2d ago

'Stop Playing Nice,' Says AOC as Senate Dems Help Approve Yet Another Trump Nominee

www.commondreams.org 'Stop Playing Nice,' Says AOC as Senate Dems Help Approve Yet Another Trump Nominee | Common Dreams

Democratic lawmakers are outraged at Elon Musk's takeover of federal agencies, calling it the beginning of a dictatorship. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez demands action to stop Musk's power grab and urges Democrats to block Trump's nominees.

And this is why Democrats will keep losing.

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I don't see how "having to feed their family" plays into this at all. Tea Partiers didn't apply mass numbers at their stunts, just kept showing up. Angry Democrats are not so pressed for time that we can't muster a few hundred to protest and make a spectacle any time a Democratic politician goes back on a promise.
I also do not find the "money rules everything" fatalism particularly useful. The Democrats keep losing races despite raising more money, and people like AOC still beat entrenched donor-focused politicians.
- I am not saying not to do something, i am saying to use the right strategies for what you have.
  The Dems dont give a fuck about demonstrations at their places. Neither do the Reps. They give a fuck only about money, or being pressured into doing something.
  So you will have to show up with many people and block their events. You will need to organize general strikes. You will need to be armed and fight back if you are attacked.
  These things you can do with many people. Pulling strings in intrigue games is not something you can do without money and networks. That is why politics have been built to cater to the people who can, rather than the people who rally on the streets.
  
  What's the difference between a "demonstration at their places" and "blocking their events". They're the same thing. Their event gets canceled and they get negative coverage when a rabble shows up at it. And the politicians care about personally losing. The Tea Party didn't donate their way to control, they primaried the politicians that weren't "good" enough. They were ridiculous and loud and made those people look weak and unpopular with the party's base.
  I'm in favor of a general strike and more forceful demonstration of people power, but they're kind of just leftist wishcasting. We have a template for taking over a party and saying "take up revolution" instead feels like focusing on an unreachable magic solution instead of following a path individual people can work to achieve.
  
  The difference is whether you stand behind the police line, or if you break through the police line.
  The tea party was ridiculous and loud with having Fox News and other media ready to spread their message and present them as a grass roots movement. If a genuine grass roots movement from the left is just "ridiculous and loud" all the "Liberal" media will jump to defend the politicians and shame the activists.
  The tea party "movement" was organized from "the top", with the money from "the top" and support from "the top". It was done to instill the idea of a legitimate grass roots movement that would also represent the interests of normal people, when its goals were all focused on the interests of rich people. This is why i don't think it to be a template that can be applied for a left takeover of the Democratic party.
  And it is much easier for rich elites to maintain power inside a party, than it is for genuine grass roots to take it over from the inside. I believe the power has to be taken from the outside, first by grinding the party to a halt, and then taking it over from the inside, or better yet by having a third party take over its place, with better safeguards against oligarchs in its core structures.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement
  In an August 30, 2010, article in The New Yorker, Jane Mayer asserted that the brothers David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch and Koch Industries provided financial support to one of the organizations that became part of the Tea Party movement through Americans for Prosperity.[232][233] The AFP's "Hot Air Tour" was organized to fight against taxes on carbon use and the activation of a cap and trade program.[
  U.S. News & World Report reported that the nature of the coverage of the protests has become part of the story.[272] On CNN's Situation Room, journalist Howard Kurtz commented that "much of the media seems to have chosen sides". He says that Fox News portrayed the protests "as a big story, CNN as a modest story, and MSNBC as a great story to make fun of. And for most major newspapers, it's a nonstory".[272] There were reports that the movement had been actively promoted by the Fox News Channel.[273][274]
  According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a progressive media watchdog, there is a disparity between large coverage of the Tea Party movement and minimal coverage of larger movements. In 2009, the major Tea Party protests were quoted twice as often as the National Equality March despite a much lower turnout.[275] In 2010, a Tea Party protest was covered 59 times as much as the US Social Forum (177 Tea Party mentions versus 3 for Social Forum) despite the attendance of the latter being 25 times as much (600 Tea Party attendees versus at least 15,000 for Social Forum).[276]
  In the January/February 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, Francis Fukuyama stated that the Tea Party is supporting "politicians who serve the interests of precisely those financiers and corporate elites they claim to despise" and inequality while comparing and contrasting it with the occupy movement.
  
  The liberal media has a shared mission to discredit Luigi Mangione and they failed horribly. Most people don't get their news directly from corporate sources, they get it from social media. The Tea Party didn't kick out those well funded and well connected establishment Republicans because they had money and support (the incumbents had that too). Those things make it easier, but learned helplessness about the power of the rich and connected to control any movement or message accomplishes nothing. In the end it's all about people.
  
  There are things that break through, but it's naive to ignore the difference funding from billionaires and the media apparatus has on 'grass roots' movements.

166 comments