Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warns anti-Biden Democrats about what comes next if they succeed
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warns anti-Biden Democrats about what comes next if they succeed
The progressive New Yorker spoke on Instagram about the potential risks of pressuring President Joe Biden to end his campaign.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has issued a dire warning to her party about the chaos that could ensue if they succeed in pushing President Joe Biden off the ticket. And she criticized Democrats who’ve given off-the-record quotes that suggest the party has resigned itself to a second Trump term.
In an Instagram Live video on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez warned liberals that a brokered convention could lead to chaos, in part because she says some of the Democratic “elites” who want Biden out also don’t want Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee in his place.
“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP be the nominee,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed none of the people she’s spoken with who are calling on Biden to drop out — including lawmakers and legal experts — have articulated a plan to swap out the nominee without minimizing the serious legal and procedural challenges that are likely to ensue.
Ocasio-Cortez also highlighted the racial, ethnic and class divisions that appear to have formed between the majority of those pining to blow up the ticket — led mostly by white Democrats and media pundits — and those elected officials who feel they and their constituents have too much at stake to upend the process at this point and so are willing to do the work to re-elect Biden-Harris. She alluded to this cultural divide in her video when she spoke out against anonymous sources expressing a sense of fatalism on behalf of Democrats about what might happen if Biden remains on the ticket:
What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose. For me, to a certain extent, I don’t care what name is on there. We are not losing. I don’t know about you, but my community does not have the option to lose. My community does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.
AOC and Bernie are both saying this and I agree 110%. In all occasions. The most important thing is we all make a plan to go out and vote. Talk to other democrats and make sure they fight that demoralization and go out and vote. There is so much at stake with Project 2025 that I dont even care about these headlines anymore.
This is a good fucking take, have to say. She very obviously knows what she's talking about extremely well, has the best interests of those she represents at heart, and knows how to express it all clearly for the average layperson. You don't get a lot of politicians of that caliber.
No wonder the Republicans hate her so much!
I trust AOCs judgement, although it might just be both options are equal as long as the party can commit to one. The worst possible outcome is non-commitment, as it's the worst of both worlds.
Stick with Biden, you rally 100% with a flawed candidate and highlight all the good he's done with a flawed Congress (a majority in name only on progressive issues). Can win if you don't repeat 2016 mistakes, which at this point I don't think we'll be taking the rust belt for granted.
Abandon Biden 100%, you quickly side with an obvious choice and build a campaign. Time isn't on your side but you aren't dealing with a much baggage. Can win if the big tent party can agree on things and rally behind the choice even if it's not their first choice. Kamala is boring but probably would be the pick with least resistance.
The problem is neither is happening, so you get Biden with sub-100% support and buying into the age narrative rather than pivoting to his strengths, which is very much a losing strategy. Those resigned to losing probably know this is our trajectory unless something big happens (e.g. Biden sheds the age narrative somehow or drops out leading to a clear successor.)
My hope? We get a 2016 surprise in our favor: polls say Trump wins 99% odds yet Biden pulls off an upset. Wouldn't that be sweet irony...
Well they just succeeded. So what now?
She ain't wrong.
I'm willing to admit that I also wanted this situation sorted out and handled before now with someone energetic and capable of getting people excited to vote. I've since decided that this is a problem for the Democratic party to handle, not me. Their candidate could be Minnesota's very own dog mayor for all I fucking care.
Fucking finally a progressive with some sense (I say this as a progressive myself).
We need to be real here, this isn't a fucking joke.
‘Could lead to chaos’. Ma’am, that ship has sailed. When even high ranking party members openly doubt the president’s ability to get elected, much less actually lead, you’ve clearly lost control of the situation.
Will replacing Biden at this stage be easy? Of course not. But he shouldn’t have been in the Oval Office in the first place. Running a candidate this frail once was a gamble… doing it twice is suicidal.
Democrat leadership only has itself to blame for this predicament.
It's annoying that she put this on Instagram where there's no scrobble function, and she then spends so much time leading up to it.
For those not willing to sit around listening to off-the-cuff meandering, AOC's points:
- Ohio requires political parties to submit their candidates' names before the Democratic convention. If the convention is contested, Democrats likely won't be able to vote there effectively.
- AOC says that swing states might have enough legal ambiguity in the electoral code that Republicans can challenge any voting results, and then let it escalate to the Supreme Court who can throw out the Democratic result.
- Democrats are divided on who would be the replacement candidate, with many of the people calling for Biden to step down opposing Harris as well.
- The Biden/Harris campaign has $100M of campaign funding that will not be able to be transferred to another ticket. (Maybe it can be transferred to Harris? She mumbles a bit there).
- Anecdotally, when AOC sat "in rooms with those people" that call for Biden to step down, they didn't seem to have a proposed game plan for any sort of replacement. This includes lawyers who ought to know whether this creates legal trouble and people in the legislature.
- There is a risk that if the Democratic convention is contested, it won't be concluded before the deadline to submit the ticket in more states, which is two days after the scheduled end.
- There are no candidates that poll way better than Biden.
- Many mail-in votes can already be made in September or October. A new candidate would have to have a succesful campaign by that time.
- Biden is systematically underestimated (by Democrats and fianciers?) in his ability to rally 'demographics typically not cared for'.
- Biden does great with elderly people, which may not transfer to other Democrats.
- Democrats opposing Biden seem to be mostly concerned about big donors, not popular support.
- Democratic party members speaking anonymously to the press is both strategically stupid and undemocratic. They should have either spoken out publicly or kept it behind closed doors. The fact that they did may be why Biden is polling so bad.
- Biden gets energized from having people around him, which was not the case for the debate with Trump.
My personal opinions:
- With regards to Ohio, betting websites put the Republicans at 95% chance of winning the state, and Biden appears to have been trailing by 10 percentage points even before the debate. Losing Ohio only matters if you would have won Ohio with Biden, and that's questionable.
- With regards to the Supreme court handing the election to Trump based on a bullshit legal ruling, it seems like AOC is making the dangerous and questionable assumption that the Supreme Court cares about the law, and that the outcome of these legal challenges will depend on technicalities rather than on whether they think they can practically succeed at the coup.
- With regards to the $100M war chest, this seems to be cancelled out by her argument that Democrats opposing Trump are mostly concerned about donors. In 2020, Biden's election got $1 billion in funding while on May 9th, Biden had raked in $170M according to this website. So with upwards of $700M of donations left to collect, a 14% decrease in donations would mean Biden has less money to work with than other candidates.
- With regards to other candidates not doing much better, it seems impressive that they are polling better than Biden even with Biden running a massive election campaign and having spent a hundred million dollars in ads already. I would expect the gap to widen if those other candidates actually start trying to win the election as much as Biden is.
- With regards to the votes in September and October, with regards to the elderly and demographics typically not cared for and popular support, these all seem to be cancelled out by the polls.
- With regards to the Democrat backchannels, the damage is done. It's fair that she's mad about it, but it doesn't affect future decisions.
- With regards to Biden's energy, either this doesn't explain the Zelensky-Putin gaffe, or it's kind of irrelevant. Biden won't be sitting in the oval office with an audience to work off of.
So from everything AOC says, all that seems reasonable to me is (1) the observation that there is no good Democratic alternative plan, (2) the worry that the convention might run long so the alternative candidate can't appear on the ticket, (3) the possibility that a succesful Republican coup is significantly more likely with a candidate that might provide loopholes for the Supreme Court to work off of than with Biden, and (4) the possibility of losing Ohio if Biden would otherwise have won it.
However, even here, the parts of the alternative plan she is most worried about seems to be the legal trouble, which she seems most worried about only if the Democrats aren't on time with selecting a candidate. It seems to me that if only the Democrats are able to rally behind a new candidate before the Ohio deadline two days before the convention, none of her concerns apply more to the new candidate than to Biden. If it happens after the Ohio deadline, it only matters if there is a technicality that disqualifies the new candidate and Biden would otherwise have won Ohio and that technicality determines whether a coup succesfully occurs.
IMO; Biden shouldn’t be forced out.
That way does lead to chaos, and a worse chance in November than with Biden.
Though Biden sucks as a candidate and is very unlikely to win as things now stand.
So, imo, best-case, is Biden choosing to step down. and choosing to stump and campaign full-hog whoever does become president.
No shit. The time for not backing Biden was in the last primary. If the Democrats weren't so fucking short sighted and power hungry, they would have had a primary all of last year instead of now having to back this geriatric horse against a geriatric, racist, fascist, horse in this race.
That said, I'll be voting for the geriatric horse because the alternative will end up getting my minority ass killed.
Even before today's news of Biden stepping down, I feel the public party infighting about him/trump/ect instead of getting anything of substance into the news stream is an indication the current democratic party is over. As in effectively not a party.
Thus to add to AOC's comment: A very bad time for this as our system has two semi stable states... 2 party rule.. Or one party rule. (Sure outside groups/parties can and do help mold the main parties to their actual policy goals, but and if are popular enough get merged in or replace a main party)
This means can a new party grow out of the ashes of current one and actually organize in time for the election. (Obviously this "new" party gets to use the name/infrastructure of the one I'm calling over so may just look from the outside a shuffle of administration if fast.. And it needs to be fast)
And while I was happy to vote for Biden, and now presumably Harris, the lack of strength I see from Democrats on policy very much concerns me. (Not even it needs to be as far left as many on here seem to want it but it must be functional.. So those more left can debate actual policy.. Not that issues even exist.. Or ignoring it all together)
One sliver of hope is this can be used to pivot the talking points back on track.. But given the media climate I am not hopeful.
Uhm... Well the news just came in.
Honestly, I'll vote for whomever is on the Democratic tricket. Normally, I would seek the highest quality to be at the top of the ticket. But the other ticket is Trump/Vance. So, yes, I will vote for the ticket that runs against Trump. I vote for a party and for policies. Not a person.
I think JD Vance is representative of where the moneyed interests are right now in regards to the election. They don't like Trumpism, but they see the Democrats as weak and compromised by economic progressivism. As much as they don't like Trumpism, they hate progressive economic policies, like increasing taxes for the rich, much more. Moneyed interests see that Biden is a weak candidate, that there's not really another Democrat who's stronger, and they want to distance themselves from progressive economic policies as much as possible, so they're going all in on Trump and just hoping they can get him and the Republicans to become less extreme and move nearer to the center.
I think Trump will win the election, with the support of these moneyed interests. However, I think they are taking a huge risk betting that Trump and the Republicans will moderate their politics. If they're wrong, they might be about to unleash a monster they won't be able to control. If Trump and the GOP generally do moderate, they will lose the support of the far right, who will feel betrayed and may react violently.
Go Joe Biden!
This gives me a moment of pause. I have grave concerns about Biden's ability to campaign, concerns that apparently seem to be shared by Obama after their June fundraiser in LA. I also have serious concerns that if the fundraising class decide to withhold support from Biden, and that between a lack of in person campaigning and a lack of funding, his whole campaign is going to be DOA. Biden can't lean on grassroots fundraising they way Bernie could, and it's now become clear that the reason Biden hasn't been making a lot of appearances is because they wanted to keep it under wraps until now so that there wouldn't be a real primary. But here we are in the real deal and Biden is struggle bussing through interviews. My assumption has pretty much been that he'd step down from the presidency and Harris would become the natural candidate in his place as his VP (Along with the hilarious side effect of making republicans waste all that money on "47" flair). But I guess AOC thinks this won't be the case. I wish I knew better what she seems to know.
So you were saying?
I thought the Republican Party was going to crumble first. Instead it is the Democratic Party that's falling apart, who thought genocide was a winning strategy?
Vast majority of AOC's support is from the acronym, AOC.
I guess Biden is the ship and the rest of the party is going down with him.
Yeah, the fact that college kids getting beaten up by cops over Palestinian genocide didn't prompt this crisis of confidence in Biden but the donor class getting upset makes it dominate the airwaves is really annoying, but not at all surprising.
At the end of the day, whoever has the best chance of beating Trump should be our nominee whether it's Biden or somebody else
What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose. For me, to a certain extent, I don’t care what name is on there. We are not losing. I don’t know about you, but my community does not have the option to lose. My community does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.
This was really well said and echoes my feelings exactly
Yeah bruh, we’re totally fucked. Brandon could have saved us by fucking off voluntarily. But no, he’s just another cunt politician with a god complex.
Thanks for the fascist hellscape, Brandon. So glad you did your goodest.
Downvote away and continue wishing for the best instead of accepting what is obvious.
You'll also lose primary voters. I voted in the primaries, there were multiple candidates, Biden lost the primary in American Samoa. If you throw away my primary vote by swapping in another anointed candidate, why would I ever vote in your primaries again? What is even the point? It's like the DNC learned nothing from the debacle of them trying to squeeze Bernie out of the race (thank you Wikileaks for revealing their corrupt BS and causing reforms to the primary process). They lost a lot of voters doing that.
I hate the RNC, but if they are the only party that will respect my primary vote, they are the primary I will vote in next election. Dems switching primaries like this may produce a more moderate republican candidate, which is bad news for dems, since they won't just be able to run on "The RNC is run by crazy christian fascists who want to take all your rights away".
The way ili see it is., the “far left” crowd are demanding sparkling water and refuse to drink from the tap with everyone else-
And not only this, but they intend to destroy the tap so no one else can drink from it because it doesn’t provide what they feel they are entitled to. Regardless of what everyone else feels or wants.
And the irony is- they cry and whine about how America should be a socialist system, but feel that their needs should be met by the government, and don’t care about what everyone wants as a whole.
And what they don’t understand is, whoever ends up in the White House- will be playing the same fucking game Biden did. Because that’s how politics work. It’s negotiation and co promise.
But they’d rather watch America burn than even try to accept this fundamental truth.
We did it! You are welcome America!
This is the most I have ever felt that we as demographic have been heard and acknowledged. Strategically placing ourselves in swing states was a smart long term strategy :D The bananas have brought you O' monkey!
Does she really think Genocide Joe is actually popular?
Lmao at her and the people in this thread pretending that Biden being a senile geriatric is "media propaganda".
Just watch the first 2 minutes of Bidens debating against Trump. Any sane person realizes this is completely Joever.
Nobody is attached to Biden as a candidate. Even the most hardcore superlibs here are saying they don't like Biden and just vote blue no matter who.
If anyone can be called Russian plant it's AOC because she really wants Trump to win.
She needs to sit down and shut the fuck up. If Biden stays in, there is 100% certainty that Trump is going to win.
My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.
Im sure she still has some of those crocodile tears she shed at the border for them.
my community does not have the option to lose
That's not how elections work. No one is going to count how important the outcome is to you. The election will be decided by low-engagement voters in swing states, not by the New Yorkers who elected Ocasio-Cortez. Those New Yorkers actually might as well stay home on election day, since the Democrats will definitely get New York's electoral college votes anyway.(Your preferred Democratic candidate only matters if (1) you live in a swing state and (2) you're seriously considering voting for Trump. If you're one of those people, you probably don't have a high opinion of Ocasio--Cortez and you probably aren't on Lemmy. Otherwise your job is to figure out which candidate those people prefer and make sure he's the one running.)"Trust me, it'll be super bad (in non-specific ways) to swap out Biden. There are unspecified people pushing to replace Biden for unspecified bad-faith reasons. Just ignore the obvious problems with the candidate, stop saying critical things and get in line. You naysayers don't want to be responsible for handing Donald Trump the election, do you?"
Super strategy, guys.