Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[lpetrich]

Elizabeth Holtzman had scored an AOC-like victory in 1972, defeating a long-time incumbent in a surprise upset.

Livestream: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the New Left - interview at SXSW. She discusses capitalism vs. socialism, and she states

But for me, when I think about what those definitions are, capitalism, to me, it’s an ideology of capital. It puts capital — the most important thing is the concentration of capital, and it means that we seek and prioritize profit and the accumulation of money above all else, and we seek it at any human and environmental cost. That is what that means. And to me, that ideology is not sustainable, and cannot be redeemed.

She doesn't want every business nationalized, and she says that it's the reverse that we are suffering from.

That’s why the emphasis in democratic socialism, is on democracy. It’s not about, you know — it’s just as much a transformation about bringing democracy to the workplace, so that we have a say, and we don’t check all of our rights at the door every time we cross the threshold into our workplace. Because at the end of the day, as workers and as people of society, we’re the ones creating wealth, not a corporate CEO. It’s not a CEO that’s actually creating 4 billion dollars a year. It is the millions of workers in this country that’s creating billions of dollars of economic productivity a year. Our system should reflect that.

Capitalism apologists get very indignant when anyone suggests that -- they often have the theory that we find in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", that it's only the ones at the top who are important. Then something I find very enlightening:

So the way I have conversations with people of opposing beliefs is I don’t try to convince them of anything. So that’s the first thing. Stop trying to win people over. Stop trying to enter a conversation thinking that you’re going to “a-ha” them into changing their mind. ...

Then she described how some people have later changed their minds, from thinking over what she had said. I have more detail in AOC on How to Argue

AOC pointed out that when JFK proposed landing astronauts on the Moon, that it involved stuff that had not invented yet. That's pretty much correct if one counts stuff that was built or demonstrated, but NASA had been doing feasibility studies on crewed missions to the Moon before JFK's 1961 announcement. As to automation, she likes it, but she recognizes that it will displace a *lot* of people. "If we approach our solutions to our system and start entertaining ideas like that, then we should be excited about automation because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing and investigating in the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in."


A bit of a setback back home: Progressive Queens DA candidate concedes in tight race | TheHill - Tiffany Cabán was behind Melinda Katz by 60 votes.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Tackles New York Inequality - YouTube - awfully interesting. First a visit to her apartment as of spring 2016. It had a "Bernie 2016" sticker on its door and it was very cramped. She talked about luxury apartment buildings that don't have much occupancy, and she suspects that real-estate developers have been getting what they want because they have been financing many politicians' careers with campaign contributions.

Ocasio-Cortez: In New York City, there are 3 vacant apartments for each homeless person | PolitiFact Rated as "Mostly True" because of differing criteria for counting an apartment as vacant. For different criteria, one gets 2.5-to-1 to 6-to-1.

She also mentioned Uber effectively being subsidized with private equity, at about 1/2 of its full cost. It seems to me that whoever runs Uber is a major-league bullshitter.

Part of the interview was aboard a bus that goes from the Bronx to Queens. This is because the NYC subway-train network is largely radial in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. Meaning that one has to take a train from Bronx to Manhattan and then to Queens.

I have discovered proposals for a Triboro RX subway-train line that would go Bronx - Queens - Brooklyn, but nothing further.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "It is well past time we eliminate the Electoral College, a shadow of slavery’s power on America today that undermines our nation as a democratic republic. https://t.co/00HZN3MI6F" / Twitter
noting
Julia Ioffe on Twitter: "We are a country where two presidents who both lost the popular vote have now placed four justices on the Supreme Court. Democracy in action." / Twitter

Did U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Demand Free Tuition for the Electoral College? -- she didn't, and that claim is from a satire site. It conflated that with what she has expressed elsewhere, like this:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "If we cared half as much about the wealth we could generate by investing in human capital as much as we cared about real estate speculation, we’d have tuition-free college by now." / Twitter

 

[lpetrich]

Julia Macfarlane on Twitter: "Powerful and stirring speech by @AOC encouraging white supremacists to “come back” https://t.co/MnBWJyqQZJ" / Twitter - another retweeter of it.

AOC herself did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "But it is incredibly important that we recognize that perfectly normal, good people are capable of aiding racism & white supremacy.

Recognizing that is not about pillorying people. It’s about learning to recognize *the virus* & end an oppressive system designed to hurt us *all.*" / Twitter and some other tweets in this vein. Someone responded that a lot of people will be looking up "pillory" in dictionary sites.

Ocasio-Cortez rips her ex-chief of staff for ‘divisive’ tweet about fellow Dems, but insists he left her office on good terms - AOL News

In an exclusive interview with the Daily News at her district office in Jackson Heights, Ocasio-Cortez said Chakrabarti’s recent resignation had nothing to do with his June 27 tweet comparing members of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition to “Southern Democrats" in the early 20th century who opposed desegregation efforts.

...
“I think it was divisive,” she said, adding, “I believe in criticizing stances, but I don’t believe in specifically targeting members."

Saikat Chakrabarti had tweeted

“They certainly seem hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s,” Chakrabarti fumed in the since-deleted post.

Ocasio-Cortez said there was an “internal conversation" in her office after the tweet.

“We’ve corrected it,” she said. “He immediately took the tweet down.”

He resigned to join the advocacy group New Consensus, and he did so rather abruptly.

“We had been discussing this transition before that whole incident happened,” she said, referring to the June 27 tweet.

Then about the Federal Election Commission probing possible campaign-finance violations by SC. He supposedly directed some $1 million from Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats into two private companies that he controls.

Ocasio-Cortez dismissed the complaint as a political hit job.

“All of these things were filed by these fringe, Republican groups. It’s a tactic they use and it’s very common,” she said. “It’s a form of legal trolling.”

The congresswoman wouldn’t get into specifics, but said Chakrabarti and the entities are “in conversation” with the FEC and “in total compliance.”

Legal trolling = barratry, harassment by litigation

 

[lpetrich]

I'll do a more filled-out version of a Linear B version of AOC's name:
a-re-ka-sa-na-da-ri-ja o-ka-si-jo ko-ro-te-se

I also note what she'd underlined in that MLK book. All except the two theological ones and the one command-hierarchy one.

The Most Interesting Parts of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's MLK Day Interview With Ta-Nehisi Coates noting
#MLKNow 2019 by Blackout for Human Rights - YouTube

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the Atlantic columnist, introduced her as someone whose moral vision is most like MLK's.

She recalled her family members helping others, and that got her started on doing that. The great difference in performance between the Bronx and Yorktown Heights also impressed her. She recalled from her high-school years being the only Hispanic there and people saying that she's smart for a Hispanic, and that her English-speaking is not like what those Mexicans do. English is her second language.

When her father died, she decided on some faster track than medicine and studied economics and int'l relations. Then they got into the last part of MLK's life, when he started challenging Cold-War foreign policy and economic injustice. Then grotesque divisions of rich and poor, like someone having a helipad while lots of people are homeless. That's what motivates 70% marginal tax rate for incomes over $10M/yr. She also noted MLK and Gandhi asking if our technology has been outpacing our societal skills. Something that has likely been a problem over all of human history and much of its prehistory. She doesn't think that billionaires are immoral, only the sort of social system that allows them to exist when others are dirt-poor, and such things as subsidizing WalMart and Amazon for paying poverty wages.

Amazon = digital WalMart. Then "Angry Birds" vs. NASA. AB is OK, but does it really deserve a disproportionate amount of resources? Then the issue of such things as facial-recognition software and stereotypes that may end up built into them. I'm reminded of 1936 election: Case Study I - where the Literary Digest's massive poll effort suffered from massive sampling bias. Car-registration lists were biased toward car ownership, for instance.

Then the question of social-democratic measures having exclusions, like the New Deal. Reparations would be for New-Deal-era redlining. Then Germany's acceptance of its guilt in the Holocaust and how the US should do likewise.

Then AOC's use of social media. Not just to inject ideas, but also to listen, to monitor what people are talking about. Then her clapbacks. She wants to dismantle some of the stereotypes that have grown up around various things. She also mentions what she calls capitalism: an ideology that prioritizes capital accumulation above everything else. What she considers socialism is not government taking over everything, but extending democracy into the economy beyond the political system, such things as worker cooperatives, and workers getting more of the wealth that their labors help to create. Like $60/hour on average. Minimum wage is much less than that. I checked that number, and it is indeed correct for (entire GDP) / (entire labor force).

She described herself as having opened a door, and she wants to hold it open for others to enter. She also claims that she has no big personal ambitions, and that that gives her more freedom to do what she wants to do and take risky positions -- she's not aiming for the Senate or the Presidency, it seems. So she'll be content to be a Representative in the near future. This interview lasted from the beginning to 1:06 of the video.

 

[Derec]

She doesn't want every business nationalized, and she says that it's the reverse that we are suffering from.

That’s why the emphasis in democratic socialism, is on democracy. It’s not about, you know — it’s just as much a transformation about bringing democracy to the workplace, so that we have a say, and we don’t check all of our rights at the door every time we cross the threshold into our workplace. Because at the end of the day, as workers and as people of society, we’re the ones creating wealth, not a corporate CEO. It’s not a CEO that’s actually creating 4 billion dollars a year. It is the millions of workers in this country that’s creating billions of dollars of economic productivity a year. Our system should reflect that.

Democratic Socialism is very much socialism, unlike say social democracy. This "democracy to the workplace" malarkey is a case in point. That was untermensche's (whatever happened to him) constant talking point and he is a pretty far out leftist.
Also, it has been practiced by socialist countries such as Yugoslavia as " worker's self-management" and did not end up working that well.

As far as Apollo program, it is the capitalist USA that won that race rather than the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. So suck it!

 

[Derec]

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the Atlantic columnist, introduced her as someone whose moral vision is most like MLK's.

Isn't he that gibsmedat (aka "reparations") guy?

When her father died, she decided on some faster track than medicine and studied economics and int'l relations.

Funny how she is ignorant of both those things. It's a good thing she did not pursue medicine! (I have no doubt she'd have gotten into med school, as hispanics only need mediocre GPAs and MCATs to get in!)

Then the question of social-democratic measures having exclusions, like the New Deal. Reparations would be for New-Deal-era redlining. Then Germany's acceptance of its guilt in the Holocaust and how the US should do likewise.

Germany paid out to actual victims of holocaust of their direct 1st generation descendants. Slavery has ended 150 years ago. And "redlining" is surely a much less severe sin (and much more complicated matter generally, for example it's acceptable to use projected average housing price increase by neighborhood as part of risk of a mortgage) than the Holocaust.
Furthermore, blacks have been getting preferential treatment in college admissions and hiring for many decades. Isn't that reparations enough?

 

[ZiprHead]

Isn't he that gibsmedat (aka "reparations") guy?

Since I never heard that term before,I had to look it up.

What does gibsmedat mean?
Gibsmedat is a disgusting, derogatory term for social welfare programs and the people who need them. It is often used by racists to refer to black people.

https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/gibsmedat/

Not surprised you would use it.

 

[Derec]

Not surprised you would use it.

When a well-to-do Atlantic columnist wants to confiscate money from white people for his own benefit just because of his skin color, derogatory language is quite appropriate.

Again, it's this Te-Nahisti whatever who wants money to be given to him because of his race. But we do not call that "racist" because blacks can't be racist, right?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Wow, Derec shouldn't you be LESS emboldened to use racist terminology now??

 

[Derec]

Wow, Derec shouldn't you be LESS emboldened to use racist terminology now??

I disagree that "gibsmedat" is racist.
Call for so-called "reparations" is what is racist. Why should Te-Asshole get any free money just because of the color of his skin?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Wow, Derec shouldn't you be LESS emboldened to use racist terminology now??

I disagree that "gibsmedat" is racist.
Call for so-called "reparations" is what is racist. Why should Te-Asshole get any free money just because of the color of his skin?

It's not racist and it's a separate thread. This thread has you yet again using racist words. I guess the whole thing is off-topic so I will drop it.

 

[ZiprHead]

Wow, Derec shouldn't you be LESS emboldened to use racist terminology now??

I disagree that "gibsmedat" is racist.
Call for so-called "reparations" is what is racist. Why should Te-Asshole get any free money just because of the color of his skin?

It's not racist and it's a separate thread. This thread has you yet again using racist words. I guess the whole thing is off-topic so I will drop it.

Funny how Derec always knows the trendy new racist insults.

 

[lpetrich]

How's this for celebrity? Interns Can’t Get Enough Of AOC - YouTube

Exasperated Democrats try to rein in Ocasio-Cortez - POLITICO (from last January)

Ocasio-Cortez is an enigma to most House Democrats. She’s very friendly in person, chatting up fellow lawmakers and security workers in the Capitol as she’s tailed by admirers and reporters.

Then they see the Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter, where she frequently snaps at critics and occasionally at fellow Democrats. When House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that a new climate committee that Ocasio-Cortez championed would not have subpoena power, she retweeted the news and chastised Democratic leadership.

“Our goal is to treat Climate Change like the serious, existential threat it is by drafting an ambitious solution on the scale necessary — aka a Green New Deal — to get it done,” she said. “A weak committee misses the point & endangers people.”

She seems to have backed off from wanting to primary the more conservative Democrats. However, AOC’s voting bloc looks to its next targets in New York

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The last photo in this panel it’s like @GerryConnolly and I are in a road trip buddy comedy or something https://t.co/Hf2nRUuNxv" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: U.S. Congresswoman on Fixing the Country – Rolling Stone (from last February)

I am tired of people saying, “I’m gonna vote the same way as bigots, but I don’t share the ideology of bigots.” Well, you share the action and the agenda of bigots. We need to hold that accountable.

 

[Derec]

It's not racist and it's a separate thread. This thread has you yet again using racist words. I guess the whole thing is off-topic so I will drop it.

Well lpetrich posted about AOC talking about so-called "reparations" so it was on topic for me to comment on that.

I disagree that the term "gibsmedat" is racist. It's disparaging, yes, but not toward race but toward those who use their skin color for unfair personal gain. I think such people deserve disparagement.
I think this push to give blacks even more benefits just for being black (are nearly 50 years of "affirmative action" and other race-based privileges not enough?) is what's racist.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Gives Herself The Perfect Pep Talk In 'Knock Down The House' | HuffPost Life - before debating Joe Crowley

“I am experienced enough to do this. I am knowledgable enough to do this. I am prepared enough to do this,” she recites. “I am mature enough to do this. I am brave enough to do this.”

She then anticipates how Crowley might attack her.

“This whole time, he’s gonna tell me I can’t do this. He’s gonna tell me I’m small, I’m little, that I’m young, that I’m inexperienced,” she says.

But she’s ready. She exhales loudly and pushes her arms forward, as if to physically push away the negativity of those statements and reclaim the space.

Allies of 'the squad' brace for potential primary challenges - their biggest electoral threats. Rashida Tlaib barely beat Brenda Jones, Detroit City Council President, and BJ might try again. Some people have talked about challengers for AOC and Ilhan Omar, but Ayanna Pressley seems secure.

"When the resistance wins, the empire always finds a way of striking back, so we want to be prepared," said Working Families Party head Maurice Mitchell. That party is now endorsing AOC well in advance. It didn't have a chance to when she was running for office, and Joe Crowley had remained on its ballot.

AOC calls out Cuomo, state Dems over ‘horrifying’ voting laws after Cabán’s concession in Queens DA race - New York Daily News - another part of that interview with AOC.

“Voter disenfranchisement in the state of New York is a given,” she told the Daily News in an interview at her Queens district office on Wednesday. “Our voting laws are horrifying in how they suppress the vote and how they disenfranchise voters on a regular basis.”

“New York State historically has been just as bad as any deep southern state when it comes to voter disenfranchisement, whether it’s poll locations changes, whether it’s having your ballot tossed out over technicalities even though you’re a registered Democrat, which also happened in this race,” Ocasio-Cortez said. "But it was legal disenfranchisement so that disenfranchisement was within the bounds of the law.”

So blue-state people like myself shouldn't congratulate ourselves too much about our states.

Ocasio-Cortez dares moderate Dems to grow thicker skin, says ‘discomfort’ is part of politics: ‘I’m uncomfortable all the time’ - New York Daily News

“Change always requires a certain degree of discomfort,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Daily News in an exclusive interview at her district office in Jackson Heights, Queens. “Speaking of these issues does make you a target."

“I’m uncomfortable all the time,” she added with a laugh.

“While I try to be kind, I also stand up for myself and other colleagues,” Ocasio-Cortez told The News.

“One of the things that is hard is that sometimes folks take things very personally, almost too personally,” she said. “I have no intent to personally criticize my colleagues. I think sometimes people are trying to read too deeply."

Very commendable, preferring to focus on policies rather than people.

About working out policies, people are going to end up at loggerheads with each other.

“It does create some of that discomfort,” the Millennial congresswoman said. “But if we don’t actively try to be better, then we’re only going to have one option and that’s not going to be the best one.”

She notes that Trump's immigration crackdowns are making many legally immigrated people very worried.

“Even though they say ‘you’re fine if you come in legally, you’re fine if you come in the right way,’ they’re making the right way virtually impossible. They are putting people into an undocumented status,” Ocasio-Cortez said, referring to Trump’s rollbacks of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status programs.

 

[lpetrich]

Fearing the Next AOC, House Democrats Hoard Campaign Cash - The New York Times

Somewhere out there, the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lurks. So wary House Democrats are amassing campaign war chests to scare off progressive upstarts from challenging them in primaries — or trounce them if they try.

A look at 41 incumbent House Democrats who face potential 2020 party primary opponents shows 16 have already stockpiled over $1 million in campaign funds. The figures from Federal Election Commission reports for the first six months of this year show that 20 raised over $500,000 during that period alone.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: " “Aplicar medidas de austeridad en educación y atención médica no es aconsejable y tendrá graves consecuencias en la capacidad de Puerto Rico para superar su crisis económica”, indicaron [@NydiaVelazquez⁩, ⁦⁦⁦@RepRaulGrijalva,⁩ y mas] https://t.co/67UtpUm6tw" / Twitter
Google Translate:
"Applying austerity measures in education and medical care is not advisable and will have serious consequences on the ability of Puerto Rico to overcome its economic crisis," said [@NydiaVelazquez, ⁦⁦⁦@RepRaulGrijalva, ⁩and more]
Demócratas piden a la Junta de Supervisión revisar las medidas de austeridad | El Nuevo Día
With a picture of AOC herself.

Demócratas piden a la Junta de Supervisión revisar las medidas de austeridad
Reclaman reconsiderar los recortes en áreas de salud y educación

Democrats ask the Supervisory Board to review austerity measures
They claim to reconsider the cuts in health and education areas

Junto al senador Robert Menéndez, los congresistas demócratas Nydia Velázquez, Raúl Grijalva y Alexandria Ocasio Cortez reclamaron a la Junta de Supervisión Fiscal (JSF) que reconsidere las medidas de austeridad que aplican a programas de salud y educación.

“Aplicar medidas de austeridad en educación y atención médica no es aconsejable y tendrá graves consecuencias en la capacidad de Puerto Rico para superar su crisis económica”, indicaron los legisladores federales, todos demócratas, en una carta enviada el miércoles al presidente de la JSF, José Carrión III.

Together with Senator Robert Menéndez, Democratic Congressmen Nydia Velázquez, Raúl Grijalva and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez called on the Fiscal Oversight Board (JSF) to reconsider the austerity measures that apply to health and education programs.

"Applying austerity measures in education and medical care is not advisable and will have serious consequences on Puerto Rico's ability to overcome its economic crisis," federal lawmakers, all Democrats, said in a letter sent Wednesday to the president of the JSF, José Carrión III.

 

[lpetrich]

Fearing the Next AOC, House Democrats Hoard Campaign Cash - The New York Times

Somewhere out there, the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lurks. So wary House Democrats are amassing campaign war chests to scare off progressive upstarts from challenging them in primaries — or trounce them if they try.

A look at 41 incumbent House Democrats who face potential 2020 party primary opponents shows 16 have already stockpiled over $1 million in campaign funds. The figures from Federal Election Commission reports for the first six months of this year show that 20 raised over $500,000 during that period alone.

Running scared? Or will they also move leftward? Something like what Joe Crowley did during AOC's campaign.

No More Mister Nice Blog: DEAR JIM HOFT: I HAVE YOUR NEXT SCOOP noting some right-wingers claiming that AOC was trying to hide her identity by being known as "Sandy".

Scott Starrett was craving tacos.

The 32-year-old had recently moved to New York City from Austin, Texas. So when a tiny taqueria called Flats Fix opened up around the corner from his Manhattan office, he soon became a regular with his graphic design-firm colleagues.

Because it was 2016, lunch conversation would frequently turn to the presidential race. One friendly bartender would often join in. Her name was Sandy.

"Everyone just loved Sandy," Starrett said. "She had an infectious kindness, an infectious presence."

The 26-year-old Bronx native would talk about her time interning in Sen. Ted Kennedy's office in college. Starrett would bring up his work for local candidates in Texas. Sandy started volunteering for Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign.

Then Donald Trump was elected.

Soon after, the bartender and political organizer raised some money and road-tripped out to North Dakota, where Native Americans were leading protests against the Dakota Access Oil pipeline. Starrett lent her a camera to document the trip.

When she got back, she had a new idea. She might run for office. Starrett and his design firm got to work on branding.

From The life story of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: bartender to lawmaker - INSIDER
As to her personality, Nancy Pelosi once said about her that she is "very gracious" and I looked up gracious - Wiktionary - "kind and warmly courteous"

SCOTT STARRETT We’ve known Sandy [Ocasio-Cortez] for some time. We started talking politics before she began her bid for Congress—we even lent her our GoPro when she went to Standing Rock. But the seed of the campaign identity came from the fact that our whole studio really loves Sandy. That was a big part of why the design turned out so well.

MARIA ARENAS We really knew Sandy well, and we knew we had her complete trust. She trusted us to represent the campaign authentically.

RACHEL OSSIP How did the identity for the campaign evolve?

SS We’re in a revolutionary moment, so we went straight to the history of grassroots, civil rights, and social justice movements in search of a common language we could participate in. One that Sandy could participate in and that she belongs in. The most inspiring figures to us were Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, the cofounders of the National Farmworkers Association. They had a positive, uplifting message about bringing power to the people. It resonated so deeply with who Sandy the person was, and who Sandy the candidate became, that it was a good fit.

Political designs: How Beto’s basic black and white and Ocasio-Cortez’s revolutionary look defined their candidacies – First Reading

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "White supremacists were responsible for *ALL* race-based domestic terrorism in 2018. 100%.
Trump’s DoJ & Barr then worked **to hide that report from Congress**-all while defunding federal programs to combat white supremacist violence.
This is a white supremacist administration. https://t.co/2GvN2tU0fg" / Twitter
noting
dutch163 on Twitter: "REVEALED: DOJ blocked report showing white supremacists responsible for all race-based domestic terrorism incidents in 2018 - https://t.co/gfDFH5CQi8" / Twitter
noting
REVEALED: DOJ blocked report showing white supremacists responsible for all race-based domestic terrorism incidents in 2018 – Raw Story

The Trump administration has known since at least April that alleged white supremacists were responsible for every single act of race-based domestic terrorism in the U.S. in 2018, yet not only took no action to combat the growing right wing violent extremism, but actually substantially reduced or even eliminated funding and programs that combat white supremacist extremism, violence, and terrorism – and then blocked the data from reaching the hands of Congress.

It's the Weimar Republic all over again.


The previous post mentioned the artwork for AOC's campaign:
ALEXANDRIA
¡OCASIO!
CORTEZ
in alternating yellow and dark purple slanted lines. A nice nod to Spanish punctuation, with upside-down ? and ! at the beginning of a sentence.

Beto O'Rourke's Senate race used BETO in big white letters on a black background, with FOR SENATE in black letters on a white background beneath it.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Talks Winning Congressional Primary Election in New York - part of it was being underestimated - and thus ignored.

It’s not just that I’m a woman of color running for office. It’s the way that I ran. It’s the way that my identity formed my methods. Because if I was still a woman of color, but I was playing by their playbook, I’m convinced I would’ve gotten squashed.

She was not afraid of being very "femme", and she still isn't.

“I feel like one of the ways in which communities are marginalized is by making us feel like our identities are trivial and that who we are is trivial and that expressing who we are isn’t important. For me, it’s important to be fashionable,” she says. “That’s part of who I am, and it’s important for me, as a woman, to run while being feminine because I am feminine.”

“I derive power from my femininity. And any attempt to make femininity trivial or unimportant is an attempt to take away my power. So I’m going to wear the red lipstick. Other people’s attempt to say, 'Oh, talking about lipstick is unimportant,' [they are] talking about feminine expression being unimportant,” she says. “That expressing yourself as a woman is unimportant. Don’t ever believe that. Wear the skirt. Wear the combat boots. Tear up your jeans. Whatever makes you feel authentically yourself and like a badass. The only way that we’re going to move forward is by running as our authentic selves."

That lipstick, by the way, has since sold out. "I used the last of my lipstick on election day, so I’m in the same boat as everyone else!”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I have been getting many inquiries about my debate lip color in the last two days.
I GOT YOU.
It’s Stila “Stay All Day” Liquid in Beso. https://t.co/xhkxSXZXCO" / Twitter

She also described how she successfully challenged someone who claimed that she's not really a Bronxite, and how she thinks that the future of the Democratic Party is in "big organizing".

She takes a breath. “I was invited on this TV show and before I went on they were like, 'The defining star of the progressive movement,' and I was like, 'Noooo!' There is no one person. This is the danger, the idea that any one person is going to save us is not true. I’m not going to save us. Only we can save us. And I’m only as useful or powerful as the amount of people knocking on doors and talking to their neighbors.

Seems to me that AOC is a lipstick feminist, a feminist who likes these:

• Pretty clothes
• Skirts and dresses
• Fancy hairstyles
• Makeup
• Jewelry

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Historic Win and the Future of the Democratic Party | The New Yorker - on how she campaigned against Joe Crowley.

At first, she fooled him. “When we were collecting signatures for the petition to get on the ballot, we didn’t advertise that we were getting four or five times more than we needed,” she said. “We didn’t want to trigger his sense of urgency or his spend.”

When it came time to do debates, in the first one, he didn't show up. In the second one, he did, and was rather condescending. In the third one, he sent a Latina former councilwoman, "a woman with a slight resemblance to me." The NYT editorialized on his absence: Opinion | If You Want to Be Speaker, Mr. Crowley, Don’t Take Voters for Granted - The New York Times - "A spokeswoman for Mr. Crowley said he had scheduling conflicts that wouldn’t allow him to attend the two debates, inevitably leaving voters to wonder — what are we, chopped liver? ... Mr. Crowley’s constituents might well now wonder whether he intends, if re-elected, to have Ms. Palma make his floor speeches and cast his votes as well."

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Joins Girls Who Code's Reshma Saujani for Q&A | NowThis - YouTube
The second half has some interviewing of AOC, and she describes some of how she got to where she is now. She felt that she was a failure for a long time, and she has only gradually been curing herself of that feeling. She wanted to start a line of children's books for urban Latinx, but that venture failed. I don't know what that might have been, but I'm imagining something like the Pippi Longstocking series - a girl who gets into all sorts of adventures.

When she was campaigning, she'd sometimes ask herself who would ever want to vote for a waitress for Congress? But it was either a waitress or nobody, she thought to herself - nobody had challenged Joe Crowley in a long time.

She recommended doing a little at a time, rather than expecting to have to do something big. She also described practicing yoga a lot for a time.

This interview is where she said "I'm the boss". The context: her challenging critics of the Green New Deal to come up with plans of their own. Until that happens, she told us, "I'm the boss". She also described that demonstration in Nancy Pelosi's office about climate change. Some activists were headed there, and she decided to join them. She decided that she has to, because of what kind of world that they will live to see. She also suspected that some older people don't care because they don't expect to live much more.

The announcement page: Girls Who Code Hosts Brave, Not Perfect Townhall ft. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "When I was a bit younger, I saw @reshmasaujani run for office in NYC and then start Girls Who Code.
It was powerful to be able see a version of myself in someone doing something so bold.
It was a full-circle moment meeting her today! Inspiration is a renewable resource https://t.co/UT9Sr2mzwL" / Twitter