17h ago

Why AOC should run for president in 2028

www.salon.com Why Trump is terrified of AOC

After Zohran Mamdani's win, Trump reveals how scared he is to face Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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I have nothing but absolute respect for AOC and I would love to see her as President and I would certainly vote for her. However, I can think of only one person that would attract more vitriol from the right, and the media at large, than HIllary Clinton and that is AOC. Aside from convincing the misogynistic masses to vote for a woman, she'd have to convince them to vote for one who will be endlessly labeled in the media as a Socialist and Communist. And the masses will eat that up with no more understanding of the terms than the talking heads that will spew them across the airwaves and internet. She would have an uphill battle of biblical proportions just to win the Democratic primary.
On the other hand, I would trust AOC to run a better campaign than Hillary did. If any woman could get elected president in this country, it would be AOC. She would not blow off the working class and lurch to the center to try and court disaffected republicans. I also think AOC would do a good job sticking to issues and throwing republican failures back in their faces.
Having said all that, I don't know if '28 will be her time to shine. Hell, it's hard to make any call with confidence since Trump has about three and a half years to continue his rampage across this nation and there's just no way to forecast what the situation will be like come primary season. At this point, I would be happier to see another candidate lead the ticket. One with similar positions to AOC but more palatable to those masses I mentioned above. The only one I really like right now is Illinois' J.B. Pritzker.
I know he's a billionaire but his actions in Illinois since he became governor show he is a good one. He has been pro-worker, pro-LGBTQ+, pro-choice, and has used his fortune to support progressive candidates. He is also pro-campaign finance reform because he doesn't think people like him should be buying elections. He has also donated millions of dollars to organizations across the nation to help the left thwart republican plans to enact draconian anti-choice laws. If you're not familiar with Pritzker, I suggest you look him up and see what he has accomplished since getting elected in Illinois.
If I could have any ticket in 2028, it would probably be a Pritzker/AOC ticket and I think they would wipe the floor with the right by focusing on issues that matter to people rather than kowtowing to mega-donors.
- Clinton / Harris did not lose because they were women. They lost because they either were a neoliberal shitbag (Clinton) or could not convince people that they were not a neoliberal shitbag (Harris).
  We elected a black man after years of people saying America was too racist to ever do that. There are a lot more women in America than there are black people, and it turns out that running as a progressive is pretty popular.
  We don't need to play this stupid guessing game about what genitals or skin colors will win elections. We already know the policy positions that win elections we just categorically refuse to run on them.
  
  That's a narrative pushed here a lot, but I haven't seen good evidence it is true.
  Wasn't Obama a neoliberal shitbag by your standards?
  
  He campaigned as a socialist, he turned-coat a few months into his first term.
  
  Obama ran on Change, closing Gitmo, and universal healthcare. That he governed as a neoliberal scared to change anything doesn't change what people actual voted for.
  
  And then in Obama's second term he just had the incumbent's advantage. Then neoliberal Biden, VP to Obama, won on change again. Then Trump won on changing back.
  You may just be rationalizing because you don't like neoliberal, so you think no one does.
  
  I don't like neoliberals, but my comment only referenced them because you defined Obama as neoliberal when his first campaign was very much not. That's what people voted for. And of the elections after that, the only one that couldn't be easily described as based on "change" was Obama's second term against Romney, who is himself sort of the antithesis of change.
  
  That's a fair assessment, actually. I think many voters often want change or don't want change, and they don't really consider which direction the change goes.
  If anything bad is happening, whether it's the current administration's fault or the previous, they'll be interested in trying something different.
  
  The swing voters and the non-swing but intermittent voters will just take gut checks about how their life is going and figure out which side wants that to change. Each side, when they're up for change, will pretend their chosen policies will fix everything, and enough people don't really have the wherewithal to recognize whether it's actually going to do anything.
  The truth is, for both sides, usually it won't, because even the good stuff is usually tinkering on the long term or hoping that business subsidies trickle down to regular people. Before Trump mostly nothing happened to really impact people's lives, and Trump's stuff is all terrible. So the same stresses that prompted them to believe the other guy's changes would finally do something are still there and they're now looking for a new lie to believe in.
  
  He acted like one once he got elected but that's not what got him elected. His campaign was very different from his Presidency.
- Pritzker is good, as evidenced by the "Pritzker sucks" signs found across rural Illinois. My concern would be who would replace him as governor.
  
  It would be a hit for Illinois, that's true, but a win for the nation would be worth it to me.

140 comments