AOC doesn’t want it because being Speaker is a full time job and would not permit her to do what she’s good at, plus most of that time would be spent fundraising, which she does not believe she is capable of to the extent needed.
She released a really long explanation of the whole Speaker battle the other day on Instagram, and that’s part of what she talked about: she literally has no interest in it.
I’m not on IG, but there are Instagram viewers that will let you watch without an account, and it is embedded in this article as well (it’s at the very end). You can hear it straight from her own mouth.
She and Bernie Sanders are each, and together, EXCELLENT at getting the progressive message across to average, uninterested voters and getting the vote out. And they’ve been doing it all along; they just never gave up. And here we are.
While Republicans have been hiding from their constituents, all summer and fall Bernie and AOC have been traveling the country and meeting with everybody they can, from activists and organizers to average voters, to get people registered to vote and to educate them on the workings of power, what we can do, and how exactly we can do it.
The video you didn’t watch is just another example of what AOC does on the regular: she fully described with examples what a speaker does, how their position is both legislative and political, the necessary qualities that a speaker should have, why she doesn’t think she has them, and how the speaker is selected.
The recent progressive turnout across all fifty states has a lot to do with AOC and Bernie, and others like them, working as hard as they can, in every way that they can, to get voters actively engaging with the process of democracy again.
Ah, education and awareness. I like that. It’s not what we politics nerds yearn for, but it’s useful and as you pointed out, effective. Growing the broad progressive movement so that when there’s a victory like this, it is followed by a big outcry to keep the bastards honest, as we used to say in Australia.
Thankyou for educating me! It was hard to see that aspect of her job from another country, because of course I am not in the cohort that needs to hear it.
By the way, “keeping the bastards honest” was the slogan of a now-dead somewhat progressive minor party here in Australia called… The Australian Democrats.
I really like that slogan and if I ever hated myself enough to run for office I can see myself borrowing it
And yeah, AOC and Bernie are, in addition to education, functioning as agitators. Since we don’t have compulsory voting, or even democracy sausages, voters need to be convinced that showing up is worth it even if they prefer one side to the other. Their focuses on issues of wealth disparity and the need for better structures of social support, and their ability to get in front of voters is important for getting disaffected progressives to go vote.
As an Aussie, your nation has two safeguards that we do not have, and absolutely need: compulsory voting, and paper ballots. Our corruption flourishes in the absence of voter engagement, which is why you have always seen so much voter suppression in ex-slavery states that never really got away from an extractive, exploitative economy, but now in other states as well.
Our founders knew the dangers of a demagogue, and that the “American experiment” would fail in the absence of a participatory democracy, but we have fallen so far away from it that we’ve made voter apathy and now even widespread voter suppression an art form.
Yet, there is hope. Earlier this year, I don’t know if you remember, social media and even Lemmy was overrun with “Peaceful protests don’t do anything!” But they really do: all those protests put people who wanted to stop the ICE violence and the illegalities and the corruption – literally, who wanted to be engaged – in touch with each other, under a tent big enough to hold them all: No Kings. And they all took it from there.
Thus when Bernie and AOC went out again this year, they met with organizers and activists who were already working in their communities, with a populace that was already pissed off and far more interested than they’d been ever before, and it all just kept growing. I don’t know that there was any magic, only that the progressives never gave up and made sure to field really good candidates.
And of course, Trump had NO idea just how enraged citizens of color are with his bullshit: when you see Senate wins in states like South Carolina and Mississippi, you are also looking at wins brought largely by a return of voters of color to the polls. That means they came out in numbers big enough to overcome all the voter suppressions there, and did so in spite of having no guarantee that it would just be another effort done in vain, and even with the threat of ICE violence at the polls. No one really had high hopes for this election beforehand.
So when Election Day rolled around, there it was. A pissed off, truly engaged electorate, and with it – I hope – a return to real democracy. Give us compulsory voting and paper ballots, and we might even keep it this time.
I don’t mind taking the time to answer, I don’t sleep much and I’m glad you’re interested. To be honest I wasn’t sure because I have been trolled by .ml before, but I took a chance. Thank you for your gracious reply, and for telling me about Australia, I love that stuff. I used to have a friend in the Blue Mountains but never made it over there personally, which I regret. Australia is a great country.
Indeed. There are many on the socialist left who have become mired in groupthink, just like there are many liberals, lefty progressives…
We all do it. We’re all human. (Well, the vast majority are, and LLMs have been built on groupthink, in a way, so they are extra vulnerable.)
We are a social species. When faced with constant disagreement on subjects we ourselves think have obvious solutions, we get tired of being fair and arguing in good faith when so often it’s met with nothing but insults and misrepresentation of what we just said.
It’s easier to just start looking at the basic caricature of what your side thinks and shouting it back at the other side. Easier, but pointless. I’ve done it, and I regret it, but I try to have real productive dialogs like this one.
It’s also tiring to be someone like Bernie or AOC, who keep on with their chosen mission even while getting constantly told they’re sellouts, that they betrayed their voters, by a bunch of people who are usually not experienced in the ugly politics of getting things done against massive, well-funded opponents who control most of the government.
Obviously there are legitimate concerns about their actions. They have fucked up on occasion. They have been manipulated. However, a lot of those times they were seemingly fooled by the GOP or the DNC working in bad faith was them taking a risk, knowing that the odds were slim, but the reward was worth it.
And sometimes they start to win. After all this time, the general public now has no time for Israel’s bullshit, a direct enthusiasm for socialist policies, etc. AOC may not have appeared to push these policies, and no doubt her rhetoric and her voting with centrists disgusts a lot of people. But maybe she will actually do good things for the country when she runs for President.
Tbh, I think the only reason AOC hasn’t done that is because of a potential 2028 presidential run
AOC doesn’t want it because being Speaker is a full time job and would not permit her to do what she’s good at, plus most of that time would be spent fundraising, which she does not believe she is capable of to the extent needed.
She released a really long explanation of the whole Speaker battle the other day on Instagram, and that’s part of what she talked about: she literally has no interest in it.
I’m not on IG, but there are Instagram viewers that will let you watch without an account, and it is embedded in this article as well (it’s at the very end). You can hear it straight from her own mouth.
What is she good at that actually achieves change? I’m not being disingenuous here, I heard about the video she made but did not watch it.
She and Bernie Sanders are each, and together, EXCELLENT at getting the progressive message across to average, uninterested voters and getting the vote out. And they’ve been doing it all along; they just never gave up. And here we are.
While Republicans have been hiding from their constituents, all summer and fall Bernie and AOC have been traveling the country and meeting with everybody they can, from activists and organizers to average voters, to get people registered to vote and to educate them on the workings of power, what we can do, and how exactly we can do it.
The video you didn’t watch is just another example of what AOC does on the regular: she fully described with examples what a speaker does, how their position is both legislative and political, the necessary qualities that a speaker should have, why she doesn’t think she has them, and how the speaker is selected.
The recent progressive turnout across all fifty states has a lot to do with AOC and Bernie, and others like them, working as hard as they can, in every way that they can, to get voters actively engaging with the process of democracy again.
Ah, education and awareness. I like that. It’s not what we politics nerds yearn for, but it’s useful and as you pointed out, effective. Growing the broad progressive movement so that when there’s a victory like this, it is followed by a big outcry to keep the bastards honest, as we used to say in Australia.
Thankyou for educating me! It was hard to see that aspect of her job from another country, because of course I am not in the cohort that needs to hear it.
By the way, “keeping the bastards honest” was the slogan of a now-dead somewhat progressive minor party here in Australia called… The Australian Democrats.
I really like that slogan and if I ever hated myself enough to run for office I can see myself borrowing it
And yeah, AOC and Bernie are, in addition to education, functioning as agitators. Since we don’t have compulsory voting, or even democracy sausages, voters need to be convinced that showing up is worth it even if they prefer one side to the other. Their focuses on issues of wealth disparity and the need for better structures of social support, and their ability to get in front of voters is important for getting disaffected progressives to go vote.
As an Aussie, your nation has two safeguards that we do not have, and absolutely need: compulsory voting, and paper ballots. Our corruption flourishes in the absence of voter engagement, which is why you have always seen so much voter suppression in ex-slavery states that never really got away from an extractive, exploitative economy, but now in other states as well.
Our founders knew the dangers of a demagogue, and that the “American experiment” would fail in the absence of a participatory democracy, but we have fallen so far away from it that we’ve made voter apathy and now even widespread voter suppression an art form.
Yet, there is hope. Earlier this year, I don’t know if you remember, social media and even Lemmy was overrun with “Peaceful protests don’t do anything!” But they really do: all those protests put people who wanted to stop the ICE violence and the illegalities and the corruption – literally, who wanted to be engaged – in touch with each other, under a tent big enough to hold them all: No Kings. And they all took it from there.
Thus when Bernie and AOC went out again this year, they met with organizers and activists who were already working in their communities, with a populace that was already pissed off and far more interested than they’d been ever before, and it all just kept growing. I don’t know that there was any magic, only that the progressives never gave up and made sure to field really good candidates.
And of course, Trump had NO idea just how enraged citizens of color are with his bullshit: when you see Senate wins in states like South Carolina and Mississippi, you are also looking at wins brought largely by a return of voters of color to the polls. That means they came out in numbers big enough to overcome all the voter suppressions there, and did so in spite of having no guarantee that it would just be another effort done in vain, and even with the threat of ICE violence at the polls. No one really had high hopes for this election beforehand.
So when Election Day rolled around, there it was. A pissed off, truly engaged electorate, and with it – I hope – a return to real democracy. Give us compulsory voting and paper ballots, and we might even keep it this time.
I don’t mind taking the time to answer, I don’t sleep much and I’m glad you’re interested. To be honest I wasn’t sure because I have been trolled by .ml before, but I took a chance. Thank you for your gracious reply, and for telling me about Australia, I love that stuff. I used to have a friend in the Blue Mountains but never made it over there personally, which I regret. Australia is a great country.
Indeed. There are many on the socialist left who have become mired in groupthink, just like there are many liberals, lefty progressives…
We all do it. We’re all human. (Well, the vast majority are, and LLMs have been built on groupthink, in a way, so they are extra vulnerable.)
We are a social species. When faced with constant disagreement on subjects we ourselves think have obvious solutions, we get tired of being fair and arguing in good faith when so often it’s met with nothing but insults and misrepresentation of what we just said.
It’s easier to just start looking at the basic caricature of what your side thinks and shouting it back at the other side. Easier, but pointless. I’ve done it, and I regret it, but I try to have real productive dialogs like this one.
It’s also tiring to be someone like Bernie or AOC, who keep on with their chosen mission even while getting constantly told they’re sellouts, that they betrayed their voters, by a bunch of people who are usually not experienced in the ugly politics of getting things done against massive, well-funded opponents who control most of the government.
Obviously there are legitimate concerns about their actions. They have fucked up on occasion. They have been manipulated. However, a lot of those times they were seemingly fooled by the GOP or the DNC working in bad faith was them taking a risk, knowing that the odds were slim, but the reward was worth it.
And sometimes they start to win. After all this time, the general public now has no time for Israel’s bullshit, a direct enthusiasm for socialist policies, etc. AOC may not have appeared to push these policies, and no doubt her rhetoric and her voting with centrists disgusts a lot of people. But maybe she will actually do good things for the country when she runs for President.