Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called for Democrats to elect “brawlers” who fight for the working class to counter GOP power and oppose policies endorsed by figures like Elon Musk.
Speaking alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders in Las Vegas, she criticized Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for not filibustering a GOP spending bill and labeled the decision a “tremendous mistake.”
Ocasio-Cortez urged voters to support candidates willing to take bold stances.
She continues her “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Sanders across Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona.
Yes. Go primary Chuck out of office and make somebody with a fucking spine the minority leader.
And DNC says it’s time to just be turtles.
Please let dnc finally clean house
Turtles is too kind. It’s more like fainting goats
Never will. We need a new party, not a new democrat
No, we need to take over the Democratic party. If you realistically want to actually win as opposed to grandstand.
And how do you propose we wrest control of the Democratic Party from its corporate overlords and put the power in the hands of the working class?
Seems about as farfetched as a new party imo, but I’d love to hear a realistic plan.
Trump managed to do something similar to the GOP while being a gibbering idiot and saying the evil shit his base of deplorables wanted to hear. So I dunno, maybe say the shit the working class wants to hear?
Having leftists actually JOIN the Democratic and work to promote their own vision would be a huge start. I’ve noticed a crisis online where very leftist or progressive people are constantly talking about “those Dems” and what “they’re” doing.
We start by making the conversation about “us” and not “them”. Take some personal responsibility. It astounds me that leftists et al are so butthurt about the lack of their preferred ideology within Democratic ranks when hardly anybody with said ideology are making themselves known within Democratic ranks.
We do what MAGA did. Co-opt existing party infrastructure around a populist, progressive leadership and message.
Have you actually tried to do this?
Personally, I’ve tried to reform the democratic party from the inside for the last 20 years, and I’ve given up, I think it’s a foolheardy endeavor.
Corporate interests are thoroughly entrenched in the party at every level. The democratic party has set up so many structural hurdles that make it nearly impossible for a progressive challenger to have a shot.
Take a small example: when I was volunteering for two different local progressive challengers, they both had extreme difficulty doing basic campaign things like printing flyers, road signs, pamphlets etc. Why? Because the Democratic Party has a explicit policy of blacklisting any vendor who aids a progressive challenger. No print shop would print our flyers.
There are so many structural hurdles like this set up by the Democratic Party, I would encourage you to volunteer and find out how bad it is for yourself.
I’ve been volunteering with the Dem party since high school, I’ve worked campaigns and elections at every level in MA, CT, and CA. What I learned is that hardly anyone at all participates. The truth is neither you nor I nor anyone else has actually witnessed a truly engaged and empowered democratic party at the PEOPLE level.
Leadership remains because people refuse to engage.
We need to elect communists and socialists from 1910 you know the ones world governments were so goddamn scared of they started multiple wars to try to eradicate the ideal as a whole. Didn’t work but they certainly tried anyway.
There’s a saying that “you can’t shoot an idea.”
Either this or we seriously need to consider making anew 3rd party.
The Dems don’t have to reinvent themselves, and they don’t have to lie, cheat, steal, commit treason, and be pedophiles to beat the MAGANazis, they just have to play HARD BALL, and make the MAGANazis fight for every single inch of ground.
Yes, exactly this! This is all we ask for have a backbone, have a voice, and stand up.
Many people, especially MAGA Nazis have been misreadinng the latest polls that show dissatisfaction with the Democrats. They think that just because we’re pissed at Democrats, we must be supporting MAGAs, and nothing could be further from the truth.
The real answer is that people are pissed at Democrats for decades of being weak, spineless weenies, to the point where the worst possible version of the Republican party, the MAGA Nazis, were finally able to take over our country. But just because people are angry at Dems, doesnt mean they have accepted MAGA Nazism. They just want the Dems to finally grow spines and giant brass balls and FIGHT BACK!
But let the MAGA morons believe they are attracting the Dems to their side. I am seeing signs that some Dems are acting stronger, others will follow, and soon the polls will start rising, and then MAGAWorld will start to panic. Thats when they may get squirelly and really start trouble.
Stay Alert, America needs more Lerts.
Agreed 100%
Why don’t we just call a new party the free beers during football party and just snatch up all these idiots real quick to win. We win then we give some free beers out the first game then blame the right for making it illegal because they think beer is socialist so no one can have any for free to keep winning. Over and over. Meanwhile we get some healthcare and college.
You don’t have to thank me for my genius steal it and claim it was yours to begin with. You’re welcome.
This is such a great idea that I came up. Thank you, me. 😃
She’s RIGHT! Which is why I’m GLAD the DNC is tapping Known Fighters JOE BIDEN and KAMALA HARRIS to come back!
Some people under 50 yo would be good, do we have age distrubution data for the dem party?
Genuine question to our American friends:
How come Bernie, AOC, Crockett etc. don’t start their own party? They can pledge to vote with the dems where it makes sense and they have enough political capital to continue getting elected. Seems like an ideal time to create a 3rd (actual alternative) party, no?
It might force the republicans to create an alt right and centre right party too which I feel would erode some of the alt right because from experience most Americans are not that alt right.
Our first past the post +presidential election system means that a third party, particularly a splinter third party will just pull votes from the not as terrible party, strengthening the opposition parties electoral strength. Funding third parties in close races to split the opposition has been a strategy of both Republicans and Democrats.
That’s not quite the reason. The system is setup to vote on individuals. The idea of voting for party is propaganda from the parties. Third party candidates in the modern system tend to fare poorly because the districts have been made unmanageably large and require multi million dollar advertising budgets. Which is money that comes from the party and party endorsed fundraising.
Because it leaves open the potential for a Democrat v. Republican v. New Party election (at whatever level, not just presidency) and that’s likely to improve Republican chances. Where the progressive candidates are strong it’s better for them to beat the centrist in a one on one then take on the Republican with their center-left voters. Where they’re weak the most a three way contest does is maybe make the right win over the center.
There are many many races without real Republican challengers where a new party could challenge moderate Democrats from the left, but in those situations the Democratic primary is the real vote and you might as well just win there.
The potential is there, but I doubt it will come to that. The same potential was there for the Tea Party to spoil GOP races. Instead, the GOP became the Tea Party.
We need a Guillotine Party to drag the Democrats back to the people.
The Tea Party ran in Republican primaries. They aren’t a new party.
They aren’t a new party.
A distinction without a difference. Whether they are a new party, or a sect within the old GOP isn’t particularly relevant. The relevant part is that the GOP adopted their positions and rhetoric.
That’s the whole thing this is all about. A new party competes against the main party in general elections. Otherwise, whatever the name says, it’s just a caucus. The Democrats already have the Justice Democrats recruiting progressives to run in primaries. They also have the Working Families Party, which is closer to a real party than either the Justice Democrats or the Tea Party, but they still don’t really compete with the Democrats outside of primaries (they go “head to head” in New York, but usually to represent votes for the same candidates).
Bernie already runs as an Independent!
Can’t say for sure, but I’d wager it’s because of campaign finance. Corpos fund campaigns and a pro worker 3rd party would be inherently against corporate interests. Anyone who tried to break away from the democrats would end up without any funds and new democrats would run against them with vastly more money.
It’s also worth considering that they’re probably not that popular. Most of the population are disengaged from politics and tend to just vote with the people in their communities. Text based social media tends towards a leftist bias and probably makes them seem more popular than they really are.
Because USA has never been a democracy in any meaningful sense.
State laws make ballot access difficult. Every state has its own rules and most of them are meant to exclude 3rd parties. Neither Dems nor MAGAts like competition.
Because we have this stupid two party system. Its the second worst thing about our constitution (the first being the presidency)
A couple reasons.
Bernie and the Democrats are going to align 90% of the time (just like with Manchin on the other end of the spectrum). Basically, the other party is anti-America. So being pro-America makes you a de facto Democrat.
Since we don’t have Ranked Choice Voting or any other system that is conducive to multiple parties, primaries allow directionally aligned candidates to decide who is most popular to avoid splitting the vote. This isn’t necessary if a candidate has enough support for it to not matter. (Bernie is an independent in congress, but he ran as a Democrat in his presidential runs.)
They kind of are in a different party: the Democratic Socialists of America isn’t on the ballot but Bernie runs as an independent who caucuses with Democrats. If Democrats wanted to, they could run a candidate against him. But to form a truly independent third party, you’d just be splitting the votes on the left.
As you get to state and national elections where much of the nation is pretty evenly divided, running as a third party all but ensures the Republican will win (even without winning a majority in most states, though a few use different systems). In essence, our system requires coalitions to be made before the election rather than after.
You could compare it to UK elections. In 2024, Labour won 33% of the votes but won 411 of 650 seats because the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and regional parties split the rest.
If Democrats wanted to, they could run a candidate against him.
They actually couldn’t really. Bernie wins the Democratic primary in his state then just runs as an Independent. He’s the chosen representative of the Vermont Democratic Party.
I stand corrected. Everyone listen to 👆that poster.
My state (Louisiana) has a different election system — actually several and it’s currently a confusing mess — and I’m not really familiar with Vermont’s primaries.
In Louisiana, the November election is actually technically a primary. If no one gets 50%, the top two candidates (regardless of party) have a run-off in December. For various reasons over the years, some elections were changed to be more like first past the post with closed party primaries. Others weren’t. And now, it’s just a messy hodgepodge. (And to top it all off, our governor and many other elections are “off-year” so it doesn’t align with federal elections. We’re voting on Amendments on March 29th. It’s idiotic.)
I think voting on amendments and having run-offs is great. Wish we had that here.
Money. They wouldn’t be able to fundraise the money they need to get messages out to people. Then there’s the depressingly large number of Americans who vote by party in a system meant for voting by individual. They would lose funding and then get smashed in the elections because nobody knew the party was even there.
Thanks for the response. That’s the thing - I feel like they’re big enough personalities on their own to get elected. AOC did it initially on a shoestring is my understanding and she’s well past the point of having voter recognition.
New party from scratch would be easier than turning this ugly ship around.
[Narrator: “Indeed, it was not.”]
The Dems don’t just need “brawlers” but they also need people willing to get dirty. If you know pro wrestling, Eddie Guerrero at one time had a gimmick that included the slogan “I lie, I cheat, I steal” that is the mindset democratic operatives have to get into and party members have to at least accept, if they want any chance of beating the GOP.
The Dems don’t seem to understand that there is no bottom for how low the GOP will go, and that means they are going to have to get dirty and do and say things that will haunt them, but it will be for the good of the entire country and if they truly care about democracy and this country they will fall on that sword and dive head first into that mud pit.
*Sorry for the run on’s and ranting… ADHD stream of consciousness.
Personally, I think the problem the Democrats have is that they’ve become corrupt. Becoming more corrupt isn’t going to help them.
They rationalise taking bribes from corporations as “fund raising” and say that it’s the only way to win elections. Well you know who wins elections without lobbying? Bernie and AOC. Both run through publicly funded campaigns., and this is why they can represent the needs of the people and not corporations and billionaires.
All very true, it would probably take a lot of new blood coming in who would be willing to not only fight dirty but also rely on public small dollar donations.
Reject the corporate bribery, build a true grass roots machine, and ultimately reject and actively fight against the current party leadership.
Until they’re willing to take off the gloves and directly and publicly attack corrupt Democrats, this is just noise. I’m done voting for Democrats. We need a new party.
I interject reality into my wants. The reality is, and this cannot be understated, we must unite behind WHOEVER has a chance of beating the fascist oligarchy. Priorities people, priorities. Your statement, when enacted is partly how we arrived where we are now.
Edit: Just to be clear. I absolutely agree with her and I also agree with you. I just will not make it a hard line. Putting our votes behind a losing ticket does not help in this situation since we may have already passed the point of no return in terms of our votes counting. If we don’t unite now, I for one am convinced that will be our last chance, IF it even exists.
Where was this brawler when genocide joe was genociding?
Elect me to the House or Congress and I will personally throw fists at any GOP aligned member around me.
My SO and I have joked that while I could never win a local election, if I ran, I might just be able to get within punching range of our shitty representative.
I’d toss in $20 for your campaign, and I don’t even know where you live.
Just try to livestream the smackdown, ok?
Fuck yeah!
Meanwhile, the party leadership is thinking “maybe bigger paddles next time?”
I get a chuckle with how in the US, physical violence is used as a metaphor for nearly everything
