All public figures misspeak once in a while, regardless of ideology, party, age, experience, sex, race, social class, or education. The one way to avoid it completely is to make like Clarence Thomas and clam up forever, and then people call you a mute.
There are hundreds of Congresscritters. There are dozens of new Congresscritters. All of them occasionally say silly things. All of them.
AOC is in the news more because she’s a socialist (and in NYC, & telegenic–and a girl to scare the sexists, I guess). So are her gaffes. If we picked a Congressperson at random and put them in the news, we’d get a few dubious statements. Restrict your pool to persons first elected to office in the last few years, we’d get a number of gaffes from each similar to AOC’s.
One of the best things a potential politician could learn while being a bartender is how to converse with people of wildly different viewpoints in a congenial manner. I’m not convinced this is something AOC learned in her tenure on that side of the oak.
As it happens the Dems just voted to nominate Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House when they seat the new crowd next year. The vote was 203 - 32. Pelosi needs 218 votes to become speaker so she needs to find 15 votes between now and when the new House gets seated. So it seems the insurgent part of the Democrats is not being lead by Ocasio-Cortez. I have no doubt she will find those votes. She will spread around a few promises and be good to go most likely.
Personally I think putting Pelosi back as Speaker is a mistake. I’d be open to other suggestions (and of course not O-C) but not Pelosi. Debate for another thread though.
AOC is not a socialist. It may seem a nitpick but it isn’t. Marketing matters on these things.
AOC is a self described democratic socialist. They are distinctly NOT socialists.
That said she isn’t really a democratic socialist either but rather a social democrat. There is a distinct difference there too. Yeah, I know she and Sanders call themselves democratic socialists but the polices they propose are much more akin to a Finland/Norway/Sweden model which are distinctly social democracies and are also different from democratic socialists.
I think it is just loose use of the language and it is unfortunate since there are real distinctions to be made. Sadly democratic socialist is often used interchangeably with social democrat.
Most of her misstatements are rather common misconceptions or pretty ordinary mumbles of meaning. Shes also doing a lot more national media than your average Congresperson. I stand by my earlier position that if you find them particularly hilarious or outrageous, you’re trying hard to justify an already set opinion.
She’s young and new to politics. She has not mastered the art most politicians master of having words come out of their mouth without actually saying anything of substance.
I also suspect if she said, “Puppies are cute,” that you’d accuse her of a misstep for not mentioning that kittens are also cute.
No, but if she said that her adorable puppy was going to grow up to be a ferocious feline someday, I would.
And hey, look, I’m human, I make mistakes, I’m no better or worse all things being equal. God knows if I post enough I’m probably going to eventually say something monumentally stupid. But if we’re talking about why the right focuses on her, all these missteps, gaffes, and misinformed statements one after another are a big reason is all I’m saying.
We have yet to see if she plays well with others in Congress, specifically how well she integrates with the experienced members of the progressive caucus.
Supporting the … well only … candidate for leadership against an ill-defined threat from those right of her? I don’t read much into that of significance.
The question will be answered when items are to be brought forward and possibly voted on. Does she in the future, for example, argue for a sub-caucus to demand, say Medicare for all rather than a phase-in of freedom to opt in from 55 years old plus (that being the more incremental approach that, say, a president Sherrod Brown would push for) with a promise to vote against anything less, dooming the bill?
That sort of action was the sort of power she expressed wanting her proposed sub-caucus to exercise. IF that then not good, IMHO.
I don’t see anything yet that leads me to rest easy of that concern. We’ll see but we have not seen yet.
My guess is that she would want to but that she won’t succeed in getting others to follow her lead. That’s the tougher going than she expects that I expect.
Is there a list of all these mistakes she’s made? You keep making this assertion but I have not seen more than a few anecdotes (if I missed it my apologies).
You prolly don’t understand that you aren’t helping your position any with posts like this: the only person fixated on her employment as a bartender is you, and you consistently use it to try and denigrate her.
