1 yr. ago • 90%

AOC and the Squad’s List of Left-Wing Accomplishments Is Quite Long

https:// jacobin.com /2023/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-the-squad-left-criticism-policy-accomplishments

Socialism @lemmy.ml AOC and the Squad’s List of Left-Wing Accomplishments Is Quite Long

19 comments

Uh...Did you actually read the article before you posted it?

Her capstone work so far has been moving 5 million dollars in a budget of 3T. That's really it...the rest of the article is fluffy feel good conjecture.

I like AoC, but pretending the progressives are getting things done is not helping. We're in dire need of change and the R's / Conservative D's have a stranglehold on making it not happen.

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- Killing parts of the Patriot Act and stopping our government from selling more weapons to a Bolivian government that coup'd its way into power don't seem like fluffy conjecture to me (and those are just the next two things after the $5million)
  
  e; got my "it's" and "its" backwards
  
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  Ye, the patriots act is unconstitutional IMHO... Gov doing mass surveillance/spying on ALL it's citizens...
  
  SMH
  
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  She "was involved" in those things...she didn't "do" those things. It's a big difference, and why I say fluffy conjecture. She says the right things (mostly), but that's my point...it's just talk. I also said we shouldn't sell arms to dictators to guy a at a bar once....I could make a long winded argument about how that influenced US policy...but I'd be full of shit.
  
  My point isn't she's a bad person or politician. But we NEED universal healthcare and free college...we NEED curbs on housing costs...we NEED climate change regulations.
  
  The progressives were supposed to implement those things and they never did.
  
  So...sure...she stopped a small arms deal and shifted around some pocket change. I'm not real excited by that.
  
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- Pray tell, how are a handful of the 435 representatives the house supposed to pass meaningful legislation on their own?
  
  They vote on moderate bills because there's no better alternative and no way to get there YET. Cultivating an image around progressive ideas at least ensures that they enter the public discourse. This will take time to wrench the pendulum back from the center right
  
  Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater
  
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  Not to mention, a lot of Congressional work happens in committee and in their home states. Counting primary sponsorship of bills is a terrible way to measure activity.
  
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- Yeah, but you need to get the R and conservative D seats to change to progressives for that to happen.
  
  A squad of representatives that you can count on one hand isn't enough of a voting block to force major change. It isn't like replacing AOC would fix the issue.
  
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  -14
  
  I didn't know they made clickbait comments now too
  
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  Flat tax is fucking stupid. It's not just about contributing more or less, because someone making 20k a year contributing 10% hits a lot harder than someone making 400k paying the same %.
  
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  Lock they up… Lock they up… Lock they up
  
  That about sums up the intelligence level of your post lmao
  
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I'm sorry, Congress accomplished something?

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- Gee, it's almost as if the GOP wants you to think there's no point in voting.
  
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Left-wing scrutiny of the Squad and particularly Representative Ocasio-Cortez has steadily veered from constructive criticism and needed pressure to a kind of caricaturish vitriol.

Jacobin is clearly panicked by the possibility that the Outsider Left might not actually inherit the Democratic Party’s mantle, but seems unwilling to ask why or to suggest a solution.

This op-ed consists of hand-waving apologetics that glaze over AOC’s often neoliberal voting record with feel-good references to, for example, the legacy of the failed Green New Deal, and it reads like an excuse.

Perhaps Jacobin is merely attempting to convince itself, but an injunction to think of “the health of the socialist and broader progressive movements” feels pathetic at the end of an article that’s largely failed to defend the socialist Wunderkinder against the leftist critique that they’re all just regular old Democrats now.

It’s tough being a member of the “Squad” these days.

Is it really, though? AOC and her ilk further their careers by happily selling their politically-profitable, “socialist” personas to a tragically hoodwinked outer-left constituency that’s just hopeful for meaningful change.

See ya at the next Met Gala, AOC.

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- Maybe you should give it a shot and see if you can do better.
  
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