It’s called gloating. He doesn’t need a lot of foundation for it when those darn bomb throwers threaten to upset his Democratic Pary.
Would you like to have the same amount of scrutiny applied to that statement as people have applied to AOC’s?
Given that the most minimal level of scrutiny applied to AOC’s statement on this showed it to be false, I would.
For most individuals more hours worked leads to greater pay than working fewer hours does. Is that verifiably false with minimal evaluation, like AOC’s statement was?
Within a job level those who work more hours usually get paid more than those who do not. Is that verifiably false?
The top-level for compensation in a company is often the CEO level and they work more hours per week than does the typical worker. That one is even verifiably true, over 58 hours per week compared to the average overworked worker’s 47 hours per week. Many lower level executives are putting in 72 hours per week.
Do too many work too hard in this country for what is still not a livable wage? I’d say yes. Is income and more so wealth inequality increasing in this country and is that a real and serious problem? I’d say yes.
Is making false statements good advocacy? I’d say no.
I know people that work 60, 70, 80 hours a week. But they usually don’t have two real jobs, the scheduling is too difficult. Usually it’s a full-time job + a “hustle” — they clean houses or do handyman work on the evenings and weekends. Or they drive for a car service or collect recyclable cans and bottles. Or they do hair or give massages out of their homes. But a lot of people are working, a lot.
I’m not in AOC’s district but most of my neighborhood is, I’m a half block from the dividing line. It’s an incredibly diverse district - in addition to low income and working class neighborhoods in the Bronx and Queens, it encompasses several affluent and mostly white neighborhoods.
Long hours are also common for small-business owners.
“Not well supported” is crap when the article UTTERLY FAILS to refute this claim.“Not well supported” might be appropriate if I was pointing out that the ‘everyone’ is not meant literally, that they’re using nationwide statistics and not statistics for her district (which is presumably the people she’s talking about), or that BLS statitstics don’t include a lot of things as “working” that actually are. But arbitrarily ignoring the actual range of hours that she said (changing 60, 70, 80 to 70, 80) and making a blatantly false claim (that one has to have two full-time jobs to work that many hours) is way beyond “not well supported” and into “they changed her statement and just made up some blatantly false nonsense”.
All the stuff you posted disputing the validity of her claim is irrelevant, because I’m not disputing that her statement is incorrect. I’m saying that the politifacts article is completely wrong and blatantly dishonest in multiple ways, and that the article actually failed in what should be a fairly simple mission to refute her claims.
It SHOULD be aimed at that segment of the pundit class that proclaimed her as New Left Poster Girl. And besides I’m sure there are other New Lefters out there hitting the circuit but the good looking young Latina who upset a top dog is the one who gets eyeballs on the screen/page so there she is.
IMO, if her inexperience is at fault for anything, it is allowing herself to be thrown into that role a bit indiscriminately rather than playing to hef strength. She SHOULD be out there creating voter enthusiasm among the young demographic, exciting them at rallies and college visits and registration drives. However she does not need to be put on the high-visibility firing line for deep nitty gritty questions unless the “movement” is willing to provide her a commesurate prep team and I’m not seeing that.
AOC has correctly identified many of our economic problems, but she misses the mark with specific details and facts, which damages her credibility. The lesson she needs to learn going forward is that she needs to go beyond slogans and do her homework before she agrees to do interviews.
I’m still a fan, but she has a few things to learn before she goes big league.
I would rather see her focus on winning her congressional district and spreading her influence locally first. She won a stunning upset in a primary race, but she still doesn’t have political power yet. She needs that before she’s going to be taken as seriously as she’d like to be taken.
Ha. I’ve done 80 hour weeks working at one job. Not year round, but for a couple of months at a stretch. 60 hour weeks were pretty routine for me. I once worked from December 26 through February 24 at least 12 (sometimes 16) hours a day, every day. (Yes, including New Years Day) Collapsed on the floor at the end of that. Took a cab home and a three day weekend off. Came back the following Monday and restricted myself to only 10 hours a day, six days a week.
She’s still crowing on Twitter, conveniently forgetting that most of the candidates she campaigned for lost. And, I still remember her claims that since Bernie won the tiny Kansas caucus, it’s a sure sign that the Midwest/Plains is eager to elect Democratic socialists.
You mean she’s still doing good things for the party and inspiring lots of young progressives? Great for the future of the Democratic party! Go AOC!
I can agree with this. (Although the being willing to be thrown into the role, embracing it with gusto, is the hubris…)
And a somewhat reasonable POV in today’s NYT on the meaningful wins the progressives had the other night and what they are doing right: pragmatic wins at the more local race base of the system, such as at the prosecutor and DA levels.
I don’t know that using routine political rhetoric actually damages her postion in any meaningful way; people like the dude writing the politifacts article, who believes that 80-hour weeks are good for employees, are not going to accept her message in the first place, and people that aren’t taking nitpicking to excessive levels are not going to be bothered by the fact that the statement is, if interpreted literally, not actually true.
The condescending stuff like “the lesson she needs to learn going forward” doesn’t actually appear to be grounded in actual fact; people don’t generally get elected to office by making technically correct statements. Instead, broad statements that speak to people’s experience and that describe a condition that people are familiar with, even if its not as universal as the statement makes it out to be, tend to work much better at winning elections.
We could apply ‘accuracy’ critique to Trump’s speeches and point out that he still managed to get elected, but he’s… not exactly respected. Instead, look at what happens if one applies the same standard of examination to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s inaugrial speech. You can make criticisms that it’s factually incorrect in many places, but it’s clearly not actually striving for simple factual accuracy, but instead is speaking about issues in broad terms. Certainly no one is going to claim that it wasn’t a moving speech, or that FDR was not a validly successful politician! And yet:
People had to fear hunger, disease, crime, riots, racially charged violence, and a host of things other than ‘fear itself’. Obviously Mr Roosevelt needs to learn a few things before he goes to the big leagues!
X% of the people in high finance referred to by FDR held University degrees, and Y% of them included courses on classical history that covered historical governance courses. Also, only Z number of them are blind, the vast majority of them have either normal vision or vision easily corrected by glasses. Clearly Mr. Roosevelt needs to verify his facts before spouting off!
I don’t think asking if something is true or not is excessive, or nitpicking. YM obviously V.
Regards,
Shodan
I’d like to see you try.
If the article is completely wrong then the following must be incorrect:
Please let us know why you think that’s completely wrong.
So you think that criticism of FDR’s speech in the style that I gave is not excessive, nitpicking, or otherwise unreasonable? YM obviously V.
Reading the Dope is like peeking into bizarro-world sometime. “If you want to play in the big leagues as a politician, you’re going to have to make only statements that are true under nitpicking scrutiny, hyperbole, metaphor, and other figures of speech are right out!” is just not advice I’d expect to see, especially after the last presidential election.
My bad for using ordinary English on this board. (Not really).
An inspirational speech where a person is stating an opinion (it is my belief) or crafting a vision for the future is quite different from giving an interview to a reporter about the current state of affairs. To nit pick FDR like that is to miss the point of the speech entirely. Not at all the same as AOC’s interview where she is talking about the current state of affairs. She made a mistake, and should just correct it, learn and move on. No big deal.
How should she correct it?