Don't Practice Your Activism With the Parking Brake On
Progressive policies and candidates are popular, but the DNC really needs to step back and let the voters decide
Hello Friends,
I write on a lot of subjects that are considered controversial. Usually I know when I say something that’s going to cost me a few subscribers. One of the problems of the political left is that they’re a little too quick to hit the block button on allies. I totally get it if you hit the block button on fascists, but I think we all have to be mindful not to overreact.
That applies to me too, but I have to sort through thousands of comments a day. Part of my employment with Medium is discerning between human and AI generated comments.
I’ve been listening to the audio version of Calling In by Loretta Ross and it discusses the need for creating a coalition among likeminded people. We can’t allow ourselves to descend into self-righteous isolation.
That being said, let me explain this comment, why I threaten to block people in it, and what the consequences were:
Essentially, all I’m advocating for is an open primary. The reason I said, “that kind of talk will get you blocked” is that AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) is a target for a lot of bot activity. Every time I mention her name I get a FLOOD of comments that are clearly not of human origin.
As a writer, I have an obligation to erase non-human comments and block the author because otherwise those comments negatively influence people. I wish our whole society would adopt this perspective.
However, in response to this article where I said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be nice to have an open primary and let the voters decide the candidate,” I received a really odd message. Somebody wrote again to say AOC “isn’t ready” then she said she was unsubscribing from me.
Honestly, I was blindsided that in the context of what we’re going through as a society and in the context of the other topics I write about, this note could make somebody that angry.
First of all, take a step back and look at the whole picture.
It is 2025.
We are not going to have another presidential election until 2028. AOC hasn’t even announced that running for President is an option she wishes to explore.
So, now is not the time to spend your energy lecturing people on why they shouldn’t support her for president. That’s an utterly bizarre waste of time.
It IS a good use of your time to try and convince the DNC that they must finally abandon their hubris and embrace the popular activists in their party who are actually making an effort to save our nation! AOC is one of them.
Are Democrats seriously not aware of the gravity of what’s going on?
We've got unelected foreign agents who are dismantling our delicate payment systems and messing with the code that is critical for the functioning of our government. We’ve got planes crashing into each other because we fired all the air traffic controllers. We’ve got a criminal president dismantling the Constitution.
Faced with all that, there are people in the DNC who think their biggest priority is blocking AOC? Are you serious?
If you're one of those people who, when faced with the harshness of our reality, wants to waste your energy saying Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not ready to run for office, you really have to get your priorities straight.
What's going on right now and what we've seen is that the establishment Democrats haven't been doing enough. The people that have been speaking out against the transgressions of our federal government are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, Pete Buttigieg, Jamie Raskin, and even Hakeem Jeffries is kind of coming around.
You’ll see members of this group on social media, but there’s still no coordinated effort by the DNC to be a shadow administration (and that’s what we need).
Wake up Democrats! This is how you win an election in America in the 21st century. You establish yourself as a constant media presence, you blame the current administration for EVERYTHING, and you present yourself as the only possible solution.
There are all these people with Ivy League degrees, and they’re incapable of seeing the obvious. It’s been 10 years people! 10!
As great as the challenge before us is, the DNC establishment always has money to give to a challenger to AOC.
HOW ABOUT SPENDING THAT MONEY FIGHTING FASCISM INSTEAD?
If it’s information that you have to hide from your regular fundraising emails, then MAYBE DON’T DO IT!
Instead of deciding in advance that AOC isn’t “ready” how about you look at the evidence. She has a huge platform. She’s very popular. She’s got the courage to stand up and speak truth to power. The DNC needs 1000 more candidates like her and they should start showing her a bit of appreciation.
She is getting out.
She's talking to people.
She's mobilizing people.
Again, all I said in my post was that I think we need to leave this to a primary. Let the voters decide instead of the Ivy League, gated community, liberal-elites who lecture us on everything and then sulk when they lose.
Another thing I think is strange is that the establishment will always push their centrist candidates, even though those centrist candidates have repeatedly lost elections. Those centrist candidates are the reason why we are in the mess that we are in.
I live in a conservative area. I grew up with conservatives in my home town. In the community where I live now, two out of every three members of the voting public are conservative. I talk with conservatives every single day.
They despise Nancy Pelosi. They will never, in a million years, vote for a centrist, Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton type candidate. Never. They see centrist Democrats as everything they hate about Republicans with the addition of gun control.
But these conservatives actually do listen to AOC. So those of you out there saying, “AOC is too radical to get elected, we have to run somebody who appeals to Republicans”—YOU’RE WRONG! She DOES appeal to Republicans. The candidate that DOESN’T appeal to Republicans is the kind of candidate the DNC insists on running!
GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!
A major percentage of conservatives do listen to AOC. Maybe they don't agree with all of her ideas, but she is popular among them. There is overlap there. When she says things like we need to have worker protections, we need to get prices down, that's a message they at least understand.
They despise everything about Nancy Pelosi.
Conservatives are NEVER going to vote for a Nancy Pelosi type candidate.
Again, I talk to real, working-class conservatives EVERY DAY. I’ve lived with them. I grew up with them. I KNOW WHAT THEY THINK! This is not the type of thing you can learn at Harvard or Yale or Princeton. It takes true life experience to know.
Yet the democratic establishment insists that they know better and that we should keep running those kinds of candidates.
That is the path to failure.
It's bizarre how the liberal elite does nothing in the face of a fascist takeover of our country, but the second you say something like, “Let's run a new type of voice, let's run a progressive who's popular, who's young, who's dynamic, who's working hard right now and one of the few people in our government who works for working class people, and is saying things and is doing the right things!”
When you say that, these people who have been silent in the face of these terrible transgressions against democracy are roused to suddenly come out of the woodwork to lecture me and tell me that my position is wrong and that they're offended by me.
This is activism with the parking brake on.
You’d think by now, people would finally understand that we shouldn’t waste our energy attacking progressives. Go fight the damn fascists! Leave the progressives alone.
And if you’re still inclined to fight progressives in light of what’s going on today, you need to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror and make sure all of your energy is going to the right place.
Remember that in the last 10 years, the centrists have won all those fights against progressives. That’s the strategy and the ideology that got us here. They are the ones to blame.
And still, even today, hubris rules the liberal elite, and they go after AOC rather than admit that they were wrong.
And while they continue to do that, the DNC will continue to lose and we’ll continue to see our country eroded until it’s finally destroyed.
All I’m saying is that we have to have fair and open primaries. If a dynamic progressive candidate gathers support, then we have to get behind her, we can’t cheat the system and rig the results.
No more momentum destroying comments. Instead, focus on the things about AOC that you like. But don’t do the work of fascists by spreading the lie that she “can’t” win.
Why are you repeating their propaganda for them? STOP IT!
Do not try to impose an unpopular candidate on the people because you think you know better. You don’t. Learn from history, that strategy leads directly to fascism. Do not pass “go” do not collect $200.
The stubborn hubris of the centrist Democrats is what got us here, not the progressives. It’s time for the centrists to stop pining for the non-existent swing voters who hate them, and embrace the voting public that is just sitting there WAITING for the party to run an honest and popular candidate.
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YOU are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!! I think we need new blood in the fight. AOC is smart, active and able to hold her own in a debate. Thank goodness someone has recognized this.....she could win. I would vote for her.
The biggest problem progressive politics has always had is that it has never had the support of the biggest political backers (wealthy people), who have always seen it as anathema to their beliefs. Progressive politicians should therefore try to find more non-partisan sources of wealth that carry less political taint with them.