Summary

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged countering the Trump administration’s policies by resisting at every turn, arguing that its incompetence makes it vulnerable.

Her remarks followed chaos caused by a rescinded executive order that temporarily shut down Medicaid portals nationwide.

She encouraged activists to take offline action, citing ongoing mobilization efforts.

Her strategy focuses on making governance difficult for Trump, calling his administration “dangerous and cruel” but also “shockingly dim.”

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Any kind of on the ground movement or mobilization needs political support in the halls of power. It’s what made the resistance demonstrated against Trump the first term possible, and the dynamic goes both ways. On the ground resistance gives political actors the space to be resilient. Resilient politicians give in the ground movement space to work.

    Basically all other Democrats other than Bernie and AOC shrivelling up and hiding in their shells will have a chilling effect on our ability to organize on the ground.

    • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      I’ve been bitching about the lack of leadership from the Democrats for a while now - I’m glad to see that others are seeing it too.

    • DigitalNirvana@lemm.ee
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      10 hours ago

      Heinrich from NM has made it clear that he will pushback. Let’s see what that looks like. I suggest folks that can contact your reps, now and frequently.

      • 5in1k@lemm.ee
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        8 hours ago

        Every day I have sent mine a note from the contact form on their pages. Angrily

        • Cronization@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Don’t use the contact form or send an email. Call them. Even better, show up in person if possible. The contact form can be filled out from anywhere by anything, same as sending an email. Calling at least lets them know an actual person, likely a local voter, holds the views expressed and is more memorable and harder to ignore. Showing up in person even more so.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      12 hours ago

      It’s funny. sounds like you’re giving up already, and blaming the Dems.

      You got Bernie and the Squad.

      If you want to put some backbone in the Dems in office, go out and start a voter registration drive. Let them see that there are people who will support them.

      • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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        9 hours ago

        start a voter registration drive

        What? The time for a voter registration drive was a year ago. We’re well past that now. You can’t vote out a dictator.

        It’s time for more direct action. We need protests. We need strikes. We need people in the streets fighting for their rights because they’re being taken away by the day.

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              10 hours ago

              So enlighten me. Did you have a better plan in 2024? Somethings besides voting? What’s your sure-fire winning strategy that you didn’t use yet?

              • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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                4 hours ago

                Who’s talking about voting as resistance, besides you? There’s a conversation to be had about it sure, but it’s not the conversation being had now, here. You trying to shift the focus to a subject you’re comfortably confident about discussing is why you’re being criticized, not for the merit of what you’re saying on its own.

      • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        The Dems have given up. Because it’s time for them to take a vacation after playing the part for their rich donors for the last 4 years.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Understanding and recognizing how the world functions isn’t equivalent to giving up. Nor is “hope” for the sake of hope any kind of a strategy. And yes. The Dem’s are the fucking problem and always have been. Nothing about this fascist takeover would have ever been possible with out the complicity and milquetoast politics of Democrats. They are a worthless and abhorrent party with no integrity and barely worth supporting, beyond the weakest possible argument of them being the “lessor” evil. The rise of fascism would be impossible with out the previous 30 years of normalization politics out of Democrats. Start a voter registration drive? Give me a fucking break with the navel gazing. Voting isn’t going to save the Union.

        We may need the squad to break away from a Democratic party that has shown its self incapable of wielding power in such a way as to prevent the rise of fascism. What we’ll need for on the ground movements to be successful is support in some way from the halls of power. That doesn’t necessarily mean working with Democrats.

          • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            14 minutes ago

            Honestly, it would be a lot easier to do a hostile takeover of the Green Party. If Democrats are so damned worried about splitting the vote, they don’t have to field a candidate. It’s not like they are interested in fielding one that can win anyway.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            The moderates that tolerate fascists and thus enable them are always the problem, actually. The fascists fail without them but succeed with them, every time.

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                9 hours ago

                My comment didn’t even slightly say anything even remotely resembling that, and you fucking know it. Quit commenting in bad faith.

                • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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                  6 hours ago

                  It did, though. Or at least the message you’re presenting seems to indicate that.

                  The moderates that tolerate fascists and thus enable them are always the problem, actually.

                  I’m fairly sure you phrased it like this as a retort to the first commenter’s comment, but you gotta see how insisting the blame ‘actually’ lies with the moderates and the people enabling the fascists is pretty clearly interpretable as shifting the responsibility. Both parties are to blame, but you’re implying that the bulk of the criticism lies with the people being passive about allowing the fascist takeover instead of with the people exploiting the resource they’ve found in moderates by doing the fascism.

                  Dems didn’t get their shit together and exploit the moderates first to prevent this, but while that does make them culpable for the current fascist power grab, it does not make them equally culpable, and that is the position you seem to be presenting.

                  • grue@lemmy.world
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                    4 hours ago

                    I’ll paraphrase another comment I made today responding to the same sort of argument:

                    Of fucking course the fascists are the problem; that goes without saying.

                    And that’s just it: it goes without saying. The fascists themselves might as well be written off as a lost cause. The fact that moderates act as their enablers, on the other hand, does need to be said because that’s the thing persuasive words might be able to change.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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          12 hours ago

          Who is this ‘we’ you speak of?

          I really wanted Bernie in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Somehow ‘we’ managed not to get out and get him nominated.

          But now, somehow, ‘we’ are going to get organized.

          Until ‘we’ shows me that they can organize a weinie roast, I’ll stick with the people who are actually on the ballot.

          I also notice that you had nothing to say about registering voters as an actual tool.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            Until ‘we’ shows me that they can organize a weinie roast, I’ll stick with the people who are actually on the ballot.

            I guess you missed the part where we were manning barricades and taking tear gas canisters to the face in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022… directly confronting fascism on the streets and taking it to them. Your obtuseness has no external meaning.

            I also notice that you had nothing to say about registering voters as an actual tool.

            If voting changed anything about this system, they’d make it illegal. Voting as a strategy to stop fascism was attempted in 2020. The result was a 4 year hiatus, but with no real ability or intention to take action against fascism. Biden could have had Trump arrested on day fucking one of taking power. He chose not to. Democrats chose to only make a show of any kind of consequences for a literal attempted coup, because to them, it simply wasn’t a priority. Voting as a strategy to change the system doesn’t work when the people you are obligated to vote for as the “opposition party” are not, and will not, and have no interest in changing the system: ie, Democrats.

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              11 hours ago

              So, in other words, bOTh SidES arE tHe SAMe. Don’t vote, because it doesn’t work.

              • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                8 minutes ago

                bOTh SidES arE tHe SAMe

                Everyone who says this with mixed case sarcasm does so out of bitter disappointment at the remaining differences.

                The parties agree on more shit than they should.

                • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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                  11 hours ago

                  If voting changed anything about this system, they’d make it illegal. Voting as a strategy to stop fascism was attempted in 2020.

                  It’s like you just type away and don’t even bother reading what you wrote.

      • Crunk@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Another NPC saying “The Left who didn’t vote are to blame” as a concern troll for the Right… Sowing the seeds of doubt basically. Shame on you but you have no shame.