive energy. I hope that doesn't come off as condescending or paternalistic, but I've seen this scenario many times.
People need to learn how things actually work before they can really affect positive change. Otherwise, it just looks like flailing. Diminishing, accomplishes nothing and they either burn out or morph into a gadfly no one listens to. She's got to much talent for her to end up that way.

[eilen]

231. If she is anything like her cohort, she already thinks she knows everything

and we are just olds who need to keep up and be properly impressed with her brilliance.

[melman]

61. This is a great interview

I realize most people won't read it but it is.

[paleotn]

66. I did. I stand by my comment above.

[melman]

70. Did you read the full Times interview?

or just the Guardian article.

[identify]

101. Read the Times interview.

AOC makes great points. The interview fleshes out her argument a lot better than the Guardian article.

[paleotn]

187. I said I did.

[jalan48]

74. No worries we have the Kasich/Flake wing of the party to replace the Progressives. I'm

sure all those millions of quaking suburban soccer moms will flock to us now.

[DIVINEprividence]

84. Please stop this nonsense

We fucking won. What the hell is this?

[beachbumbob]

90. Really don't need this shit.

[rocktivity]

93. I haven't nicknamed her Cardi A Plus for nothing.

We're going to continue to go in circles as long as centrist/moderate/stealth DLC Dems are in thrall to their corporate overlords. Don't hate her because she's dutiful.


rocktivity

[BainsBane]

126. This isn't about corporate anything

It's about her.

[elleng]

96. 'a no-holds-barred, post-election interview with the New York Times,'? 'interpreted by the Guardian?

Why was it necessary? (I admire both 'papers,' but could live without waking up to this.)

(I also like AOC and Spanberger.)

[still_one]

103. My position is this squabbling from anyone should wait until after the Georgia runoffs

and the inauguration

At this time with everything going on, the only thing this does is distract from getting rid of trump ASAP, and a chance to control the Senate

After the runoffs and inauguration, let the debates begin within the Democratic Party

[elleng]

114. Yes but

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

Will Rogers

[still_one]

122. yup

[mountain grammy]

195. Of course.

[maddogesq]

97. Here in the goood 'ole U S of A, we have a really bad habit of...

over-analysis and pre-judgement before we know all the facts. I have seen this in the working world, my years of involvement in local yokal politics, family issues, and most notably among longtime friends that have walked away from me over my disdain for the Orange Menace.

Don't get me wrong: I like a lot of what AOC stands for, but she and others in Dem world are being way to quick to eat their own. For crissakesl there's 7 percent of the national vote yet to be counted, not to mention the usual amount of recounts, etc. that we endure every election cycle.

It is my sincere belief that with the exception of the SC senate race, the polls will not be all that off the mark--especially true for the presidential totals. And consider also that every four year--born over decades of evidence--there is this group of voters that only mark the box for president and don't really give a crap about parties and down-ballot races.

Sorry for the rant, but I am so sick of this eat-our-own crap.

[Eyeball_Kid]

99. No political campaign can be immune from criticism.

AOC is right, based upon what happened to Obama in his first term. Many analysts have mentioned that Obama's huge mid-term election loss to the GOP was due largely to the fact that Obama, Pelosi, and AG Holder all promoted the idea that the government should "look forward" rather than hold war criminals accountable for numerous atrocities. Enthusiastic Obama supporters at the time expressed their disillusionment by FAILING to show up at the polls in 2010.

So what AOC is intimating is that there must be an effort made by the Democratic Party to include a huge portion of voters into their future plans. And that means, among other issues, that Trump and his band of criminals must be brought to justice. It also means that the more progressive policies that were discussed during the campaign have to be legislated and executed.

[maddogesq]

105. I agree that Obama wasn't "lefty enough" on some things...

and yes, we should have prosecuted members of the BFEE. However, the country was in better shape then despite the Great Recession. Like 1932, the country is now one big dumpster fire and progressive policies will win out for the most part out of necessity.

As I said above, I think we should wait for public criticism until we count ALL the votes.

[heckles65]

100. "AOC, I love you, but...."

Last edited Sun Nov 8, 2020, 02:42 PM - Edit history (1)

+1

Alexandra, you've spoken up in favor of the slogan "defund the police." I thought from the start the slogan was stupid, a gift from God for the Right, and I'll repeat that. "Green New Deal," I'll agree that we haven't pushed that it's a list of suggestions and goals, while the Right has framed it as a manifesto that will be imposed across the board by Presidential Decree; and next thing you know an army of government bureaucrats are confiscating everyone's SUV's.

[Chemisse]

120. I so agree! Messaging is everything!

AOC may not like that politics is a game that has to be played. I don't either, frankly. But it is and she needs to gain some wisdom to go along with all that energy and can-do attitude.

[still_one]

102. We need to win a runoff in Georgia. We don't need this right now.

After the runoffs and the inauguration, let the debates begin within the Democratic Party

[relayerbob]

106. THIS!!

Focus, people!! Quit chasing shiny objects and circular firing squads

[still_one]

107. After the runoffs and inauguration, let the debates among Democrats begin

[maddogesq]

111. BINGO! NT

[Happy Hoosier]

108. She's won two races in a very blue district

And suddenly she’s a fuckin’ expert on national electoral politics

[wyldwolf]

109. Here we go again

After being completely decimated in 2018 and 2020, some "progressives" screaming for attention want burn it all down.

Nothing has changed since Eleanor Roosevelt, in response to "progressive" criticism of FDR, said:

"The ups and downs in peoples’ feelings, particularly on the liberal side, are an old, old story. The liberals always get discouraged when they do not see the measures they are interested in go through immediately. Considering the time we have had to work in the past for almost every slight improvement, I should think they might get over it, but they never do."

[LovingA2andMI]

113. She said she almost thought of not re-running again....

Maybe, she should have thought longer on that.

[BasicallyComplicated]

115. She is correct!

Truth is the Biden is already to this. The need for the center of the party to stop being scared of the base is a must for unity. The number of eye rolls on this post alone illustrates this. We must fight for something now and "just getting along with Republicans' can't be the answer.

[BainsBane]

119. Just when I was thinking she might be a good congresswoman

she has to do something like this.

She was on Twitter complaining that the DNC hadn't asked HER how to win an election. She said progressives and grassroots movements weren't being given credit for Biden's victory, despite the attention to Abrams and grassroots organizing of African American voters in places like Philly and Atlanta.

[TigressDem]

121. WHAT AN IDIOT!

BLOW THE FUCKING PARTY UP BEFORE WE ARE EVEN IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

WAY TO GO AOC.


WE are facing enough trouble from election fraud claims and a lack of faith in MSM and she goes into this bullshit.


Biden and Harris got MORE VOTES THAN ANY PREVIOUS PRESIDENTIAL TEAM, during a pandemic, against a narcissistic maniac and hordes of gun toting followers.


HOW THE FUCK IS THAT a lack of "core competencies" to run campaigns?

There are MUCH better ways to get to the PROGRESSIVE side of what needs to be done without becoming a stupid piranha eating our own.


IDIOT!



EDIT TO ADD:

Guess I am really as much a bitch as I always was no matter how calm and rational I try to be, but at least this is a safe outlet.

[Lonestarblue]

124. A couple of weeks ago, I remember a lot of us being excited by the turnout of young voters.

Would these young people, who care about climate change and progressive policies, really turn out again if they see the party appointing moderates who will do very little to advance the causes for which they voted?

I agree with the sentiments AOC expresses, as in she’s right in many ways because many of us have complained about the lack of a 50-state plan. She could be more private initially in approaching Biden, but remember that in this age of Trump people who wanted to get to him used the media to do it. AOC came on board at the same time and learned that lesson.

[BainsBane]

131. News flash

Biden is a moderate and was chosen as the primary candidate for that very reason. It's also why he won.

[3825-87867]

141. Yeah, he won. He's a moderate.

If you believe that,you aren't looking at why he won.
He won because of the Black Vote who was pissed off enough to want enough change RIGHT NOW to stop the BS they have to live through. And they came out in record numbers.
He won because of the "suburban Women" who are tired of the damned Male BS, glass ceilings and less pay for equal work.
These are the same who voted for Obama because they thought he would help them. Now they're hoping Biden will help them.

If he doesn't, they won't be back in 2022 or 2024.

Where were the White Democrats?

Moderate or not, if Joe and Kamala get nothing done the next 4 years regardless of the excuse of McConnell, there's no way that Black Americans or women will support them. They're as tired of waiting for some help and respect on their part as some of us Democrats are for meaningful change.

Just a little longer. We've been hearing that since Reagan.

It seems Democrats who are at least "making" it now, are the ones advocating to "just give us a little more time" so we don't piss off the Centrists and Republicans.

Those who aren't "making" it don't have the luxury of your time. Your Susan Collins Concern is noted.

[BainsBane]

146. I don't disagree with much of that

Particularly that African Americans delivered Biden/Harris the win. But they also chose him in the primary, when there were several other more "progressive" options. And I certainly hope that Biden/Harris are able to deliver substantially. McConnell, however, is going to make it difficult.

As for comparing me to Susan Collins, that's on you. I merely noted a statement of fact--that Biden is a moderate. If you prefer to call him something else, that's your business. Your argument about the pace of change is with yourself, not me.

[JI7]

196. Also "moderate" Biden has a better record on the environment than

"progressive" Sanders. Same with guns and immigration.

Biden should actually be described as liberal.

[BainsBane]

199. the progressives also vary greatly

on civil rights/police reform/defunding the police issues. AOC and Bernie Sanders, for example, aren't on the same page in regard to that. I don't know that labels like moderate and progressive tell you a whole lot about what people are going to accomplish. With Joe, we know he prioritizes getting things done.

[betsuni]

220. +1

[peggysue2]

148. The in-house fighting doesn't serve anyone

Yes, the outcome in the House and Senate was not what I or any Dem anticipated or wanted. The 'socialist' tag is hurled at every Democratic candidate regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. Trump tried using it on Joe Biden but it simply didn't stick because of who Biden is, what he's said and done over a long career. But for newer faces the meme could still have had clout, especially if they're mismatched to a particular constituency. It just confirms an existing bias.

One of the most damaging memes was 'defund the police,' which was something my friend brought up while wrestling with who she'd vote for, even though she detested Trump. Biden immediately tamped that meme down but I'm sure there were voters who ran with it anyway. Trump's campaign certainly turned it into a weapon. And we, Democrats, provided the club.

Think it's important to realize that not everyone follows politics the way we obsessively do. A single meme or message can stick more easily in groups where there's a strong tribal tilt toward the Republicans, even with an odious Donald Trump in office.

I'm sure there will be an autopsy of the election in the coming weeks, so we'll have a better idea of what went on, who and where the most persuadable voters were and what messaging left the worst mark. My money is on 'defund the police' after the civil unrest we witnessed. Doesn't matter who was on the right or wrong side of things, the meme itself scared a lot of voters like my friend.

And frankly, it was just dumb because if you have to explain the meaning, content, intent, you're losing the messaging war.

But the big thing? Trump will be leaving. And we get to fight another day.

[Piratedog]

125. Everywhere is not like her districy

She can run hard left in her district but not every candidate can do that. Let’s see if she can win state-wide or larger before she spouts off what the party should or shouldn’t do.

[NurseJackie]

128. Exactly. Thank you.

[westerebus]

163. Rep. Spanberger defeated Tea Party prince David Brat

Brat came to national prominence when he defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the district's 2014 Republican primary.

Spanberger was first elected in 2018 after defeating incumbent David Brat (R) 50% to 48%.

Heading into the 2018 election, the 7th District had been held by Republicans since 1971.

The hate ads against Rep. Spanberger were non-stop on any media platform you could use or hear.

The district was drawn to be a safe red district.

[BainsBane]

135. AOC won in a deep blue district

as did my congresswoman Ilhan Omar. These are districts in which the ONLY competition is in the primary. For AOC to pretend she knows about running in red districts and states is absurd. That she doesn't see the difference says a lot.

[LizBeth]

142. People cheered we lost Doug Jones and he is very frustrating. His loss didn't help us any.

[BainsBane]

147. Did they really?

SMH. We lost the Senate with him.

[LizBeth]

153. That is the issue with Sanders style progressive. A lack of forward thinking which is kinda ironic

in itself with the word progressive.

[BigOleDummy]

139. We

We as a party have drifted farther right with each election it seems to me. I kinda agree with AOC tbh. FDR ran on major ideological changes and he seemed to do ok. The days of centrist politicians are gone. Hell, DDE couldn't be elected TODAY as a Democrat much less the Republican he was. Look at the platforms each party advanced then....

Republican : [link:https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956|

Democrat : [link:https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1956-democratic-party-platform|

How far to the right must we as a party go? The right wing crazies have just gotten MORE crazy and rightist while we, to appear more centrist have to move to the right to make up for it? When does it stop? Like it or not if we want to survive as a viable party NEED to take up the mantle of progressiveness. Progressiveness doesn't mean moving to the right to fill the void left by the looney tunes who edge closer each election to outright fascism.

[BainsBane]

162. FDR didn't first run on reform

He was far more conservative and far more focused on Wall Street. Working people's protests, farmer's protests, and other popular mobilization FORCED him to carry out what became known as New Deal Reforms.

JFK dramatically lowered the tax rate on the rich and was a massive cold warrior. There was nothing leftist about him.

The Dem. party is not further right today. Your comment is demonstrably false. Think about the Reagan era. How left was the party then? Bill Clinton emerged precisely because a liberal Democrat couldn't win in that political climate.

The very notion of breathing the word socialism would have been an anathema in the 20th and early 21st century party. In fact, it would ensure you lost your job and may even have gotten you locked up.

This endless claim that every year the Democratic Party is more conservative is without historical foundation. What in your link to the 56 platform would be more leftist than today? This is at the very time that Democrats were engaged in a witch hunt to root out communists.

The argument would make sense if you were talking about the 90s or even early 2000s, but not today.

[frazzled]

140. Tell her to move to Nebraska, or even

Maine or Iowa or Wisconsin or North Carolina or Ohio or Arizona, and see how her self-proclaimed core competency in running a campaign works there. What works in her tiny, specific corners of the Bronx, Queens, and Riker’s Island does not translate to other areas, and her loud voice hurts candidates in those other places, whether she wants to admit it or not. She needs to listen to and learn from her orders and betters, like James Clyburn.

Myopia is a treatable condition. The world is not just how you see it through your self-reflective lens.

What she needs to understand is that her positions redound onto Democratic candidates in precarious swing and red states, whether she means to or not.

[DeminPennswoods]

149. The Democratic Party invariably tries to run

candidates who are essentially republican-lite. They don't inspire Dems and Republicans vote for the "real thing", whoever their nominee is.

My rep Conor Lamb is a great example. He runs away from Dem ideas and is about as milquetoasty as is it gets. Yet he got little to no cross-over support on Tuesday because the Rs voted for his opponent who they knew was a real Republican. You know who bailed his butt out? Us liberal Democrats.

In these conservative areas, give voters a real contrasting choice, not a Dem candidate who is nearly unrecognizable from his or her opponent.

Some here at DU don't realize it or want to admit it, but AOC and her generation of activists is the future of the Democratic party. She speaks about issues in language people understand and to which they can relate.

[LiberalLovinLug]

157. Couldn't have said it better myself

[moriah]

176. I wish it'd turned out that way when Blanche Lincoln was primaried.

There simply aren't enough "liberal Democrats" here, in the sense of "nationally liberal" instead of "liberal for Arkansas".

When given the choice between a "real Republican" and a "real Democrat", Arkansans chose the "real Republican" and have not looked back. (I hate that MFer... soooo bad.... Boozman can eternally and forever kiss my ass and by that i mean both my mascot and my ass).

It's SO sad to me, because I used to feel like even if my vote for President wasn't doing shite, at least my vote was putting up people who would vote with the Democratic party when it came down to final votes. And I mean, Arkansas isn't an entirely lost cause -- yes, we have a ton of God and Guns people and that's how you get core constituencies for Republican wins, but we also have a lot of very poor people for whom Democratic policies, or at least an implementation of them that is workable here, are popular.

For example -- we took the money for the Medicaid expansion. However, our Medicaid system was *terrible* for adults, and adults on Medicaid because of being on SSI can tell you how it is. Most primary care doctors would only accept Medicaid for kids (our version of SCHIP), and specialists were even harder to find. The amount paid out to providers by the program is extremely low, and the few doctors who took Medicaid here were afraid they were going to see massive patient influxes and not be able to give them care.

So instead of risking either raising Medicaid reimbursement rates beyond what the state could be certain they could pay no matter what changes might occur to federal dollars, they paid an insurance company to take most of the bet for them, with that expansion money. I was still enrolled in traditional Medicaid until my 24 months was up and I was eligible for Medicare, because the way the insurance company limited their risk was a questionnaire. I'd been hospitalized in the last year, so I got traditional Medicaid. The adults who were relatively healthier were given 0 cost sharing plans on the Exchange.

It was that fear of just how bad our Medicaid system was that made a "public option" scary to Blanche's constituents. The ones who were poor knew just how overwhelmed our system was, and were hearing lots of legitimate stuff from doctors about how they do have to pay their bills, and some threatening to leave practices.

And what we finally did was the exact opposite of a "public option" -- yes, insurance companies are likely making a mint off of healthy Arkansans and those who are truly sick are still dealing with just 5 GPs outside of the UAMS system (the medical hospital's clinics, where they'll treat anyone and many Arkansans know they will never get an Arkansas income tax return again, but they needed the care) that take Medicare for adults in our largest county.

Yet it did mean that people got covered, and at minimum coverage levels, with 0 copays, 0 premiums, 0 deductibles. They had better access to doctors, because while not all docs here were gonna accept Exchange insurance either, they did bump up the billing to a little better than what traditional Medicaid would pay for services. And that's what mattered to Arkansans, and why we've fought to keep our weird version of the Medicaid Expansion.

------

Yes, I am looking to 2022, when we have a governor's race, we have Boozman up for re-election/hopefully defeat if someone will just RUN AGAINST THE MAN. etc. I know that the people in our state cannot continually vote against their better interests.

But after the attempt to primary Blanche and get a "better Democrat" gave people Boozman, and ever since Arkansas's gone steadily red with who we've set up.... I don't know. I just know surely "god and guns" can't matter more to people than "feeding their kids", and our food insecurity rate is so high you would think that would motivate some people.

[cstanleytech]

156. I think progressive messaging probably did play a part in some of the losses but

in that it was not tailored in a way that would resonate better with people in some areas where we did not win like Kentucky.
For example rather than attack Moscow Mitch directly they should have pressed home how they would help those impacted by the change over from coal to other sources of energy make their lives better compared to what Mitch has done for them which is nothing since the changeover from coal is probably going to happen.

[Historic NY]

159. I guess she worked to help Max Rose?

[tishaLA]

161. Saw her on CNN and some criticisms are more than legit

Like the fact that Democrats are doing much worse than repubs at digital outreach, for example, and that we need better engagement with Latinx voters.

OTOH, I also think Jim Clyburn, who was on the same show, has a point about rethinking the "defund the police" movement and giving it a new name or figuring out a different framing for it so it sounds less threatening. That said, as AOC pointed out, we don't even have the data in yet about why Democrats lost House seats, so it'd be good not to be so knee jerk about the solutions to the problems until we know what voters regarded as actual problems.

[bluestateboomer]

165. The so called centrists

seem to have open up the discussion first. The progressives would have to respond. The establishment tried to get the jump on party in that phone conference.

[BlueWavePsych]

166. Let's win Georgia Senate runoffs first!

Now is not the time for in-fighting.

[58Sunliner]

168. I love AOC. I agree with almost everything she said except,-

I don't think she should be wasting her breath on "core competencies". She needs to have specifics. One is a constructive approach. The other not so much. Spanberger suffers from a gerrymandered district. Living right next to her district I can understand her frustration. I also saw her ads and they were the same ads she ran last time with a nod to covid and the plight of small businesses. I thought that was short-sighted and stagnant. In a district like that it is tempting to stay in the center lane. I thought that her campaign tried to offend no one. But given the offensive policies and politics does that really address reality? It gives the opponent in that race more validity, not less.
AOC has no experience in dealing with these areas that are problematic due to being heavily gerrymandered. What plays in a safe blue district isn't the same as parts of backwater VA.

[PatrickforO]

170. Hmm. AOC once again makes statements that are controversial...

But wait.

I've been in leadership positions for decades, and usually when someone gives me criticism like this, my first inclination after the obligatory calming breaths, is to look within and ask myself what I'd done, or not done, to earn that perception, and what I could do moving forward to change that perception.

For those of you who, like me, prefer a more complete treatment of what people say than is usually given in an article about an article, here is the link to the actual interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/aoc-biden-progressives.html

I take the NYT, so it let me right in. You might hit a paywall.

So, what is her criticism really, when you get beyond the wedges the media loves to pound in? Because hey, dividing us and highlighting controversy is big business that produced big dollars in revenue for all the media outlets.

It seems to me that this is the approach we should take - look at what she actually said, and use her points to improve. I'm not talking ideology here, either. I'm talking technique - the presence online.

I believe the Biden campaign was outstanding in its discipline. Trump really could have won if so many people hadn't worked their hearts out.

But the down ticket candidates? Maybe we should review those campaigns through the lens of their presence and influence. AOC is bringing up some good points, although in a somewhat haphazard way, about online presence, and increasing the weight of our influence on these social media platforms. Obama got us off to a good start, for sure, and AOC is quite accomplished. And, look what Biden is done - his transition team already has a website. That is all great, and definitely moving in the right direction.

But, to AOC's point, not all candidates have this sophisticated view of how social media might best be used. For those of you on here who are interested in that, check out HBO's Agents of Chaos (here's the link: https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/agents-of-chaos).

This chilling documentary talks about how Russia interfered with our 2016 election - not that they did, but HOW they did. One of the biggest points you'll see if you watch, is that the social media all ties together, and we have to have similar messages on all platforms so that our influence can be maximized.

Now, before you tell me, "Oh, we already did that," I'm going to suggest that not all of our candidates did. Locally in my state, we have some really awesome Democrats - really solid people - who are terrible campaigners as can be seen by their record of loss after loss even though they HAVE good messages. Why? That is AOC's point, I think - they don't have the influence on social media.

We can learn from this, and we really do need to delve into why we lost some seats and why the blue tsunami didn't happen like we hoped. Oh, I know the Republicans suppressed possibly hundreds of thousands, or even millions of votes, but on the ground locally, when it comes to GOTV, it may we are spotty in how we conduct local races.

The other really, really good point AOC made was that Trump gained in the white vote. I mean, he INCREASED his performance among white women by 3%. How the hell can this even be? And yet he did. AOC's most telling statement in this interview, to me, was:

We need to do a lot of anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country. Because if we keep losing white shares and just allowing Facebook to radicalize more and more elements of white voters and the white electorate, there’s no amount of people of color and young people that you can turn out to offset that.

[Ninga]

172. It doesn't matter. Her extensive words are flying around for our detractors to reframe and not

only to be used against us but used to divide us.

Winning is everything. Winners write the rules, the policy. Losers sit on the side line and grouse.

I so love AOC’s command of thought and language. In my view however, experience is the best teacher. In my view, she needs much more.

To take her own party to the verbal woodshed, even in a minor way in public, is akin to a spouse telling their spouse to “shut up” in front of a large gathering.

She could be damn more powerful if she develops an ear to her messaging that is savvy and makes all listeners think, as opposed to her base.

[NurseJackie]

180. That's a very astute post, Ninga! She'd be wise to ask herself "What Would Nancy Do?"...

That's a very astute post, Ninga! She'd be wise to ask herself "What Would Nancy Do?" (or what would Nancy say) and just pause for a moment and think how to affect change rather than creating an atmosphere of distrust, suspicion and resentment. Such things only serve to divide and weaken the party. It serves no good purpose at all.

Some wisdom is gained through one's personal mistakes and (hopefully) learning from those mistakes. Other wisdom is gained through being able (and willing) to watch and learn from others, and to do/say things that emulate the most wise and most successful and most respected of our peers and colleagues. --- That's why Nancy Pelosi is such a good role model.

[Ninga]

184. Yes. Leader Pelosi has an admirable level of savvy along with an uncanny ability to read her

audience and not over extend her stay. She has allowed time to serve her well. Never has it been more evident then in the past 4 years.

I am always amazed when a public speaker is not cognizant of losing the audience. Brilliant speakers sense when to wrap it up. Audience glancing at their phones or wrist watches is an early clue.

So it follows in the world of politics. The first and only test of leadership becomes evident when people follow you.

[Redleg]

178. It is way too soon for an election "post-mortem"

My advice is to let the legitimate poli-sci experts do their thing first. Their approaches tend to be more empirical and more thorough in regard to this sort of thing. Right now everything we are hearing is heavily colored by emotion rather than by logic and fact.

[ucrdem]

186. It seems Conor Lamb has been reelected . . .

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214506737

[TexasBushwhacker]

190. We really need to get on the gerrymandering issue

Since we've just had a census, now is the time to jump on it. Beyond that, we really have to look at it on a case by case, race by race, basis. We just lost District 22 in Texas, Tom Delay's old gerrymandered district. The Democratic candidate, Sri Kulkarni, was lesser known, but had plenty of money and was well qualified.

The Republican candidate, Troy Nehls, was better known, having been sheriff of Ft Bend county, and painted Kulkarni as a RADICAL. The district is evolving and becoming less white, down to 42%, and it's likely to continue in that direction, but nothing is going to favor the Democrats as long as it's gerrymandered. That is what needs to be fixed FIRST.

[lefthandedskyhook]

197. Brave insight from AOC as usual

The Biden campaign did a lot of things right. Were they perfect? That's a tall order! It is more than appropriate to ask why we did not easily take the senate majority & expand our lead in the house given the utter failure of agent orange.

Some here need to be reminded of these wise words:

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

― Theodore Roosevelt


It is also our right to criticize AOC for what its worth. The bottom line to me though is that we got rid of one monster but still have others running full steam ahead. I hope we do not lose sight of our shared goals by calling AOC an "idiot" as has been done in this thread. As Kamala put it so well: 'Now the real work begins, the hard work'. To me this means many things including improving our lot in 2022

[LudwigPastorius]

200. AOC: 3 years of elections and campaigning, with a 3 - 0 record.

Joe Biden & Kamala Harris: a combined 69 years of elections and campaigning, with a 20 -5 record.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has every right to criticize her party, however I think she should recognize the years of experience that the Heads-of-the-Party-Elect bring to the table. She should also know that, right now, the success of a Biden/Harris administration (and the Party's chances in the 2022 midterms) hinges more on those two Senate runoff races in Georgia than it does on who Joe names to his cabinet.

Joe could give Eugene Debs, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Noam Chomsky, and Samuel Gompers all cabinet posts, but they wouldn't determine how the Senate votes on pending legislation and presidential appointees over the next two years.

[LudwigPastorius]

211. "...he can't include Dem progressives...?"

Nobody has said he can't include progressives, including him.

AOC's beef seems to be with House whip, James Clyburn. But, Clyburn never said Biden shouldn't listen to, or incorporate, progressives.

What he said, was that simple-minded sloganeering can derail progressive candidates, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other progressive protests.

As a casual observer of this year's political ads in Texas, I can tell you that Republican attack ads led with big banners saying "Candidate X wants to DEFUND THE POLICE!!". And, that shit worked.

You may not like Clyburn, but his experience on the ground in the past. with the civil rights movement, certainly gives him the credibility for us to consider that what he is saying might be right.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/08/james-clyburn-defund-police-slogan-democrats-polls

[hamsterjill]

209. I think she invigorates the conversation

I also think she needs a few more years under her belt before she starts complaining about how things are done.

[burrowowl]

214. The DNC needs some shaking up!

[flamingdem]

219. Clyburn pointed to "Defund the Police" as the problem

I think there can be agreement on that. That was foolish.

I think she has something to say about using the internet and grass roots organizing. Somewhere in the middle a conversation must happen.

There's time until the midterms.

[Demsrule86]

234. Trashed the thread...with an important run off in GA, I question her timing.

[AmericanCanuck]

236. She is gunning for a state-wide election

Either against Cuomo or Schumer and is trying to position herself.

She will soon realize that winning anything beyond a dark blue district is out of her reach.

Tweeting incendiary things gets headlines but never votes.