Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Have political courage. You can change the world. - YouTube - a bit over a year ago. Contains one of her more notable gaffes.
She started off by noting that progressive candidates can win more-or-less anywhere and she implored people to run for office. She says that we need more working-class people in office, and that we are at a critical moment in history.
She did not expect to be part of any protest during Congressional orientation, but she discovered that a horde of climate-change activists had descended on DC. Their leaders asked her to join them, and she thought about it. Without her, it would be yet another protest and the main news event would be taking a picture of the new Congressmembers. So she got involved, to give additional publicity to their protest. She was impressed with how much they were willing to sacrifice - being willing to risk getting arrested and endangering their higher education. She conceded that it was also a potential sacrifice for her, that she might not get into any good committees.
She talked about how she got started, and all the work and time that it involved - it was good that she started early. She talks about how some of her fellow Democrats resisted a select committee on climate change - just for drafting legislation, not even introducing it. She was confident that we could tell our grandchildren that we fought for what was right, even if we got short-term setbacks.
When answering questions, she noted how a previous select committee on climate change was watered down by fossil-fuel lobbyists and how all it could do is hold hearings and do research.
"... if we work out butts off to take back all three chambers of Congress, or rather, all three chambers of government, the Presidency, the Senate, and the House, in 2020 .." (She covered the elected parts. The remaining branch of government, the judiciary, is not elected.)
She wants a committee that (1) can draft legislation and that (2) has no one in it who has accepted fossil-fuel campaign contributions. As it happened, she didn't get all that, and she decided not to sign on. She also got into some good committees: Oversight and Financial Services.
She made some final comments, noting that she, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar all won in blue districts, and all won despite being outspent by their opponents. She also thinks that there is value to running even if one doesn't win. One can almost win, scoring much more than one's predecessors.
It’s #OurTime. We are recruiting diverse working class leaders to run as Justice Democrats for Congress for 2020. : SandersForPresident - contains "selected and edited highlights"
From
Justice Democrats national launch call
With Nasim Thompson, Alexandra Rojas, and Saikat Chakrabarti. AR is nicknamed "Alex", as AOC now is. AOC has an earlier one, "Sandy".
AR talked a lot about strategy, like noting that JD-supported candidates sometimes do much better than previous Democrats in deep-red districts. Even if they don't always win, they can still do well. Candidates that do very well: candidates in deep blue districts that are not very well reflected by their incumbents. Like AOC and Ayanna Pressley.
" / Twitter
https://t.co/CHLEoJV1vk" / Twitter
- YouTube - May 13 - Ocasio-Cortez claims she went to a nail salon and the woman who was working on her told her "your eyebrows are too big for your face" and told her that she has a "mustache"
Melanin theory