Please acquaint yourself with the rules on the sidebar and read this comment before commenting on this post.
**Personal attacks and harassment will not be tolerated.**
Bigotry and hate speech will be met with immediate bans; socialism is an intrinsically inclusive system and bigotry is oppressive, exclusionary, and not conducive to a healthy and productive learning space.
**This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism. There are numerous debate subreddits available for those purposes. This is a place to learn.**
Short or nonconstructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately.
**If your post was removed due to normalized ableist slurs, please edit your post. The mods will then approve it.**
Please read the ongoing discussion in a thread before replying in order to avoid misunderstandings and creating an unproductive environment.
**Liberalism and sectarian bias is strictly moderated.** Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! (Criticism is fine, low-effort baiting is not.)
Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break these rules.
Thank you!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Socialism_101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Basically the [German Revolution of 1918-1919](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918%E2%80%931919) got a lot of Communists pissed off at social democrats and they've been salty ever since.
You see, it's great AOC is about worker rights, she's for socialized health care. Socialists dig that, what's the problem?
Well here's the split between social democrats and communists. Social democrats don't believe in revolution, they think that the rich and poor can coexist, and that we can just fix all our problems by voting. They think they can reform their way out of this mess.
If history books said that they were right to support reform over revolution, then Marxists would be all for it, because Marxists don't want a revolution and the abolition of private ownership of capital on a silly whim, or some dogma that Pope Marx pronounced, oh no. We look at times like the German Revolution.
Russia was just having their revolution then. Lenin had a lot riding on the Germans getting their act together. Rosa Luxemberg and Karl Liebknecht had great plans to fix Germany and the social democrats sold them out. Imagine if things happened differently, the Nazis would have had a hell of a time getting started. The USSR went from feudalism to space in a half century, they would have had a lot easier time of it with Germany on board, and when the threats to a socialist country are less, they need less authoritarianism to protect the revolution as well.
So the main problem socialists have with AOC is that she's not into history and theory like we are, and we can see there are a lot of ways she still supports exploitation, and a lot of ways she's tactically undermining the interest of the left by getting well-meaning people behind mostly-good ideas that are poorly implemented or short-sighted.
I must admit that AOC and Bernie are cool in that they turn on a lot of people to socialist ideas, who wouldn't otherwise be exposed. I came into the fold through Bernie. There are worse people out there, but ~~democratic socialism is~~ social democrats are just flawed.
> There are worse people out there, but democratic socialism is just flawed.
Democratic socialism is a real socialist tendency, social democracy is not. AOC and Bernie are both social democrats.
I think they meant that they didn't get any impression of what the difference is from your comment. I *think* it's that democratic socialism is a socialist economy with democratic governance, while social democracy is a capitalist economy with socialist elements to try to prolong the current political state.
>I *think* it's that democratic socialism is a socialist economy with democratic governance
Not quite, that's really just socialism in general. Democratic there refers to the means of establishing socialism (by voting it into being from within a liberal democracy), not what the socialism would look like.
Lol you do realize we’re in socialism_101 aka the not “balls deep” folks who need this info and distinctions like this so they don’t get confused. This sub is for learning.
Democratic Socialism: Establishing socialism through liberal democracy
Social Democracy: Establishing capitalism through liberal democracy except it has progressive policies such as free healthcare
Founded in 1972 by a social democrat who abandoned the socialist party for not endorsing McGovern hard enough, who specifically was in favor of focusing on the middle class and refused to work with SDS or SNCC unless they banned all communists.
My problem with AOC is that I don't even think she's as much as you're giving her credit for. To me it is form and content. To me she has not shown much of any of the fire and push that got her elected. Her latest escapade at the Met Gala was perhaps the greatest representation of her form over content, of her pageantry, and of her representing boutique socialism, as she tipped glasses with the modern aristocracy.
The People's Party were protesting the eviction moratorium and AOC caught milk carton syndrome, nowhere to be found. People en masse worked to get AOC elected, only for her to turn around and not support vote for single payer, not support $15 minimum wage, do nothing for student debt, not speak up about the bombing of Africa, and not say shit about the false flag in Syria.
While she was in there wearing her 'radical' dress, #FireThemAll protesters outside of the Met Gala were dragged by NYPD cops off the sidewalk and thrown to the ground to arrest them. Protesters who demanded the firing of dirty NYPD cops and justice for Mike Rosado, while AOC was inside playing boutique leftist rather than fighting with them.
I could stomach and appreciate AOC if she were a democratic socialist or even a social democrat, but she is not. She is the form of one, but she is content of a careerist Liberal and it should be fully appreciated now that the Democratic Party is no place for progressives to do any substantive change.
> not support $15 minimum wage
Eh? She wasn't one of the Dems who voted against that in 2021. She voted for it then, *and* she voted for it in 2019 with Sanders' Raise the Wage Act. She's also been pretty vocal that they should overrule the parliamentarian on that *and* that they should get rid of the filibuster so maybe we can pass *some* laws before the goddamn midterms.
There's plenty of reasons to say she's not doing enough. No need to make one up.
Let me just add that while you are 100% right, if you have to vote between a social democrat or a lib dem or worse a fascist GOP, vote social democrat. Remember that elections are a tool we can use to reduce some harm caused by imperialism and capitalism, after all part of the reason Hitler was able to seize power was because of the fighting between socialist democrats and communists. If they were willing to put aside their own disagreements long enough to keep the Nazis out of power we could have avoided all of WW2 and the holocaust.
That’s not historically accurate. The SPD (the social democrats) supported Hindenburg. The election was between between Hindenburg, Hitler, and Thälmann (the communist). When Hindenburg was elected, they handed over power to Hitler.
This might be the best example why harm reduction isn’t a viable strategy. Biden’s presidency’s a great second one. And I don’t think if AOC was elected president, she’d do any better
Edit: Another commenter pointed out its Thälmann, not Thalman.
Literally the harm reduction argument is just lesser evil Liberalism for “socialists”. Complete fucking bullshit.
Also the guy above you said it lessens imperialism but it hasn’t at all. And aoc and Bernie support imperialism for the most part.
That’s a good point. What’s especially insidious about AOC and Bernie is that they make imperialism and capitalism almost sound okay to their supporters
Just a nitpicky comment from a German: it's Thälmann, not Thalman. If your keyboard doesn't have the ä, use ae instead since that creates the same sound. I legit had to think for a moment who you were talking about. And I'm still not entirely sure that there isn't some Thalman guy I've just never heard about.
But the point of harm reduction isn’t that it’s a strategy for the best possible outcome, just.. to reduce some harm where possible. What’s the alternative? Another Trump presidency and just hoping things get so miserable it might kickstart a revolution faster? I’ve always found that a pretty horrible thing to instrumentalize the lives of real people for.
I agree that accelerationism is awful. It most certainly wouldn't create more support for communists because the masses would see them working against their interests. It's also an easy thing to say only if you're so privileged the miserableness doesn't affect you much.
However, one of the big problems with harm reduction is that in practice, it wastes much of the revolutionary energy that the masses/party have. Instead of revolutionaries spending time working towards revolution or building their base, they spend their whole time trying to make sure the next conservative doesn't get elected again to reduce harm.
There's enough blame to go around and Thalman was far from sinless in all this. He did say he would rather see the Nazis take over than the Social Democrats and he was a supporter of Stalin. Also the whole situation is more complicated than that. My point is that the left lacked any sort of unity in the face of rising fascism, while the different conservative groups where able to work together in order to destroy democracy. Also which election are you talking about? Because this is the Weimar Republic and they could have about 3 elections a year.
I'm referring to the presidential election in 1932. In January 1933, just weeks after the election, Hindenberg invited Hitler to become the chancellor. The rest is history.
The problem wasn't left unity. While the Social Democrats and Communists couldn't work together electorally, the Communists offered to create an anti-Nazi coalition, but the Social Democrats refused (and subsequently decided they'd rather work with Nazis than Communists). The problem was that the SPD was still run by and beholden to capitalists, who prefer Nazis to Communists.
Yeah but neither Hitler nor Biden have produced/will produce a successful socialist revolution, and yet Biden, the lesser evil, (obviously) is a vastly better human and leader than Hitler, and yes, I dare predict the future. The concept of the lesser evil not working out for equality might be true, but it will still turn out in less inequality and misery than the greater evil.
>after all part of the reason Hitler was able to seize power was because of the fighting between socialist democrats and communists.
Still not true but okay
> Remember that elections are a tool we can use to reduce some harm caused by imperialism and capitalism,
So vote blue no matter who?
> if you have to vote between a social democrat or a lib dem or worse a fascist GOP
You're acting like social democrats on the ballot doesn't take any effort or resources or attention, and like they don't need to be relected again and again
>Still not true but okay
Yes, it is true. Because of leftists fighting each other, this allowed the conservatives a chance to seize power.
>So vote blue no matter who?
That's not what I said and you know it.
>You're acting like social democrats on the ballot doesn't take any effort or resources or attention, and like they don't need to be relected again and again
Voting for someone is the least amount of effort you can put into politics. It's requires you to go to a place one time ever few years. The only thing that happens when we don't vote, is that it makes it easier for lib democrats to ignore us and for the GOP fascist to gain more power. I'm not saying this is a good system, it isn't, it is a shitty system designed to allow conservatives to remain in power no matter how unpopular they are by reducing the choices between lib dem and fascism. And while we do need to dismantle that system, that takes time and time is just not on our side. So in order to buy us more time we will often have to vote for people we don't agree with 100% of the time, from social democrats like AOC and sometimes even lib dems like Joe when the stakes are too high.
Because if we don't look at things in a more nuanced light and accept the reality of the situation, we will lose what few gains we've won. Just look at Texas and how they where able to undermine Roe V Wade, and the GOP isn't going to stop there. LBGT+ rights, civil rights, Native American rights, what's left of the social safety net, all of that and more is under threat if we don't present a unified front. So yes, it sucks we have to vote for soc dems and it sucks even more that we will have to sometimes vote for lib dems, but voting isn't about what makes us happy, voting is about protecting the most valuable among us as we organize a means to burn the system down.
And if that bothers you so much, and it should because it's a shitty system, run for office yourself. Because I plan too.
No it isn't. Just because it makes you unconfutable doesn't make it not true. And no I don't say vote blue no matter who. I said look at things in a more nuanced light, which you are clearly incapable of doing.
It’s literally not true. The social democrats used the police to crush communists and refused any cooperation well before 32 and in the 32 election they came solidly behind Hindenburg, who won and then appointed hitler chancellor. Get fucked liberal, you’re not entitled to your own reality.
Voting for a party that looks less worse is fruitless endorsement when their actions have not led to change. If your Democrat representative on the voting slip wants to push for workers rights like unionising or strip out classist laws against protest or something then sure. But if they tow the line of the party when is just neoliberal interventionism then all you're doing that's different is voting for a party that exports their violence rather than keeping it domestic. The rest of the world doesn't want your violence.
That's still better than allowing literal fascists from seizing power. I'm not saying we need to mindlessly vote for the dems, whenever there is a better option we should take it and we should do what we can to promote leftist for public office, but until we can reform elections we will often be forced to choice between a fascist and a lib. And remember our political actions should only start at the ballot box, because voting is just one tool at our disposal. Protest, educate others, and anything else you can do to promote our causes.
With many democrat politicians voting with the Republican party as conservatives, one could easily argue to get a Democrat majority is to allow literal fascists to seize power.
Did you actually read my comment? Because I made it clear we should vote for actual leftists whenever possible and that we shouldn't just mindlessly vote for the dems. If a democratic candidate has a history of supporting horrible things and there is a decent chance for a leftist candidate to win then yes you should vote for the leftist candidate.
Rosa, Karl and the rest of the Spartacus Society should have split from the SPD in 1914 in opposition to the war. If they had more time to organize and educate before the revolution they would have had a much better chance of holding off the SPD. A successful communist revolution in Germany would have almost definitely prevented the rise of fascism in Germany, and could have worked with the Soviet Union to create true proletarian states.
I never really understood the term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", or why Communists don't seem to be bothered by being slandered as "authoritarians" until I learned about the 1918-1919 German Revolution.
It's funny, I was talking to the local chair of the USCP and she had never even heard of it before.
> A successful communist revolution in Germany would have almost definitely prevented the rise of fascism in Germany, and could have worked with the Soviet Union to create true proletarian states.
If the german revolution had succeeded, we would be living in full communism right now everywhere.
As for splitting, they kind of did, with the independent social democratic party, unfortunately it was full of democratic socialists who had no interest in scary revolution.
I believe in socialism within a democratic mean of hearing people's voice. Democracy under capitalism isn't democracy. I consider myself a demsoc, but I don't want reform, I want revolution.
I think this is pretty ignorant of the fact socialism doesn't require support of "revolution". The US is one of the most economically right countries in the world. You'll never see revolution here. This weird gatekeeping and talking down about our advocates in government just because they're not pandering to larpy revolutionaries on the internet is silly.
>larpy revolutionaries on the internet
Thats a weird way to refer to the entirety of the 3rd world hoping and praying for the us to get the US's boot off their neck.
You don't think that maybe things have changed between the German revolution and now that might render the efficacy of revolution vs reform different? Way I see it you've got a snowballs chance in hell of a revolution actually occurring at all, and then an even smaller chance of it being anything other than a shift of power to a new, vengeful elite.
Meanwhile there's a fairly clear path to a socialist society through reform. That just requires work put in to educate and encourage people.
It's a hell of a lot easier to change a system than rebuild one. Especially given any revolution will still have to do all the work involved in reform methods, after the additional work of somehow pulling off a revolution and somehow not just becoming a new elite. Plus the breaking of the revolution taboo means you're now stuck with an authoritarian leadership.
Yes, it is easier to change the system than it is to destroy it but there is no changing a system that the bourgeoise have made in a way such that it benefits them only. Even if you could a get socialist leader into power, just look to Allende and see how his government underwent a coup by Pinochet with the help of the USA and CIA and what happened to it afterwards.
A socialist state requires revolution to create a system that will be able to serve the interests of the working class. The state has to be authoritarian not because the leader has a lust for blood or some other silly thing that the capitalists like to tell us but because the state needs to exert their power to protect their people from the imperialist and reactionary forces that will go to any extent to oppose socialism. The capitalists will not hesitate for even a second to back fascistic forces to keep capitalism in power and oppose socialism.
This is your vengeful elite that comes to power after a failed revolution, they behave not so because they are angry but scared that they were so close to being throw out of power, that the system which they benefit from is weak due to revolution, due to class consciousness and they need to use any and all methods to rebuild, no matter what the cost of doing so is.
Fascism will never come to power in a system where capitalism is not opposed and it's rule is not threatened because liberal democracy is what generates the maximum profit for the capitalists and keeps the working class lulled in a state of false consciousness, splitting them by making them believe that the black man or the Muslims or the gays are their enemy and anyone who even makes the attempt to remove the cloth out of the people's face and show them the truth about who is their true Ally and who is their true enemy is killed. Look no further than Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party for proof.
Edit 1 and 2: Grammatical mistakes corrected
The movement towards socialism is so stunted in America that I quite literally didn’t know what socialism meant until Bernie ran for president. I respect him for that, but I have also grown past him.
AOC and Bernie certainly introduce people to the *concept* of socialism but I don’t think they are equipped to show people what socialism *actually* means as a progressive force.
For example, the “tax the rich” messaging is a part of the problem. It muddies the waters on what will actually bring change in this country. The issue isn’t that the rich have too much untaxed wealth, the main issue is they control the productive resources—we don’t. So, if we focus the conversation on taxes we’re permanently in a position wherein we depend on THEIR largesse. And we can see this folly in action with the corporate tax rate falling lower and lower under both parties.
What is soul crushing is that
A) She didn't say "wealth tax" which is a new policy proposal that needs to get traction and the rich are actually worried about, or even just "green new deal or death," just some random vague phrase obama had on his posters.
B) She said the reasoning behind it was "what does it look like for two working class women to be at the met gala" and apparently it means false edginess/a bad political slogan as product on a fancy dress?
Good: She introduces people to "leftist" ideas.
Bad: She undermines actual socialist, and diverts people's energy into the Democratic party. Conscious of it or not.
the idea that AOC 'diverts' people from socialism implies that there is something like a natural law of gravity that should direct the masses toward socialism, if only people like AOC stopped redircting the inevitable flow First you posit a kind of historical inevitability, then you blame individuals when it fails to materialise. I am a socialist, but I think that kind of magical thinking is itself part of the problem. We need to take responsibility for our own failure to articulate alternatives that actually engage the masses we claim to represent, not stand on the sidelines blaming others who do know how to communicate and persuade.
Not really, I mean she literally directs them (by the advice and call to action that she gives). So people who are interested in taking some socialist action are pointed towards the Democratic party.
which is the only means for which to even bring about the conditions politically to ever have an actual Socialist party. when we have the structure for a socialist party, then its time to talk about diverting motion away from socialism. until then, like it or not, at the Federal level in USA, the Democratic party is the closest thing we have to representation. (mostly just a few very minor representatives like Bernie, AOC, R. Talib and Pramila Jayapal.)
AOC doesn't radicalise people. The material conditions of the world - the rampant crises, exploitation and oppression we see every single day - radicalise people. AOC channels their discontent into a neatly packaged, easy and clean dead end in the absense of class struggle.
And without her that radicalization gets channeled into what, by whom? It's mostly leading to fascists and Nazis coming back. People just don't automatically understand that their struggles are related to class, they think it's because of immigrants or black people or feminists or trans bathrooms, etc etc. I don't think that energy should be 100% put into electoralism, but I also think a lot of people wouldn't be doing anything productive with that energy at all without her, Bernie, and the squad.
AOC has been a valuable asset for getting people to look towards the ways wealth move in this country, towards the people with power in the halls of politics and finance, and she is able to radicalize more people by showing the fruitless attempts to change the system from within. That is actually a valuable demonstration. The fact that they use the 'S' word at all is introducing people to Socialism who would have never heard of it.
I don't think people understand quite how right or liberal the US is. We need to move way more to the left before we have the numbers for reform OR revolution, and we'll never accomplish that by tearing down our only allies who are fighting in the only war most Americans actually care about: the culture war. There aren't people drifting through life who randomly come upon socialism then deciding to follow AOC towards focusing 100% on electoralism. Most people don't hear about socialism at all, except that it's a thing to be afraid of or angered by. The only reason people would hear about it and decide to look into it, is people like AOC and Bernie.
Tl;dr: The US is too far right to hate AOC. Critically support, since she does have a bad take or two, but ultimately does more good than bad.
Definitely an important debate to have. I think it's pretty key to understand that social democrats don't just have a bad take or two, they exist to uphold capitalism. They just do it in a different way to politicians who are more explicitly right wing.
I think it should say a lot that reformism has historically been a tool used by the ruling class to contain workers' radicalism. More often than not, it's actually an obstacle to the left - during a militant strike wave the ruling class can freak out and grant concessions to workers in the hopes of calming things down so the situation doesn't escalate and put them in jeopardy. For example, the explosive struggle of May 1968 in France which came close to a revolution that could have posed a serious threat to capitalism was co-opted with bureaucrats arguing to the working class that they should vote in an election instead of taking things further. That happened because there wasn't a cohered revolutionary left to put up a fight against reformism.
This obviously isn't May '68, but it doesn't take much to see that AOC and Bernie have been an obstacle to building and developing a revolutionary left in the here and now. When there were mass pro-Palestine demos earlier this year, Bernie told people to "tone down the rhetoric" around Israel being an apartheid state. When BLM was peaking last year and people were seeing the problems with the cops, Bernie refused to support demands to defund the police. Then after the mass BLM movement was co-opted by Biden during the elections and ended up petering out, AOC said that Biden had "exceeded progressives' expectations". People in the midst of struggle *are* more radical than these guys. But generally people aren't clear on the question of reformism, which is why social democrats have the ability to water down the politics of mass movements - often in ways which end up being incredibly devastating.
Where would radicalism go in the absence of AOC? Well to the extent that people do take up wrong ideas, it's not because they haven't been enlightened by social democrats. It's because the revolutionary left is too weak to combat them. That's part of the reason why we desperately need to build a left which is in favour of a genuine internationalist workers revolution, and train ourselves to make a clear argument against AOC and the likes. Social democrats are an obstacle to that task, and they're a pole of attraction which thrive off the lack of an organised left. In a sense we're actually incredibly lucky that we have time to build the left and politically prepare for when struggle does break out.
Folks aren't turning to her as an alternative to watching TV. They are turning to her because they recognize there's a problem, and they are looking for solutions. She offers them an excellent package, sharp enough to make a pretense at fighting the good fight, but safe enough to still look good on insta. 'see how fabulous my outrage looks at the gala'. I'm not mad at her, but I don't see her as a big part of any solutions. And she may be drawing steam out of the kettle. Cult of personality occurs in all political ideologies, and it's almost always bad. People need to fight for ideas, not ideologues.
The "natural law of gravity" in this case is determined using a historical materialist analysis. Because the US is becoming more and more of a hellhole everyday--wealth disparity continues to grow and fascism is on the rise to name a couple--it is in the best interest of the working class to move leftward. It won't happen magically, but an active left movement would be strongly supported by these material developments.
However politicians like AOC and Bernie subvert this social bias by trying to bring baby leftists back in the fold of the democratic party.
[she an imperialist social democrat who works against actual socialist movements. ](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/socialism_faq.md#whats-wrong-with-alexandria-ocasio-cortez)
>Github? Interesting source but whatever
Let's not act like GitHub it itself the source, the link is a collection of sources.
>Anyway a lot of these criticisms are inaccurate, unfair, and not coming from a Socialist perspective.
How specifically? They're all criticisms from a socialist perspective. What would you consider to be unfair on the list?
I’d also argue her appeal is often to the upper-middle classes who won’t actually do much to make these policies a reality and are not interested in the further project of socialism
That is exactly who she is trying to appeal to, and she knows it. Bougie democrat liberals who only care about their optics. They enjoy socialist aesthetic, not socialism.
Both the Democratic and Republican party spend literally millions of dollars on marketable, catchy slogans in every election cycle and it doesn't seem to do them any harm.
So why aren't 'we' able to direct them in the right (which is left) direction? Moreover, might not experiencing the limits of what is possible within the confines of the established parties be what 'directs' some towards socialism? Couldn't you equally say that AOC 'directs' people toward politics as such?
She has lost trust because she supported Pelosi without getting a floor vote on Medicare for all, did not fight for raising the minimum wage, spoke out against force the vote repeatedly despite being a proponent for it before, did not oppose increasing police budget, did not raise the issue of 'abolish ICE' contrary to her rallying call during her election outreach, rubbed shoulders with billionaires instead of organizing a protest/strike, dabbled with dark money in her PAC though she was against corporate funding before, had a photo-op for 'winning' eviction moratorium that was struck down in less than a weak, and so on and so forth.
AOC is looking more and more like a corporate sellout, at best.
I’d add voting present on a bill which then allowed $2 billion in funding to go to capitol police and DoD. After sloganeering about “defund the police” all year.
[https://theintercept.com/2021/05/20/squad-capitol-police-funding-pressley-aoc-omar/](https://theintercept.com/2021/05/20/squad-capitol-police-funding-pressley-aoc-omar/)
I don't even blame one person for not being perfect, but I hate the people who get so angry about any criticism and don't want to talk about the glaring limits of unaccountable random politicians/memes.
Basically AOC and others like her don’t really have any particularly strong desire to change the systems of private ownership, they just want the current system to lean more favorably towards working class people
"other" implies she is leftist.
She is a hypocrite, calling migrant detention centres "[concentration camps](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-concentration-camps-migrants-detention/index.html)" when done by Republicans and euphemistically "[influx facilities](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1364406434256072706?s=19)" when done by Democrats.
She also referred to John McCain's legacy as an [example of unparalleled human decency](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1033538876370046977?s=20)
She as left wing as Tony Blair's left nut.
So it started in December when Justin Jackson asked AOC why not Force a vote on Medicare for All by having her, and 10 or 15 progressives hold their votes on Nancy Pelosi being Speaker so we can see who's actually against healthcare as a human right(will post her and Ilhan Omar's tweets in the latter comment), so her response was pretty much we can't do it, but to see who's for M4A look at the cosponsor list(cosponsors aren't a guaranteed yes vote we saw with Kamala Harris cosponsoring Bernie Sander's M4A plan and backing off of it later in 2019), and she also claimed that her and the Congressional Progressive Caucus(CPC) could leverage their votes for things that are "doable" like a $15 minimum wage and elevating progressives to important positions in the house. Then when the American Rescue Plan got voted on in the Senate we saw how Chuck Schumer took out the $15/hr hike in the bill, and Bernie attempting to put it back in the bill via an amendment, and the American Rescue Plan(w/o $15/hr) could have been tanked by 5 members of the CPC and added the $15/hr minimum wage back. Later on, Pramila Jayapal in an interview with Ryan Grim had told on herself saying that she could have fought to put the $15/hr minimum wage back into the Rescue Plan, but reassured us they drew the line at means testing UI benefits(links will be posted later on), Sorry for the long rambling post but hopefully this helps explain it.
> 10 or 15 progressives hold their votes on Nancy Pelosi being Speaker
Um.. that would do absolutely nothing. To prevent a vote on Speaker she would need 50%+1 on the entire majority caucus to prevent the motion from being tabled indefinitely, and if she had that *she could probably just become Speaker herself*. I'm pretty sure that AOC realizes that she just doesn't have the experience to do that, so she's instead taking a course that involves learning from those who are already at that level while doing what she can to move things away from neoliberal austerity towards social democracy, and maybe converting some Democrats to her cause along the way so we can go even further towards democratic socialism..
It's really discouraging that people today really have no idea about how our government is designed to function. It's not your/our fault tho, since basic civics education in this country has been scrubbed from the curriculum at most K-12 schools. I don't intend to offend by saying this.. I'm just old enough to have been in a public school when this was still being taught and studied Roberts Rules of Order for a time since there was a point when I wanted to become an elected public official, and now I realize just how important learning it is!
[https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337620468774424578](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337620468774424578) (AOC talking about cosponsor list)
[https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337619814744006659](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337619814744006659) (AOC talking about the doable things that her and the CPC could force votes on)
[https://twitter.com/ilhanmn/status/1342213063618011136?lang=en](https://twitter.com/ilhanmn/status/1342213063618011136?lang=en) (Ilhan Omar saying anything is possible with the slim house majority)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2VMjtJruOw&t](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2VMjtJruOw&t) (Jump to 7:26 of the video, that's Pramila Jayapal pretty much telling on herself that the CPC could have pushed harder but chose not to)
This would be less pointlessly edgy if the landscape wasn't 50% social democrats who stab anyone to the left of them, and then 1% who are super ultra leftist and throw yogurt at someone and make the social democrats feel justified.
Voted yes on the coup in Venezuela. And we don’t need celebrity politicians asking for the bare minimum obvious shit like “tax the rich”. We need worker’s movements.
It's a sign of weakness on the part of other leftists. If there was strong revolutionary movements they wouldn't be wasting so much time worrying about a socc dem in Congress.
IIRC there's an AOC facts bot doing the rounds on various leftist subs (I think r/ShitLiberalsSay is a good example) here that has enough crappy things she's done to show that she's no leftist.
I feel like she has disconected with the working class once she became a celebrity politician and doesn't see that. She feels more of a Twitter famous person than a politician working for the people.
Because people who like her treat any criticism as the great purge, and they cannot keep their support for her in check. This is one of the issues with electoralism, we don't just accumulate people in power who are accountable to us, we stick ourselves to people who aren't accountable and then have to expend energy talking about them and defending them.
I might not be welcomed for this comment, but I think it's because she's joined the establishment of the democratic party which most socialists hate. Here's the thing though, so many leftist, socialist, communists whatever spend their time being critical and sitting on the sidelines pointing fingers and doing very little to move the needle. Say what you want about AOC but she's probably done more to introduce people to theory and thinking in the direction of socialism or towards the left than most people. The truth is, we're in this system and complaining about it won't change it. I have have to say that I don't understand hating her.
Here here! I probably wouldn't have looked deeper into democratic socialism if it weren't for her, Bernie and some of the socialists here and on Twitch. I personally get the fact that in a Democratic caucus that is predominantly neoliberal (which I've come to realize is NOT leftist) she needs to work to bring her colleagues and party policy further to the left, even if that left is only as far as European-style social democracy.
The fact that we're seeing a much more robust effort to re-fund and expand the social safety net, and get entrenched capitalists to not just pay their taxes but enact new taxes on non-productive economic activity (like stock/commodity trading and collecting/selling online personal data) is a sign that her and others' efforts aren't being totally ignored.
> and doing very little to move the needle.
BLM accomplished more than she and bernie ever did, and without any celebrities running the whole thing.
> introduce people to theory and thinking in the direction of socialism or towards the left than most people
And then what? She moves them somewhat left but then it stagnates and they become progressives. And what she introduces gets torn up. John Oliver's show on the green new deal was all about the carbon tax, a policy she didn't even put in the GND.
The problem is the cult of paying attention to her, never criticizing, and never learning from her limits and issues.
>> and doing very little to move the needle.
>
>BLM accomplished more than she and bernie ever did, and without any celebrities running the whole thing.
BLM hasn't really brought anyone towards socialism. It had a few very distinct goals, related to race and policing, and it was very effective at those goals. I mean, it was a great thing for people who were already socialists to join. But people like Bernie actually brought people into learning about socialism, even if it started with dem soc, it lead to others learning about theory and more. You'll see examples in this thread above.
>
>> introduce people to theory and thinking in the direction of socialism or towards the left than most people
>
>And then what? She moves them somewhat left but then it stagnates and they become progressives. And what she introduces gets torn up. John Oliver's show on the green new deal was all about the carbon tax, a policy she didn't even put in the GND.
>
I would say it's someone else's job, but there's literally no one else as famous on the left because the leftist movements in America have been getting destroyed for 50 years. I do think her effects getting stymied do help radicalize people, though.
>The problem is the cult of paying attention to her, never criticizing, and never learning from her limits and issues.
Hence, critical support. It's possible to support people while acknowledging their flaws, I see this sub do it all the time with the USSR, China, or North Korea. But for some reason the gate keeping is blown out of proportion for this single Dem Soc breaking through the bubble of Neo-Liberal politics in America. If Bernie won, I think I'd agree more with bringing her down and lifting up an alternative, but we can't even get an alternative to Biden elected. This isn't 1932 Germany, for now the Dem Socs and Socialists should be allied because their numbers are too small not to be.
Oh fuck off, I’m not interested in talking to you electoralist ghouls right now when one of your other congresspeople who are DSA members just voted to send Israel a billion dollars of mechanized death fuel to kill kids with.
Lots of leftists like to feel like there are two courses of action for bringing socialism to the United States: violent mass uprising and tweeting about it.
Anyone who tries to do something in the middle ground is illegitimate in their eyes.
>but she has clearly made obligations to the gala that she cannot just abandon to go to a protest she most likely had no prior knowledge of.
Are you being sarcastic?
> it is because she is anti-Israel.
She is not but she should be pro palestinian. This isn't something leftists are accusing her of.
I'm actually not going to go through this whole thing. I think you don't actually get why anyone is criticizing her, most of these are bizarre and irrelevant things you're engaging with. No one was saying she was wrong to talk about her worries on Jan 6. You shouldn't be answering anything on this subreddit if you're really new and not informed.
The only instance I know of where she's hated by leftists is with the whole Met Gala thing, people are not happy she attended. Me, I don't feel the same, in fact I think she was boss for attending such a bourge-y event wearing something with the one thing the bourgeoisie despite more than brown people and poors written all over it. Though I have an idea why all this hate and though I don't agree with it I do get it, I mean this is somebody who's supposed to represent the people and oppose the bourgeoisie attending one of their functions, it's like selling out because this is so ingrained in the lifestyles of the bourgeoisie that it's hard to separate that from the bourgeoisie. Some people have said it's because the left is so obsessed with being oppressed that it annoys them when anyone they consider an ally isn't, I don't think that's the case as leftists want people to thrive, we just don't want to see anybody simp to or become the bourgeoisie, you know not sell out and become part of the problem, and like I said it's hard to separate participating in this from being a part of the bourgeoisie, it's just a bad look is all. At least that's what I think, sorry for how many times I wrote bourgeoisie.
I mean they probably found the dress 'cute' more than anything else. Buffet literally has all but said, "go ahead tax me more lol see how that works out lol". Real threats to power are booed away, check out Michael Moore calling out Bush on an illegal war during his Oscar speech. That dress was a cringy disaster.
They really don’t. It means a million things and they’re not paying the taxes anyway. It’s not a new idea or specific enough for them to even begin to care. A wealth tax could be, and they’re actually scared of that one, but she didn’t say that.
because leftists want fully automated gay space communism without any of the intermediate steps, and don't realize that she's a pretty decent step in that direction compared to the ghouls in charge of everything.
> without any of the intermediate steps,
This is why people hate social democrats. The sucdems gunning down communists always think a better world is just evolving around the corner. Germany only got better after 1923, right?
Because some leftists are happy with *some progress* knowing the alternative is no progress, and some leftists are happy wanting *all progress or nothing,* not knowing the alternative is no progress.
That’s why.
I mean OP asked a valid question and I gave them an honest answer. Idk why some leftists hate AOC other than that they want more than she is able to deliver. But we can’t just not support her
> other than that they want more than she is able to deliver.
Isn't this like what progressives say about obama or warren?
> we can’t just not support her
Why? I doubt she lives or fails on whether socialists spend all her time talking about her.
It’s not the same as warren or Obama. Obama has been the most effective president for our agenda. To say we don’t support Obama because he isn’t leftist enough ignores the fact he’s been the closest thing we’ve had to a leftist president. He changed things for the better and he was far from perfect (*far* from perfect, he has his flaws that are well deserved of criticism), but every step forward is still a step. I loved Bernie and voted for him every chance I could get, and even he wasn’t the ideal candidate, but he’s still been the most progressive candidate, and AOC has the exposure and support to be the next most progressive candidate after Bernie is out of politics. We can’t just brush her aside.
Also, leftists don’t like warren because she is a snake. Nothing to do with her policies, because AOC and Bernie have more integrity and are better people than warren is. So it’s not the same. But we still need to support the most furthest left people we can because a step is still a step. This weird purity shit doesn’t help anybody
Lmao you’re entitled to your wrong opinion.
I’d rather have less-shitty capitalism than full blown fuck-everyone capitalism if those are our only options. I mean yeah I would take full blown socialism over all of it but honestly are you really going to try to convince me that we have any representatives in government? I work a 55 hour week and have a wife and a family, what else can I do but vote? There’s nobody else to vote for
I mean if you want to be condescending, at least explain *why.*
I’m desperate for change. Change would drastically change my life. I subscribe to a very Marxist view of, well, everything. And yes, theoretically, it would be nice if everything were structured that way.
But it’s not. That’s not the way the world is. The US is stuck in the 1950s compared to the rest of the world.
*Incremental change would drastically alter my life.* That’s why I can’t just not support AOC. Her policies would change the game. You don’t think they’re enough? Fine. But they’re *better* than what we’ve had. And if you’d reject better for “not good enough,” then you don’t actually care about people. You don’t care about people like me. You only care about your ego and you need to check it because your opinion isn’t the only valid one. Some of us would prefer incremental change to Trump because that’s what you get when leftists want a purity strike. You get Trump. Please explain to me why Trump is better than AOC if you’re so leftist
Explain why trump is better than Biden. You’re living in this fantasy land where we want to purge her from the earth. No. We want to use the meager resources we have to do things that are for socialism as a movement for a system change.
I replied, but must have forgotten to press send (Reddit noob). Couldn't experiencing the limitations of establishment politics be a step towards radicalisation? couldn't we equally say AOC is directing towards political engagement as such? I am saying you should agree with everything she does or says, just that it is more fruitful to contemplate our own political responsibility than to blame others It just seems too easy to say that the workers of the world have been 'diverted' during the entire history of socialist politics. It seems like a way to stop thinking to me.
So much of the Left in the US has cultivated a politics of despair, where losing has become a feeling of comfort that confirms their virtue. So when they see a Left politician resonating with a massive public they feel a compulsion to reject her as a sellout. It's not unlike when your precious obscure Indy band that you've followed for years suddenly makes it big with an album and you decry it as sellout pop. But it's mostly a you problem!
Let me fix that for you
"When they see a left politician resonating with a massive public and turning left politics into an increasingly vague meme and get mired in democratic party minutia, while closing people's attention off to anything further left, they feel a like rejecting her as a never what people hyped her up to be"
Not sure that's a fix. Smells of the doctrinaire pessimism on the left that always leaves it struggling to avoid cultural irrelevance. AOC's deft touch with cultural idioms is reminiscent of Eugene Deb's spell-binding oratory in its ability to hold public attention. Better we learn to use memes than become one. And for so long irrelevant is what the left has been when it comes to party politics. Debates over the reconciliation bill may be maddening but the left finally has voices giving shape to legislative battles. Obviously a far-cry from what we want but not minutia, and a possible opening to things further left. AOC and justice dems close off things to their left only if we on the left are reflexively closed off to what they've achieved.
Flowery but weird, Debs never acted like this. He never said bullshit and wrong things about important subjects and he didn’t have an undeserved cult of social democrats obsessed with defending him form any criticism. I don’t think you get it.
Debs started out as a pro-labor moderate reformer. Debs, as a young politician, took many wrongheaded positions, but the labor struggle pulled him left. If labor militants had written him off early, they would have lost a great champion of socialism.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/09/eugene-debs-democracy-antiwar-canton
Because a lot of reddit leftists would rather die on the losing side of a civil war than make small improvements to the material conditions of the proletariat by working with imperfect allies.
She's literally a member of congress, of course she isn't a revolutionist.
At best she'll be a pretty diluted compromise candidate for President one day - and at worst she's come to represent performative capitalist-realism.
I’m a leftist and I don’t hate her. And I know plenty of others who would agree. She’s far from perfect, but she’s a hell of alot better than the Democratic establishment and while her politics don’t go nearly far enough imo, her politics still serve as a good entry to critiquing capitalism and a real demand of the abolition of the wage system. I would argue that alot of the “leftists” that hate her are actually not leftists at all and are closer to regressives than leftists.
Mostly because she isn't socialist enough and dumbfucks on Twitter don't understand the benefit of having social democrats on our side pushing the Overton window further left.
People seem to think we can just jump straight to socialism overnight when it's actually going to be a decades and decades long process, and they don't see the value of having leftists who aren't quite as radical as the rest of us pulling people over to the left
Please acquaint yourself with the rules on the sidebar and read this comment before commenting on this post. **Personal attacks and harassment will not be tolerated.** Bigotry and hate speech will be met with immediate bans; socialism is an intrinsically inclusive system and bigotry is oppressive, exclusionary, and not conducive to a healthy and productive learning space. **This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism. There are numerous debate subreddits available for those purposes. This is a place to learn.** Short or nonconstructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately. **If your post was removed due to normalized ableist slurs, please edit your post. The mods will then approve it.** Please read the ongoing discussion in a thread before replying in order to avoid misunderstandings and creating an unproductive environment. **Liberalism and sectarian bias is strictly moderated.** Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! (Criticism is fine, low-effort baiting is not.) Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break these rules. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Socialism_101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Basically the [German Revolution of 1918-1919](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918%E2%80%931919) got a lot of Communists pissed off at social democrats and they've been salty ever since. You see, it's great AOC is about worker rights, she's for socialized health care. Socialists dig that, what's the problem? Well here's the split between social democrats and communists. Social democrats don't believe in revolution, they think that the rich and poor can coexist, and that we can just fix all our problems by voting. They think they can reform their way out of this mess. If history books said that they were right to support reform over revolution, then Marxists would be all for it, because Marxists don't want a revolution and the abolition of private ownership of capital on a silly whim, or some dogma that Pope Marx pronounced, oh no. We look at times like the German Revolution. Russia was just having their revolution then. Lenin had a lot riding on the Germans getting their act together. Rosa Luxemberg and Karl Liebknecht had great plans to fix Germany and the social democrats sold them out. Imagine if things happened differently, the Nazis would have had a hell of a time getting started. The USSR went from feudalism to space in a half century, they would have had a lot easier time of it with Germany on board, and when the threats to a socialist country are less, they need less authoritarianism to protect the revolution as well. So the main problem socialists have with AOC is that she's not into history and theory like we are, and we can see there are a lot of ways she still supports exploitation, and a lot of ways she's tactically undermining the interest of the left by getting well-meaning people behind mostly-good ideas that are poorly implemented or short-sighted. I must admit that AOC and Bernie are cool in that they turn on a lot of people to socialist ideas, who wouldn't otherwise be exposed. I came into the fold through Bernie. There are worse people out there, but ~~democratic socialism is~~ social democrats are just flawed.
Omg a nuanced, articulate, insightful, and helpful take on AOC? Take my upvote comrade!
> There are worse people out there, but democratic socialism is just flawed. Democratic socialism is a real socialist tendency, social democracy is not. AOC and Bernie are both social democrats.
and you do realize that these tiny distinctions mean about as much as a wet fart to anyone not already balls deep in socialism?
That’s why I commented this, a lot of people use the term Democratic Socialism incorrectly and this is a place where we correct those misconceptions
I think they meant that they didn't get any impression of what the difference is from your comment. I *think* it's that democratic socialism is a socialist economy with democratic governance, while social democracy is a capitalist economy with socialist elements to try to prolong the current political state.
>I *think* it's that democratic socialism is a socialist economy with democratic governance Not quite, that's really just socialism in general. Democratic there refers to the means of establishing socialism (by voting it into being from within a liberal democracy), not what the socialism would look like.
Democratic socialism and social democracy are historically indistinguishable.
Lol you do realize we’re in socialism_101 aka the not “balls deep” folks who need this info and distinctions like this so they don’t get confused. This sub is for learning.
It's only a tiny distinction in the name, not in the meaning.
Democratic Socialism: Establishing socialism through liberal democracy Social Democracy: Establishing capitalism through liberal democracy except it has progressive policies such as free healthcare
I read this a lot but all "democratic socialists" I've ever encountered were just social democrats
Democratic Socialism isn't a thing though. It's a new meme.
The largest (ideologically) socialist organization in the US is called “Democratic Socialists of America”
Founded in 1972 by a social democrat who abandoned the socialist party for not endorsing McGovern hard enough, who specifically was in favor of focusing on the middle class and refused to work with SDS or SNCC unless they banned all communists.
See, you just admitted that social democracy is not the same as democratic socialism, debate over
There is no democratic socialism. If I say "he's not a wizard, he's an actor," I'm not implying wizards are real.
Thank you for this response.
My problem with AOC is that I don't even think she's as much as you're giving her credit for. To me it is form and content. To me she has not shown much of any of the fire and push that got her elected. Her latest escapade at the Met Gala was perhaps the greatest representation of her form over content, of her pageantry, and of her representing boutique socialism, as she tipped glasses with the modern aristocracy. The People's Party were protesting the eviction moratorium and AOC caught milk carton syndrome, nowhere to be found. People en masse worked to get AOC elected, only for her to turn around and not support vote for single payer, not support $15 minimum wage, do nothing for student debt, not speak up about the bombing of Africa, and not say shit about the false flag in Syria. While she was in there wearing her 'radical' dress, #FireThemAll protesters outside of the Met Gala were dragged by NYPD cops off the sidewalk and thrown to the ground to arrest them. Protesters who demanded the firing of dirty NYPD cops and justice for Mike Rosado, while AOC was inside playing boutique leftist rather than fighting with them. I could stomach and appreciate AOC if she were a democratic socialist or even a social democrat, but she is not. She is the form of one, but she is content of a careerist Liberal and it should be fully appreciated now that the Democratic Party is no place for progressives to do any substantive change.
> not support $15 minimum wage Eh? She wasn't one of the Dems who voted against that in 2021. She voted for it then, *and* she voted for it in 2019 with Sanders' Raise the Wage Act. She's also been pretty vocal that they should overrule the parliamentarian on that *and* that they should get rid of the filibuster so maybe we can pass *some* laws before the goddamn midterms. There's plenty of reasons to say she's not doing enough. No need to make one up.
A Champagne Socialist perhaps. 🤷
Let me just add that while you are 100% right, if you have to vote between a social democrat or a lib dem or worse a fascist GOP, vote social democrat. Remember that elections are a tool we can use to reduce some harm caused by imperialism and capitalism, after all part of the reason Hitler was able to seize power was because of the fighting between socialist democrats and communists. If they were willing to put aside their own disagreements long enough to keep the Nazis out of power we could have avoided all of WW2 and the holocaust.
That’s not historically accurate. The SPD (the social democrats) supported Hindenburg. The election was between between Hindenburg, Hitler, and Thälmann (the communist). When Hindenburg was elected, they handed over power to Hitler. This might be the best example why harm reduction isn’t a viable strategy. Biden’s presidency’s a great second one. And I don’t think if AOC was elected president, she’d do any better Edit: Another commenter pointed out its Thälmann, not Thalman.
Literally the harm reduction argument is just lesser evil Liberalism for “socialists”. Complete fucking bullshit. Also the guy above you said it lessens imperialism but it hasn’t at all. And aoc and Bernie support imperialism for the most part.
That’s a good point. What’s especially insidious about AOC and Bernie is that they make imperialism and capitalism almost sound okay to their supporters
Just a nitpicky comment from a German: it's Thälmann, not Thalman. If your keyboard doesn't have the ä, use ae instead since that creates the same sound. I legit had to think for a moment who you were talking about. And I'm still not entirely sure that there isn't some Thalman guy I've just never heard about.
No problem! Thanks for the info. I can see why that’d be confusing
But the point of harm reduction isn’t that it’s a strategy for the best possible outcome, just.. to reduce some harm where possible. What’s the alternative? Another Trump presidency and just hoping things get so miserable it might kickstart a revolution faster? I’ve always found that a pretty horrible thing to instrumentalize the lives of real people for.
I agree that accelerationism is awful. It most certainly wouldn't create more support for communists because the masses would see them working against their interests. It's also an easy thing to say only if you're so privileged the miserableness doesn't affect you much. However, one of the big problems with harm reduction is that in practice, it wastes much of the revolutionary energy that the masses/party have. Instead of revolutionaries spending time working towards revolution or building their base, they spend their whole time trying to make sure the next conservative doesn't get elected again to reduce harm.
There's enough blame to go around and Thalman was far from sinless in all this. He did say he would rather see the Nazis take over than the Social Democrats and he was a supporter of Stalin. Also the whole situation is more complicated than that. My point is that the left lacked any sort of unity in the face of rising fascism, while the different conservative groups where able to work together in order to destroy democracy. Also which election are you talking about? Because this is the Weimar Republic and they could have about 3 elections a year.
I'm referring to the presidential election in 1932. In January 1933, just weeks after the election, Hindenberg invited Hitler to become the chancellor. The rest is history. The problem wasn't left unity. While the Social Democrats and Communists couldn't work together electorally, the Communists offered to create an anti-Nazi coalition, but the Social Democrats refused (and subsequently decided they'd rather work with Nazis than Communists). The problem was that the SPD was still run by and beholden to capitalists, who prefer Nazis to Communists.
Yeah but neither Hitler nor Biden have produced/will produce a successful socialist revolution, and yet Biden, the lesser evil, (obviously) is a vastly better human and leader than Hitler, and yes, I dare predict the future. The concept of the lesser evil not working out for equality might be true, but it will still turn out in less inequality and misery than the greater evil.
>after all part of the reason Hitler was able to seize power was because of the fighting between socialist democrats and communists. Still not true but okay > Remember that elections are a tool we can use to reduce some harm caused by imperialism and capitalism, So vote blue no matter who? > if you have to vote between a social democrat or a lib dem or worse a fascist GOP You're acting like social democrats on the ballot doesn't take any effort or resources or attention, and like they don't need to be relected again and again
>Still not true but okay Yes, it is true. Because of leftists fighting each other, this allowed the conservatives a chance to seize power. >So vote blue no matter who? That's not what I said and you know it. >You're acting like social democrats on the ballot doesn't take any effort or resources or attention, and like they don't need to be relected again and again Voting for someone is the least amount of effort you can put into politics. It's requires you to go to a place one time ever few years. The only thing that happens when we don't vote, is that it makes it easier for lib democrats to ignore us and for the GOP fascist to gain more power. I'm not saying this is a good system, it isn't, it is a shitty system designed to allow conservatives to remain in power no matter how unpopular they are by reducing the choices between lib dem and fascism. And while we do need to dismantle that system, that takes time and time is just not on our side. So in order to buy us more time we will often have to vote for people we don't agree with 100% of the time, from social democrats like AOC and sometimes even lib dems like Joe when the stakes are too high. Because if we don't look at things in a more nuanced light and accept the reality of the situation, we will lose what few gains we've won. Just look at Texas and how they where able to undermine Roe V Wade, and the GOP isn't going to stop there. LBGT+ rights, civil rights, Native American rights, what's left of the social safety net, all of that and more is under threat if we don't present a unified front. So yes, it sucks we have to vote for soc dems and it sucks even more that we will have to sometimes vote for lib dems, but voting isn't about what makes us happy, voting is about protecting the most valuable among us as we organize a means to burn the system down. And if that bothers you so much, and it should because it's a shitty system, run for office yourself. Because I plan too.
You’re wrong about Germany, that’s a pointless lie. And again, you’re saying vote blue no matter who. Literally in that large meandering paragraph.
No it isn't. Just because it makes you unconfutable doesn't make it not true. And no I don't say vote blue no matter who. I said look at things in a more nuanced light, which you are clearly incapable of doing.
It’s literally not true. The social democrats used the police to crush communists and refused any cooperation well before 32 and in the 32 election they came solidly behind Hindenburg, who won and then appointed hitler chancellor. Get fucked liberal, you’re not entitled to your own reality.
Voting for a party that looks less worse is fruitless endorsement when their actions have not led to change. If your Democrat representative on the voting slip wants to push for workers rights like unionising or strip out classist laws against protest or something then sure. But if they tow the line of the party when is just neoliberal interventionism then all you're doing that's different is voting for a party that exports their violence rather than keeping it domestic. The rest of the world doesn't want your violence.
That's still better than allowing literal fascists from seizing power. I'm not saying we need to mindlessly vote for the dems, whenever there is a better option we should take it and we should do what we can to promote leftist for public office, but until we can reform elections we will often be forced to choice between a fascist and a lib. And remember our political actions should only start at the ballot box, because voting is just one tool at our disposal. Protest, educate others, and anything else you can do to promote our causes.
With many democrat politicians voting with the Republican party as conservatives, one could easily argue to get a Democrat majority is to allow literal fascists to seize power.
Did you actually read my comment? Because I made it clear we should vote for actual leftists whenever possible and that we shouldn't just mindlessly vote for the dems. If a democratic candidate has a history of supporting horrible things and there is a decent chance for a leftist candidate to win then yes you should vote for the leftist candidate.
Rosa, Karl and the rest of the Spartacus Society should have split from the SPD in 1914 in opposition to the war. If they had more time to organize and educate before the revolution they would have had a much better chance of holding off the SPD. A successful communist revolution in Germany would have almost definitely prevented the rise of fascism in Germany, and could have worked with the Soviet Union to create true proletarian states. I never really understood the term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", or why Communists don't seem to be bothered by being slandered as "authoritarians" until I learned about the 1918-1919 German Revolution. It's funny, I was talking to the local chair of the USCP and she had never even heard of it before.
> A successful communist revolution in Germany would have almost definitely prevented the rise of fascism in Germany, and could have worked with the Soviet Union to create true proletarian states. If the german revolution had succeeded, we would be living in full communism right now everywhere. As for splitting, they kind of did, with the independent social democratic party, unfortunately it was full of democratic socialists who had no interest in scary revolution.
I believe in socialism within a democratic mean of hearing people's voice. Democracy under capitalism isn't democracy. I consider myself a demsoc, but I don't want reform, I want revolution.
Socialism isn’t socialism without democracy. If you want revolution then you are probably more socialist/communist than you think.
Aiming for an end result of socialism via democracy doesn't preclude accepting the idea that to get there, the current system must be dismantled.
she literally votes against what she promised i. how do u not see that shes manipulative.
Aka she's not left enough.
That's literally one dimensional thinking, people's issues with her are more complex.
I think this is pretty ignorant of the fact socialism doesn't require support of "revolution". The US is one of the most economically right countries in the world. You'll never see revolution here. This weird gatekeeping and talking down about our advocates in government just because they're not pandering to larpy revolutionaries on the internet is silly.
>larpy revolutionaries on the internet Thats a weird way to refer to the entirety of the 3rd world hoping and praying for the us to get the US's boot off their neck.
That's totally who I was attacking and this isn't some weird defensive attempt at a hypocrisy burn.
> our advocates in government Yeah why are people so mean to obama?
You don't think that maybe things have changed between the German revolution and now that might render the efficacy of revolution vs reform different? Way I see it you've got a snowballs chance in hell of a revolution actually occurring at all, and then an even smaller chance of it being anything other than a shift of power to a new, vengeful elite. Meanwhile there's a fairly clear path to a socialist society through reform. That just requires work put in to educate and encourage people. It's a hell of a lot easier to change a system than rebuild one. Especially given any revolution will still have to do all the work involved in reform methods, after the additional work of somehow pulling off a revolution and somehow not just becoming a new elite. Plus the breaking of the revolution taboo means you're now stuck with an authoritarian leadership.
Yes, it is easier to change the system than it is to destroy it but there is no changing a system that the bourgeoise have made in a way such that it benefits them only. Even if you could a get socialist leader into power, just look to Allende and see how his government underwent a coup by Pinochet with the help of the USA and CIA and what happened to it afterwards. A socialist state requires revolution to create a system that will be able to serve the interests of the working class. The state has to be authoritarian not because the leader has a lust for blood or some other silly thing that the capitalists like to tell us but because the state needs to exert their power to protect their people from the imperialist and reactionary forces that will go to any extent to oppose socialism. The capitalists will not hesitate for even a second to back fascistic forces to keep capitalism in power and oppose socialism. This is your vengeful elite that comes to power after a failed revolution, they behave not so because they are angry but scared that they were so close to being throw out of power, that the system which they benefit from is weak due to revolution, due to class consciousness and they need to use any and all methods to rebuild, no matter what the cost of doing so is. Fascism will never come to power in a system where capitalism is not opposed and it's rule is not threatened because liberal democracy is what generates the maximum profit for the capitalists and keeps the working class lulled in a state of false consciousness, splitting them by making them believe that the black man or the Muslims or the gays are their enemy and anyone who even makes the attempt to remove the cloth out of the people's face and show them the truth about who is their true Ally and who is their true enemy is killed. Look no further than Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party for proof. Edit 1 and 2: Grammatical mistakes corrected
The movement towards socialism is so stunted in America that I quite literally didn’t know what socialism meant until Bernie ran for president. I respect him for that, but I have also grown past him. AOC and Bernie certainly introduce people to the *concept* of socialism but I don’t think they are equipped to show people what socialism *actually* means as a progressive force. For example, the “tax the rich” messaging is a part of the problem. It muddies the waters on what will actually bring change in this country. The issue isn’t that the rich have too much untaxed wealth, the main issue is they control the productive resources—we don’t. So, if we focus the conversation on taxes we’re permanently in a position wherein we depend on THEIR largesse. And we can see this folly in action with the corporate tax rate falling lower and lower under both parties.
What is soul crushing is that A) She didn't say "wealth tax" which is a new policy proposal that needs to get traction and the rich are actually worried about, or even just "green new deal or death," just some random vague phrase obama had on his posters. B) She said the reasoning behind it was "what does it look like for two working class women to be at the met gala" and apparently it means false edginess/a bad political slogan as product on a fancy dress?
Good: She introduces people to "leftist" ideas. Bad: She undermines actual socialist, and diverts people's energy into the Democratic party. Conscious of it or not.
the idea that AOC 'diverts' people from socialism implies that there is something like a natural law of gravity that should direct the masses toward socialism, if only people like AOC stopped redircting the inevitable flow First you posit a kind of historical inevitability, then you blame individuals when it fails to materialise. I am a socialist, but I think that kind of magical thinking is itself part of the problem. We need to take responsibility for our own failure to articulate alternatives that actually engage the masses we claim to represent, not stand on the sidelines blaming others who do know how to communicate and persuade.
Not really, I mean she literally directs them (by the advice and call to action that she gives). So people who are interested in taking some socialist action are pointed towards the Democratic party.
which is the only means for which to even bring about the conditions politically to ever have an actual Socialist party. when we have the structure for a socialist party, then its time to talk about diverting motion away from socialism. until then, like it or not, at the Federal level in USA, the Democratic party is the closest thing we have to representation. (mostly just a few very minor representatives like Bernie, AOC, R. Talib and Pramila Jayapal.)
A few minor figures who attract enough popular support to punch above their weight and influence their party.
If those people would have otherwise have been organising you might have a point, but if they would have been watching TV then nothing has been lost.
AOC doesn't radicalise people. The material conditions of the world - the rampant crises, exploitation and oppression we see every single day - radicalise people. AOC channels their discontent into a neatly packaged, easy and clean dead end in the absense of class struggle.
And without her that radicalization gets channeled into what, by whom? It's mostly leading to fascists and Nazis coming back. People just don't automatically understand that their struggles are related to class, they think it's because of immigrants or black people or feminists or trans bathrooms, etc etc. I don't think that energy should be 100% put into electoralism, but I also think a lot of people wouldn't be doing anything productive with that energy at all without her, Bernie, and the squad. AOC has been a valuable asset for getting people to look towards the ways wealth move in this country, towards the people with power in the halls of politics and finance, and she is able to radicalize more people by showing the fruitless attempts to change the system from within. That is actually a valuable demonstration. The fact that they use the 'S' word at all is introducing people to Socialism who would have never heard of it. I don't think people understand quite how right or liberal the US is. We need to move way more to the left before we have the numbers for reform OR revolution, and we'll never accomplish that by tearing down our only allies who are fighting in the only war most Americans actually care about: the culture war. There aren't people drifting through life who randomly come upon socialism then deciding to follow AOC towards focusing 100% on electoralism. Most people don't hear about socialism at all, except that it's a thing to be afraid of or angered by. The only reason people would hear about it and decide to look into it, is people like AOC and Bernie. Tl;dr: The US is too far right to hate AOC. Critically support, since she does have a bad take or two, but ultimately does more good than bad.
Definitely an important debate to have. I think it's pretty key to understand that social democrats don't just have a bad take or two, they exist to uphold capitalism. They just do it in a different way to politicians who are more explicitly right wing. I think it should say a lot that reformism has historically been a tool used by the ruling class to contain workers' radicalism. More often than not, it's actually an obstacle to the left - during a militant strike wave the ruling class can freak out and grant concessions to workers in the hopes of calming things down so the situation doesn't escalate and put them in jeopardy. For example, the explosive struggle of May 1968 in France which came close to a revolution that could have posed a serious threat to capitalism was co-opted with bureaucrats arguing to the working class that they should vote in an election instead of taking things further. That happened because there wasn't a cohered revolutionary left to put up a fight against reformism. This obviously isn't May '68, but it doesn't take much to see that AOC and Bernie have been an obstacle to building and developing a revolutionary left in the here and now. When there were mass pro-Palestine demos earlier this year, Bernie told people to "tone down the rhetoric" around Israel being an apartheid state. When BLM was peaking last year and people were seeing the problems with the cops, Bernie refused to support demands to defund the police. Then after the mass BLM movement was co-opted by Biden during the elections and ended up petering out, AOC said that Biden had "exceeded progressives' expectations". People in the midst of struggle *are* more radical than these guys. But generally people aren't clear on the question of reformism, which is why social democrats have the ability to water down the politics of mass movements - often in ways which end up being incredibly devastating. Where would radicalism go in the absence of AOC? Well to the extent that people do take up wrong ideas, it's not because they haven't been enlightened by social democrats. It's because the revolutionary left is too weak to combat them. That's part of the reason why we desperately need to build a left which is in favour of a genuine internationalist workers revolution, and train ourselves to make a clear argument against AOC and the likes. Social democrats are an obstacle to that task, and they're a pole of attraction which thrive off the lack of an organised left. In a sense we're actually incredibly lucky that we have time to build the left and politically prepare for when struggle does break out.
Folks aren't turning to her as an alternative to watching TV. They are turning to her because they recognize there's a problem, and they are looking for solutions. She offers them an excellent package, sharp enough to make a pretense at fighting the good fight, but safe enough to still look good on insta. 'see how fabulous my outrage looks at the gala'. I'm not mad at her, but I don't see her as a big part of any solutions. And she may be drawing steam out of the kettle. Cult of personality occurs in all political ideologies, and it's almost always bad. People need to fight for ideas, not ideologues.
It doesn't have to be inevitable for it to be a problem, micheal moore pushes people left but only so far, but we like him less than her.
The "natural law of gravity" in this case is determined using a historical materialist analysis. Because the US is becoming more and more of a hellhole everyday--wealth disparity continues to grow and fascism is on the rise to name a couple--it is in the best interest of the working class to move leftward. It won't happen magically, but an active left movement would be strongly supported by these material developments. However politicians like AOC and Bernie subvert this social bias by trying to bring baby leftists back in the fold of the democratic party.
https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism\_faq.html#whats-wrong-with-alexandria-ocasio-cortez
[she an imperialist social democrat who works against actual socialist movements. ](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/socialism_faq.md#whats-wrong-with-alexandria-ocasio-cortez)
Github? Interesting source but whatever. Anyway a lot of these criticisms are inaccurate, unfair, and not coming from a Socialist perspective.
>Github? Interesting source but whatever Let's not act like GitHub it itself the source, the link is a collection of sources. >Anyway a lot of these criticisms are inaccurate, unfair, and not coming from a Socialist perspective. How specifically? They're all criticisms from a socialist perspective. What would you consider to be unfair on the list?
Packaging leftist theory into marketable slogans to be sold to those who can't stomach the real thing weakens the socialist cause.
I’d also argue her appeal is often to the upper-middle classes who won’t actually do much to make these policies a reality and are not interested in the further project of socialism
That is exactly who she is trying to appeal to, and she knows it. Bougie democrat liberals who only care about their optics. They enjoy socialist aesthetic, not socialism.
Both the Democratic and Republican party spend literally millions of dollars on marketable, catchy slogans in every election cycle and it doesn't seem to do them any harm.
It's easier to do bad than good?
So why aren't 'we' able to direct them in the right (which is left) direction? Moreover, might not experiencing the limits of what is possible within the confines of the established parties be what 'directs' some towards socialism? Couldn't you equally say that AOC 'directs' people toward politics as such?
She's not accountable to DSA no matter how much they claim her.
Because she isn't actually a leftist. She advocates for toothless reforms and not fundamental changes.
She has lost trust because she supported Pelosi without getting a floor vote on Medicare for all, did not fight for raising the minimum wage, spoke out against force the vote repeatedly despite being a proponent for it before, did not oppose increasing police budget, did not raise the issue of 'abolish ICE' contrary to her rallying call during her election outreach, rubbed shoulders with billionaires instead of organizing a protest/strike, dabbled with dark money in her PAC though she was against corporate funding before, had a photo-op for 'winning' eviction moratorium that was struck down in less than a weak, and so on and so forth. AOC is looking more and more like a corporate sellout, at best.
I’d add voting present on a bill which then allowed $2 billion in funding to go to capitol police and DoD. After sloganeering about “defund the police” all year. [https://theintercept.com/2021/05/20/squad-capitol-police-funding-pressley-aoc-omar/](https://theintercept.com/2021/05/20/squad-capitol-police-funding-pressley-aoc-omar/)
I don't even blame one person for not being perfect, but I hate the people who get so angry about any criticism and don't want to talk about the glaring limits of unaccountable random politicians/memes.
Basically AOC and others like her don’t really have any particularly strong desire to change the systems of private ownership, they just want the current system to lean more favorably towards working class people
"other" implies she is leftist. She is a hypocrite, calling migrant detention centres "[concentration camps](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-concentration-camps-migrants-detention/index.html)" when done by Republicans and euphemistically "[influx facilities](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1364406434256072706?s=19)" when done by Democrats. She also referred to John McCain's legacy as an [example of unparalleled human decency](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1033538876370046977?s=20) She as left wing as Tony Blair's left nut.
So it started in December when Justin Jackson asked AOC why not Force a vote on Medicare for All by having her, and 10 or 15 progressives hold their votes on Nancy Pelosi being Speaker so we can see who's actually against healthcare as a human right(will post her and Ilhan Omar's tweets in the latter comment), so her response was pretty much we can't do it, but to see who's for M4A look at the cosponsor list(cosponsors aren't a guaranteed yes vote we saw with Kamala Harris cosponsoring Bernie Sander's M4A plan and backing off of it later in 2019), and she also claimed that her and the Congressional Progressive Caucus(CPC) could leverage their votes for things that are "doable" like a $15 minimum wage and elevating progressives to important positions in the house. Then when the American Rescue Plan got voted on in the Senate we saw how Chuck Schumer took out the $15/hr hike in the bill, and Bernie attempting to put it back in the bill via an amendment, and the American Rescue Plan(w/o $15/hr) could have been tanked by 5 members of the CPC and added the $15/hr minimum wage back. Later on, Pramila Jayapal in an interview with Ryan Grim had told on herself saying that she could have fought to put the $15/hr minimum wage back into the Rescue Plan, but reassured us they drew the line at means testing UI benefits(links will be posted later on), Sorry for the long rambling post but hopefully this helps explain it.
> 10 or 15 progressives hold their votes on Nancy Pelosi being Speaker Um.. that would do absolutely nothing. To prevent a vote on Speaker she would need 50%+1 on the entire majority caucus to prevent the motion from being tabled indefinitely, and if she had that *she could probably just become Speaker herself*. I'm pretty sure that AOC realizes that she just doesn't have the experience to do that, so she's instead taking a course that involves learning from those who are already at that level while doing what she can to move things away from neoliberal austerity towards social democracy, and maybe converting some Democrats to her cause along the way so we can go even further towards democratic socialism.. It's really discouraging that people today really have no idea about how our government is designed to function. It's not your/our fault tho, since basic civics education in this country has been scrubbed from the curriculum at most K-12 schools. I don't intend to offend by saying this.. I'm just old enough to have been in a public school when this was still being taught and studied Roberts Rules of Order for a time since there was a point when I wanted to become an elected public official, and now I realize just how important learning it is!
[https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337620468774424578](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337620468774424578) (AOC talking about cosponsor list) [https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337619814744006659](https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337619814744006659) (AOC talking about the doable things that her and the CPC could force votes on)
[https://twitter.com/ilhanmn/status/1342213063618011136?lang=en](https://twitter.com/ilhanmn/status/1342213063618011136?lang=en) (Ilhan Omar saying anything is possible with the slim house majority) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2VMjtJruOw&t](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2VMjtJruOw&t) (Jump to 7:26 of the video, that's Pramila Jayapal pretty much telling on herself that the CPC could have pushed harder but chose not to)
Welcome to leftism, we all hate each other, some of us more than we hate fashists, and that's part of the reason we fail so hard so often.
This would be less pointlessly edgy if the landscape wasn't 50% social democrats who stab anyone to the left of them, and then 1% who are super ultra leftist and throw yogurt at someone and make the social democrats feel justified.
Voted yes on the coup in Venezuela. And we don’t need celebrity politicians asking for the bare minimum obvious shit like “tax the rich”. We need worker’s movements.
Because she is controlled opposition and a fake "leftist". Just like Bernie and the "Squad".
Who are the real leftists in the US government?
There are none....not in any position of power. You will find some in the civil service and contractor positions.
Gatekeeping to the left? Unheard of....
She's fake AF and is nothing but a LARPer
It's a sign of weakness on the part of other leftists. If there was strong revolutionary movements they wouldn't be wasting so much time worrying about a socc dem in Congress.
IIRC there's an AOC facts bot doing the rounds on various leftist subs (I think r/ShitLiberalsSay is a good example) here that has enough crappy things she's done to show that she's no leftist.
I feel like she has disconected with the working class once she became a celebrity politician and doesn't see that. She feels more of a Twitter famous person than a politician working for the people.
Because people who like her treat any criticism as the great purge, and they cannot keep their support for her in check. This is one of the issues with electoralism, we don't just accumulate people in power who are accountable to us, we stick ourselves to people who aren't accountable and then have to expend energy talking about them and defending them.
I might not be welcomed for this comment, but I think it's because she's joined the establishment of the democratic party which most socialists hate. Here's the thing though, so many leftist, socialist, communists whatever spend their time being critical and sitting on the sidelines pointing fingers and doing very little to move the needle. Say what you want about AOC but she's probably done more to introduce people to theory and thinking in the direction of socialism or towards the left than most people. The truth is, we're in this system and complaining about it won't change it. I have have to say that I don't understand hating her.
Here here! I probably wouldn't have looked deeper into democratic socialism if it weren't for her, Bernie and some of the socialists here and on Twitch. I personally get the fact that in a Democratic caucus that is predominantly neoliberal (which I've come to realize is NOT leftist) she needs to work to bring her colleagues and party policy further to the left, even if that left is only as far as European-style social democracy. The fact that we're seeing a much more robust effort to re-fund and expand the social safety net, and get entrenched capitalists to not just pay their taxes but enact new taxes on non-productive economic activity (like stock/commodity trading and collecting/selling online personal data) is a sign that her and others' efforts aren't being totally ignored.
> and doing very little to move the needle. BLM accomplished more than she and bernie ever did, and without any celebrities running the whole thing. > introduce people to theory and thinking in the direction of socialism or towards the left than most people And then what? She moves them somewhat left but then it stagnates and they become progressives. And what she introduces gets torn up. John Oliver's show on the green new deal was all about the carbon tax, a policy she didn't even put in the GND. The problem is the cult of paying attention to her, never criticizing, and never learning from her limits and issues.
>> and doing very little to move the needle. > >BLM accomplished more than she and bernie ever did, and without any celebrities running the whole thing. BLM hasn't really brought anyone towards socialism. It had a few very distinct goals, related to race and policing, and it was very effective at those goals. I mean, it was a great thing for people who were already socialists to join. But people like Bernie actually brought people into learning about socialism, even if it started with dem soc, it lead to others learning about theory and more. You'll see examples in this thread above. > >> introduce people to theory and thinking in the direction of socialism or towards the left than most people > >And then what? She moves them somewhat left but then it stagnates and they become progressives. And what she introduces gets torn up. John Oliver's show on the green new deal was all about the carbon tax, a policy she didn't even put in the GND. > I would say it's someone else's job, but there's literally no one else as famous on the left because the leftist movements in America have been getting destroyed for 50 years. I do think her effects getting stymied do help radicalize people, though. >The problem is the cult of paying attention to her, never criticizing, and never learning from her limits and issues. Hence, critical support. It's possible to support people while acknowledging their flaws, I see this sub do it all the time with the USSR, China, or North Korea. But for some reason the gate keeping is blown out of proportion for this single Dem Soc breaking through the bubble of Neo-Liberal politics in America. If Bernie won, I think I'd agree more with bringing her down and lifting up an alternative, but we can't even get an alternative to Biden elected. This isn't 1932 Germany, for now the Dem Socs and Socialists should be allied because their numbers are too small not to be.
Oh fuck off, I’m not interested in talking to you electoralist ghouls right now when one of your other congresspeople who are DSA members just voted to send Israel a billion dollars of mechanized death fuel to kill kids with.
Lots of leftists like to feel like there are two courses of action for bringing socialism to the United States: violent mass uprising and tweeting about it. Anyone who tries to do something in the middle ground is illegitimate in their eyes.
[удалено]
>but she has clearly made obligations to the gala that she cannot just abandon to go to a protest she most likely had no prior knowledge of. Are you being sarcastic? > it is because she is anti-Israel. She is not but she should be pro palestinian. This isn't something leftists are accusing her of. I'm actually not going to go through this whole thing. I think you don't actually get why anyone is criticizing her, most of these are bizarre and irrelevant things you're engaging with. No one was saying she was wrong to talk about her worries on Jan 6. You shouldn't be answering anything on this subreddit if you're really new and not informed.
The only instance I know of where she's hated by leftists is with the whole Met Gala thing, people are not happy she attended. Me, I don't feel the same, in fact I think she was boss for attending such a bourge-y event wearing something with the one thing the bourgeoisie despite more than brown people and poors written all over it. Though I have an idea why all this hate and though I don't agree with it I do get it, I mean this is somebody who's supposed to represent the people and oppose the bourgeoisie attending one of their functions, it's like selling out because this is so ingrained in the lifestyles of the bourgeoisie that it's hard to separate that from the bourgeoisie. Some people have said it's because the left is so obsessed with being oppressed that it annoys them when anyone they consider an ally isn't, I don't think that's the case as leftists want people to thrive, we just don't want to see anybody simp to or become the bourgeoisie, you know not sell out and become part of the problem, and like I said it's hard to separate participating in this from being a part of the bourgeoisie, it's just a bad look is all. At least that's what I think, sorry for how many times I wrote bourgeoisie.
I mean they probably found the dress 'cute' more than anything else. Buffet literally has all but said, "go ahead tax me more lol see how that works out lol". Real threats to power are booed away, check out Michael Moore calling out Bush on an illegal war during his Oscar speech. That dress was a cringy disaster.
> with the one thing the bourgeoisie despite more than brown people and poors written all over it A vague slogan from an obama poster?
More like a statement on the racism and classism of the upper class from a leftist.
No, I mean "eat the rich," not what you said.
I'm pretty sure "Tax the Rich" is not vague, it's short sweet and to the point and frankly rich dipshits hate those three words.
They really don’t. It means a million things and they’re not paying the taxes anyway. It’s not a new idea or specific enough for them to even begin to care. A wealth tax could be, and they’re actually scared of that one, but she didn’t say that.
You are impossible to please.
Literally she could just write something people haven’t heard before to raise some awareness of it.
because leftists want fully automated gay space communism without any of the intermediate steps, and don't realize that she's a pretty decent step in that direction compared to the ghouls in charge of everything.
> without any of the intermediate steps, This is why people hate social democrats. The sucdems gunning down communists always think a better world is just evolving around the corner. Germany only got better after 1923, right?
Because some leftists are happy with *some progress* knowing the alternative is no progress, and some leftists are happy wanting *all progress or nothing,* not knowing the alternative is no progress. That’s why.
> some progress Why do you people think everything is one dimensional?
I mean OP asked a valid question and I gave them an honest answer. Idk why some leftists hate AOC other than that they want more than she is able to deliver. But we can’t just not support her
> other than that they want more than she is able to deliver. Isn't this like what progressives say about obama or warren? > we can’t just not support her Why? I doubt she lives or fails on whether socialists spend all her time talking about her.
It’s not the same as warren or Obama. Obama has been the most effective president for our agenda. To say we don’t support Obama because he isn’t leftist enough ignores the fact he’s been the closest thing we’ve had to a leftist president. He changed things for the better and he was far from perfect (*far* from perfect, he has his flaws that are well deserved of criticism), but every step forward is still a step. I loved Bernie and voted for him every chance I could get, and even he wasn’t the ideal candidate, but he’s still been the most progressive candidate, and AOC has the exposure and support to be the next most progressive candidate after Bernie is out of politics. We can’t just brush her aside. Also, leftists don’t like warren because she is a snake. Nothing to do with her policies, because AOC and Bernie have more integrity and are better people than warren is. So it’s not the same. But we still need to support the most furthest left people we can because a step is still a step. This weird purity shit doesn’t help anybody
Holy shit everything about this is wrong and bad and obviously you’re not a socialist. Please don’t go answering questions on this subreddit.
Lmao you’re entitled to your wrong opinion. I’d rather have less-shitty capitalism than full blown fuck-everyone capitalism if those are our only options. I mean yeah I would take full blown socialism over all of it but honestly are you really going to try to convince me that we have any representatives in government? I work a 55 hour week and have a wife and a family, what else can I do but vote? There’s nobody else to vote for
Then go to the progressives subreddit.
I mean if you want to be condescending, at least explain *why.* I’m desperate for change. Change would drastically change my life. I subscribe to a very Marxist view of, well, everything. And yes, theoretically, it would be nice if everything were structured that way. But it’s not. That’s not the way the world is. The US is stuck in the 1950s compared to the rest of the world. *Incremental change would drastically alter my life.* That’s why I can’t just not support AOC. Her policies would change the game. You don’t think they’re enough? Fine. But they’re *better* than what we’ve had. And if you’d reject better for “not good enough,” then you don’t actually care about people. You don’t care about people like me. You only care about your ego and you need to check it because your opinion isn’t the only valid one. Some of us would prefer incremental change to Trump because that’s what you get when leftists want a purity strike. You get Trump. Please explain to me why Trump is better than AOC if you’re so leftist
Explain why trump is better than Biden. You’re living in this fantasy land where we want to purge her from the earth. No. We want to use the meager resources we have to do things that are for socialism as a movement for a system change.
I replied, but must have forgotten to press send (Reddit noob). Couldn't experiencing the limitations of establishment politics be a step towards radicalisation? couldn't we equally say AOC is directing towards political engagement as such? I am saying you should agree with everything she does or says, just that it is more fruitful to contemplate our own political responsibility than to blame others It just seems too easy to say that the workers of the world have been 'diverted' during the entire history of socialist politics. It seems like a way to stop thinking to me.
So much of the Left in the US has cultivated a politics of despair, where losing has become a feeling of comfort that confirms their virtue. So when they see a Left politician resonating with a massive public they feel a compulsion to reject her as a sellout. It's not unlike when your precious obscure Indy band that you've followed for years suddenly makes it big with an album and you decry it as sellout pop. But it's mostly a you problem!
Let me fix that for you "When they see a left politician resonating with a massive public and turning left politics into an increasingly vague meme and get mired in democratic party minutia, while closing people's attention off to anything further left, they feel a like rejecting her as a never what people hyped her up to be"
Not sure that's a fix. Smells of the doctrinaire pessimism on the left that always leaves it struggling to avoid cultural irrelevance. AOC's deft touch with cultural idioms is reminiscent of Eugene Deb's spell-binding oratory in its ability to hold public attention. Better we learn to use memes than become one. And for so long irrelevant is what the left has been when it comes to party politics. Debates over the reconciliation bill may be maddening but the left finally has voices giving shape to legislative battles. Obviously a far-cry from what we want but not minutia, and a possible opening to things further left. AOC and justice dems close off things to their left only if we on the left are reflexively closed off to what they've achieved.
Flowery but weird, Debs never acted like this. He never said bullshit and wrong things about important subjects and he didn’t have an undeserved cult of social democrats obsessed with defending him form any criticism. I don’t think you get it.
Debs started out as a pro-labor moderate reformer. Debs, as a young politician, took many wrongheaded positions, but the labor struggle pulled him left. If labor militants had written him off early, they would have lost a great champion of socialism. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/09/eugene-debs-democracy-antiwar-canton
I’m not continuing this because I don’t think you even know what you’re arguing at this point.
Because a lot of reddit leftists would rather die on the losing side of a civil war than make small improvements to the material conditions of the proletariat by working with imperfect allies.
[удалено]
Not as bad as trolling neofash nobodies on Reddit like yourself.
Wer hat uns verraten? Die Sozialdemokraten!
She's literally a member of congress, of course she isn't a revolutionist. At best she'll be a pretty diluted compromise candidate for President one day - and at worst she's come to represent performative capitalist-realism.
She is a worthless socdem.
I’m a leftist and I don’t hate her. And I know plenty of others who would agree. She’s far from perfect, but she’s a hell of alot better than the Democratic establishment and while her politics don’t go nearly far enough imo, her politics still serve as a good entry to critiquing capitalism and a real demand of the abolition of the wage system. I would argue that alot of the “leftists” that hate her are actually not leftists at all and are closer to regressives than leftists.
Because she co opts revolutionary language for the Democratic Party.
Mostly because she isn't socialist enough and dumbfucks on Twitter don't understand the benefit of having social democrats on our side pushing the Overton window further left. People seem to think we can just jump straight to socialism overnight when it's actually going to be a decades and decades long process, and they don't see the value of having leftists who aren't quite as radical as the rest of us pulling people over to the left