So, Kyle Kulinski had a recent debate about AOC for president, and I have some things to say about this myself.
Honestly? I don't think she'll win. It's not that I don't necessarily want her to win (my opinions on her are kind of complex), it's that based on current polls, she's a distant fourth place.
Quite frankly, the progressive lane of the democratic party has not been strong in recent election cycles. bernie could've probably won in 2016 had that cycle not been so dirty internally. 2020 was a lot more iffy, rather than 45% of the vote, Bernie had closer to 30-35%, and only enjoyed early primary victories because the centrist democrats were split between like 3-5 candidates. In 2024, the progressives didn't even put up a serious candidate. Marianne Williamson was "it", and more people voted for "uncommitted" or "free palestine" than her. And now, AOC is behind 3 centrist candidates, Harris, Newsom, and Buttigieg, and possibly could soon fall behind Ossoff who is the new "dreamy" JFK/Obama like figure that some people are attracted to. The fact is, among polled voters, progressives are a minority of the democratic party. They've been struggling to gain attention, and while ANYTHING can happen in the next 1.5-2 years in that regard, a progressive candidate is gonna struggle to break through. Here's the thing. We progressive types, we're highly educated, and highly engaged. your typical voter...is less educated, and less engaged. Centrist dems love to hang that over us like "you see you stupid progressive normie voters dont have time to ready theory and wait for perfect solutions to problems blah blah blah", and it's kind of true, but it's not the flex they think it is. Your typical voter is relatively uneducated and unengaged, and yet if you tell them this, they get offended, because they have dunning kruger syndrome. They think their ignorance is as good as your knowledge. And for them, they want the names they RECOGNIZE, that's Harris, Newsom, Buttigieg, ya know, the second stringers that were elevated in 2020 and became parts of the Biden administration. And Newsom, who wasnt in the biden administration, but was a governor of a large blue state. They're not thinking of AOC much, and when AOC comes up, people think "Omg isn't she a socialist? (without knowing what that means), isn't she 'too far left'?" Because the media goes full red scare on people who dont know any better.
It's frustrating, us progressives often have the curse of knowledge. We're mostly downwardly mobile educated people who understand how screwed the system is, but because said system LITERALLY IS "plato's cave", and most of them are still chained up, they dont fricking understand that they're watching a puppet show.
With that said, let's be realistic about AOC's chances, the progressive wing is gonna struggle. We're gonna be outnumbered by a lot of low information normies who work all day, barely follow politics, and then vote for the person whose name they recognize. When not working, these guys' minds are so fried FROM work that they spend their time on other crap. They know more about football quarterbacks and reality shows and crap than they know about politics, and yeah, most never leave the cave I mentioned. Hate to be cynical, but that's the conclusion I get from this data.
Now, of the progressive wing...is AOC the right candidate? And this is what's debated. And I kind of agree with Kyle, we cycle through the options, and despite her shortcomings, she's still the one on the radar. They mentioned Ro Khanna who isnt enough of a fighter in their view, I disagree, I think Khanna is fine, but AOC has the numbers. A lot of progressives HATE Yang. I have a soft spot for him given my unique ideological roots, but let's face it, dude doesnt really stay consistent and tends to burn bridges even in the UBI online community. I've been participating more in basic income oriented discussions again and yeah, I see a lot of negativity toward the guy. Kinda happens when you dont stick to the idea or represent it very well. Still, he's another "this is what we got" kind of candidate and we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
As far as AOC goes, I understand some concerns. I know this is petty left wing infighting, but I don't care for her stances on work (she went all in with the work = dignity crap in 2024, literally a slave mentality IMO, the reason rich stock brokers were laughing at her is because they KNOW work sucks and its laughable when people romanticize it). She's not for a UBI, she wants a traditional demsoc/socdem agenda, and....well....I don't. Just because I'm in the progressive lane doesn't mean I think that approach is perfect. I have significant differences in policy goals with the progressive left at times and some of these goals are mutually exclusive due to the fiscal realities involved. Although I am somewhat willing to concede the issue somewhat because the alternative is the centrist faction literally bought out by billionaires who want literally nothing, or mere crumbs compared to what society NEEDS.
Like that's the thing, the reason I side with progressives over centrists despite our obvious differences is because at least we agree that change is needed, we just dont agree on what that change should look like. But that don't mean I like her.
Anyway, other than purity tests, why else dont I necessarily like AOC? I think she's still a bit green behind the ears. Like, on foreign policy, she froze and glitched out badly on the taiwan question not long ago. And if youre president, you need to be a commander in chief, you need to make the right decisions, unflinchingly. Yes, we will defend Taiwan. But again, anti war left can't do that. They suck on foreign policy. To be fair, the far left hates her for not being pro Israel enough. For someone with an "imperfect record" in their eyes myself, I'm fine with the more moderate position that Kyle seems to fear from democratic candidates. I'm not a radical leftist on palestine, I just think netanyahu went way too far and should be held accountable for it.
On economics, I know her original green new deal was $10 trillion, which was laughable, but to be fair, that was posted like 8 years ago now and she's likely learned a lot since then.
She also had the good sense to not endorse Hong and condemned "woke 1." Which...again, the radical left hates, but I'm fine with. So she has some good political sense. But yeah, she's not polished. it came up in Kyle's video with her not really being good under pressure and enjoying the rough and tumble of politics. And with me, I kinda see issues with that myself. But yeah.
Ideologically, let's face it, my own ideology is so unique and not very popular, that LITERALLY the only one who ever ran on it it seems was andrew yang. And even then, he did a poor job where he left a bad taste in a lot of peoples' mouths with it. I would still potentially support yang for a 2028 run if he commits to a proper platform that passes my purity tests, but yeah, it's unclear if he will, and even if he does, he might not pick up anything but the scraps of some "left out left" types (to make a pew typology reference) while losing both establishment dems and the progressive left at the same time.
Beyond that, I'm ideologically compromising, but if we think progressive lane, AOC is it. Ro Khanna could take over if AOC doesn't run, but I think he's less popular. And honestly, there isnt anything else. As I said in 2024, it's like with Biden's win in 2020 and Bernie being too old, the progressive movement ceased to have a bench and died. It's possible Abdul El Sayed could be good, but I doubt he'll run in 2028 either. Although I kinda wish he would. Like, that's why I'm pushing him. I'm looking at the "bench" problem and I'm like, okay, desperate times call for desperate measures, send in the n00b. El Sayed is a n00b. He's gonna be a freshman senator who will have to start campaigning IMMEDIATELY after winning his senate term. But, he has that Obama charisma everyone wants, and for all the balking about him, Obama faced the same criticisms in 2008 and he turned out fine.
The fact is, if we want this democratic civil war to reach the presidential race, we need our strongest warriors for this. We dont have many, but as I like to say, you gotta fight with the army you have, not what you want. AOC is the best of the likely names running, but I do think El Sayed could be a strong candidate himself if he decides to run. Ideally I'd let him serve a term or two, but thats the thing. Whoever wins 2028 likely locks the party down until 2040...just like how HRC locked the party into the centrist lane until 2028. I thought the timeline would be HRC and then 8 years of a republican, but instead, we got Trump-Biden-Trump. 2028 is gonna be another 2008 style Obama win for democrats in all likelihood. 2032 could go either way. It could turn into Joe Biden again with them marching to certain defeat, or they could run again and win, meaning we wont see the dems open up until 2036. And in 2036, democrats will likely run whomever the VP is, or similar kind of "third term" candidate, and probably lose. This means that we won't have another shot until 2040 or 2044 in all likelihood. So....yeah. We gotta support the best person we can here. if it's AOC, it's AOC, I think I would push El Sayed to run if he can. Yang is an option although I dont think he'll go anywhere. Ro Khanna, etc.
To be fair though, all of this discussion is likely pointless though. We'll probably end up with Harris whether we like it or not. Or Buttigieg, or Newsom, or some flavor of the month centrist dem like Ossoff who all the centrists are fantasizing about lately for whatever reason. And yeah, we'll probably be shut out again. Because it's pain being a progressive. We're an overeducated minority of the country that knows too much but seems powerless to do anything because of the forces of organized money controlling everything, and most people being too stupid to be on our level. It's just the reality of things. So we gotta watch these idiots elect the same fricking losers who got us into the current situation AGAIN, and then we suffer the consequences of sub par policy decisions that dont fix the problem, followed by electing republicans who make everything worse because they're literal psychopaths who are only relevant...again, because big money. *sigh*, but that's American politics. I hate it, these days, can you tell?
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