Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denied claims that she is secretly wealthy, stating she is worth less than $500,000 and doesn’t trade stocks or take corporate money.
Her financial disclosures show modest savings and student debt.
Some conservatives on X, despite opposing her politics, praised her perceived integrity.
Accusations of political corruption have surged online, partly fueled by Elon Musk.
I think regardless of whether you are Republican or a Democrat, AOC is probably the closest to what a representative should be. Now whether you agree with her or not is a different discussion entirely, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. She’s just the only one that actually seems to give a shit about who she represents. Whereas both for Republicans and Democrats the vast majority of our “representation” are crotchety and corrupt old people that don’t give a shit anymore.
While I agree with almost everything you said, there’s really no good reason to make a statement like that and leave Bernie in with the “vast majority” group. 🙂
The man has walked the walk for a very long time. (Yes he’s too old to run for office now, but he deserves his due!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Political_activism
I saw a recent interview Bernie did with AOC and I learned that she got into politics specifically because she was inspired by Bernie during his presidential run in 2016. Thats something I didn’t realize and it explains a lot why we feel a lot of the same energy from them.
That’s a pretty interesting thing to know, thanks for mentioning it!
My bad. Wasn’t trying to throw Bernie aside. He’s fantastic as well.
All good, I wasn’t throwing shade on you just wanting to put in a word for the Bern. 🙂
I say run him anyways - he can be the token ‘old white dude’, with AOC as his vice. If he kicks the bucket or finds that he is breaking down, he can pass the baton. Otherwise, we get an extra four years of progress for each term he runs. If dementia is a concern, just write a public contract under what terms he is out of the running.
Something like “We know I am getting old. AOC has my right of attorney for determining my mental state.”
No argument from me, but I have a suspicion that being old is going to be a third rail politically during the next general election, assuming we get one and that it resembles being a free and valid election in any way.
Most Americans want progressive policies, they’re just convinced from Cold War propaganda that progressivism/socialism is always the opposite of good.
Bernie stopped running for president after the DNC told him to. He’s proven he doesn’t have what it takes to stand for his principles in a presidential run.
I loved Bernie, even donated to him twice, but he’s a coward and only does lip service these days.
Bernie was ratfucked out of the nomination, no doubt. What happened in West Virginia, for example, where he won all counties and they lied about it, was insane.
But… you cannot blame him or call him a coward for doing the right thing. At some point he saw the writing was on the wall. They were coronating Hillary no matter what. The next president would either be Hillary or Trump. Bernie put country before himself and stood aside. He didn’t make Trump’s path to victory any easier, and actively did his best to prevent a dangerous man from rising to power. None of that makes him a coward, it makes him a leader. A mensch.
Him running as a real leftest canidate after they tried to suppress him would have been the right thing, and him not choosing that path set us down the path we’re on today.
There were a lot of Bernie voters who refused to vote for Hillary after that. The DNC lost the progressive vote for their actions in 2016.
You mean him running as a third party candidate? That’s a guaranteed loss under the current electoral system. He would’ve siphoned votes from both sides, but more from Hillary and delivered Trump an electoral college and popular vote victory. The left would’ve been demonised even more than they already were and AOC/The Squad would never have been elected to congress in 2018. Under First Past the Post, the only option for a populist progressive candidate is to do what Trump did. Take the party over from inside out. Going third party is just a fantasy.
Yeah you’re right, he made the right choice bending the knee to the Neoliberals because then the Neoliberals wouldn’t have been able to beat Trump.
Because Hillary beat Trump after the Neoliberals suppressed the Progressives in 2016, right? I forgot, can you remind me who won?
There was 0% chance a third party candidate was winning in 2016, Bernie or not. There was about a 50% chance of Hillary winning.
Also, viewing this as ‘bending the knee’ is so juvenile. Bernie knows who he is and has advocated for progressive values for longer than most of us have been alive. He made a calculated decision to do what had the highest chance of defeating Trump. It’s not his fault that Hillary and the Democratic machine are completely inept
Bernie had more individual donations from real people than any canidate in US history.
It was the 2nd biggest grassroots campaign in my life after obama
Sorry you didn’t pay attention
What do you mean by this?
I mean that’s objective, observable reality. It’s history.
The DNC pressured him to drop out for Hillary in 2015 after they didn’t like the attention he was getting. The emails came out and the head of the DNC resigned.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/24/debbie-wasserman-schultz-resigns-dnc-chair-emails-sanders
Everyone could clearly see the DNC rigged the primary against him, and then forced him to drop out when he started beating their neolib canidate despite running 7 other progressives against him in the primary. (This is how Elizabeth Warren became well known, the DNC pulled her into the primary to siphon votes from Bernie, the first progressive they ever let primary with them.)
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/14/16640082/donna-brazile-warren-bernie-sanders-democratic-primary-rigged
www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/sanders-supporters-walk-off-convention-floor-blame-rigged-system-for-his-loss
His time has unfortunately passed to be president
Right, I’m aware of the general history and not debating any of it. What I meant was the democrat establishment back-stabbed his campaign both times, but it sounded like you were blaming him for it.
If it were me I would have posted the DNC’s emails on twitter (back when it was twitter) and used the momentum to take over the DNC and fuck up the oligarch controlled duopoly.
A progressive with balls would have done that. Instead they called him old and screamed about him getting Trump elected (he was elected anyway) and then Bernie said ok and dropped out.
I suppose they are referring to 2016.