Ocasio-Cortez has already made an impact

Suddenly Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is everywhere, and she hasn't even won a general election.
This is making real, measurable ripples. This is one example.

According to Lawrence Dreyfuss, a program associate for DSA, the organization saw a surge of 1,152 new memberships on Wednesday—about 35 times more sign-ups than on an average day.

The last major membership bump DSA experienced was in the month following President Trump’s election, during which time they had about six times more sign-ups than in the previous month.

DSA has undergone a renaissance of sorts in the Trump era, ballooning in size from some 5,000 members in November 2016 to 40,000 nationwide.

The DSA is starting to become a significant political force, and a couple more electoral victories will qualify it as a movement.

The other example isn't so direct of impact. However, the fact that this happened just one day after Ocasio-Cortez' victory is more than just a coincidence.

In an important and long-overdue step toward making the Democratic Party more accountable to voters and less captive to the interests of establishment insiders, the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) Rules and Bylaws arm voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to drastically curtail the influence of superdelegates by barring them from voting on the first ballot of the presidential nomination.

Of course most of the credit for this change goes to activists in the Democratic Party.
Some of the credit also goes to those who withheld their funds to the DNC, because nothing gets the Dems attention like money.

The latest filings show that as the general-election season quickly approaches, the Democratic Party is still piecing together its fundraising apparatus after an organizational reboot. Instead, the donor energy on the left is funneling directly to individual campaigns — a trend that is unlikely to change ahead of the midterms.

The Democratic Party has never been more unpopular.
Despite all of this, Nancy Pelosi has never changed her tune.

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Pricknick's picture

“The fact that in a very progressive district in New York, it went more progressive—well Joe Crowley is a progressive—but more to the left of Joe Crowley is about that district,”

Nancy Pelosi
Anybody from Nancy's party is progressive if you ask her. Im sure she considers herself a stalwart.
If there is ever proven to me that there is a god she will be on my short list of those who deserve wrath.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

snoopydawg's picture

@Pricknick

How about Cuomo's?

“I think it’s apples and oranges,” Cuomo said Wednesday in the Bronx when asked what impact he thought the upset might have on his own race.
“I think what you saw in the Crowley race … this was a minority community, largely in this district, that is afraid, that is angry, that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez did a very good job of connecting with.

Just wow!

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg @snoopydawg
that was surely a more accurate analysis than Pelosi's. Cuomo probably thought "I can't parrot Pelosi, a half-witted dog would laugh at that!"

Actually, Trumpistas do think that Pelosi is a Progressive, a Liberal, even a Socialist.
Proving that they don't have the brains of a half-witted dog.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

divineorder's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

Yah, she will, just after hell freezes over.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder
But that would prove that Pence really is worse.

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On to Biden since 1973

thanatokephaloides's picture

Bernie and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have already had one serious, Earth-shaking, Nation-healing impact:

For the first time since approximately 1935, Americans dare utter the word "SOCIALISM" in their political discussions!

If they accomplish nothing else, this alone is worthwhile.

tk-rosa-luxemburg-socialism-or-barbarism.jpg

Socialism! Socialism! Socialism!

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

divineorder's picture

@thanatokephaloides

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

divineorder's picture

@divineorder https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/28/alexandria-ocasio-c...

Of course, they had reason to feel proud – they had filmed the viral campaign video that helped propel Ocasio-Cortez to national stardom.

Means of Production, Hayes said, is “a democratically organized leftist production cooperative. The goal is to empower and reflect the working class through an effective left media structure.”

Means of Production is exclusive about who it provides services for: “unions, the working class, progressive candidates and certain nonprofits,” Hayes told the Free Press.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

snoopydawg's picture

Yeah that is what people are begging the democrats for. Not for policies that will help them survive this economy or for the democrats to stop voting for every war that the military and Israel wants, just a better message.

Good grief, Nancy, you can't really expect people to believe you do you? This is why people stayed home in 2010, 2014 and 2016. You don't give people a reason to vote for you.

BTW, the kos kids are very angry with anyone who refused to vote for Hillary for whatever reason. One person said that we should go and slit our wrists. Nice! Why was this person so upset with people who didn't vote for her? Because Kennedy retired during Trump's presidency and before the midterms. Oh yeah. People are telling Schumer that he better not let any democrats vote for Kennedy's replacement. Oh else! Or else what I want to know.

Nea

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

thanatokephaloides's picture

@snoopydawg

BTW, the kos kids are very angry with anyone who refused to vote for Hillary for whatever reason. One person said that we should go and slit our wrists. Nice!

We need to throw coins (wrapped in nice, soft bills) at JtC every time we can, for he has provided us a better place to call home than that wastewater lagoon!

Why was this person so upset with people who didn't vote for her? Because Kennedy retired during Trump's presidency and before the midterms. Oh yeah. People are telling Schumer that he better not let any democrats vote for Kennedy's replacement. Oh else! Or else what I want to know.

I spoke with a friend today who still maintains that Hillary would have been a superior alternative, refusing to face the fact that Herheinous is simply the Chump in a girl suit. This friend was unaware that Chump's nomination as the Rethug Presidential candidate was largely Hillary Clinton's creation.

I'm going to have to ask my fellow c99ers to point me back at the Essays where the evidence to that point was disclosed and discussed.

As for the kos kids, may Dog deliver our poor country from them and their ilk!

Bad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

divineorder's picture

@thanatokephaloides

....throw coins (wrapped in nice, soft bills) at JtC every time we can, for he has provided us a better place to call home than that wastewater lagoon!

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

LeChienHarry's picture

@thanatokephaloides The small bits from everyone may be the most helpful and a way to maintain JtC and his family, and their budget.

Thanks to everyone who helps one time or monthly. It all helps.

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divineorder's picture

@LeChienHarry

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

dance you monster's picture

@thanatokephaloides

https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentiona...

There are other places to see the story online, including here, but Salon is a site that most people out there think is more or less mainstream. The memo is reproduced in that article so no one can credibly argue it doesn't exist.

And yeah, in my experience most people so distressed we didn't genuflect to Hillary are totally unaware of her explicit (albeit behind the scenes) hand in elevating Trump in the first place. I bring up the pied piper strategy to Hillary voters in the real world and there's this stunned look that comes to their faces and the realization they were duped. From there it's a short step to challenging the Russia nonsense. People hate to be duped; they hate even more when it continues after they've been shown the truth in the campaign's own memos.

Strategically speaking, this is the problem when you get "leaders" who are so convinced of their smartness that they try to manipulate events instead of just stating their honest beliefs and letting the hand play out.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@dance you monster

https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentiona...

There are other places to see the story online, including here, but Salon is a site that most people out there think is more or less mainstream. The memo is reproduced in that article so no one can credibly argue it doesn't exist.

Multo grazie for that, dance you monster!

Give rose

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Mark from Queens's picture

@thanatokephaloides @thanatokephaloides
I can't verify the second. But it seems to be what I recall.

However, the first and third are verily true.

and by the way, I think it's "molto" grazie. At least that's how I've read when I've been over there and heard it around my many Italian friends.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Mark from Queens

and by the way, I think it's "molto" grazie. At least that's how I've read when I've been over there and heard it around my many Italian friends.

I may have heard it incorrectly, too. But I have seen it that way in print.

My direct understanding of Italian, like my corresponding [non-] command of Romanian, is utterly dependent on my 3 years' training in Latin. As we both know, this is a known recipe for disaster!

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@Mark from Queens

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

@Mark from Queens
That's they way I heard it too. wasn't sure because most of what I've heard is Calabrian and Sicilian dialect.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

snoopydawg's picture

@thanatokephaloides

That was her Pied Piper idea to have them focus on him instead of any republican candidate or Bernie. This is another thing that the kids don't or won't believe, but Wikileaks tweeted the emails between her and her campaign that showed she was the one who came up with the idea. It was Bill's idea that he run so yeah, I'd say that the Clintons have a lot of responsibility for Trump being president. Then we can add in what Obama did and didn't do that got people to take a chance that Trump wasn't lying to them about jobs and the economy. What did they have to lose by voting for him? If any of them knew about the TPP that would have seen more jobs going away how many of them believed that Hillary wouldn't change her mind again and sign it? I know I didn't believe her.

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

think they can find ways--both legal and illegal--to keep this from happening again, they aren't worried.

I'm sure they are thinking that all this is just a matter of rigging more voting machines, or purging more voting rolls, or getting more of their corporate media assets to smear the next progressive more effectively, or pouring even more money into the campaigns of establishment hacks.

So long as they've kept a true progressive from being on the ballots in the general election contests, they've done their jobs and they will be well rewarded by their donors and string-pullers. Remember, contrary to their rhetoric, whether they win or lose the general election contests (i.e., whether a "blue wave" actually occurs in November) is irrelevant to these people.

Just make sure the next progressive doesn't get anywhere near a shot at winning the general election contest. This is what they truly fight against. This is what their true function is.

Clearly, someone slipped up in this contest in New York. The establishment wasn't paying enough attention. You can bet that even now as I write this, the establishment hacks are bent over desks in smoke-filled rooms mulling over their strategies to make sure this doesn't happen again at any time in the near future.

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divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder
https://www.dsausa.org/

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

It's better that the Pulosi/Cuomo types piss on her some. The worst thing would have the establishment d's bumpersticker Ocasio-Cortez over with their seal of approval. Nobody but democrats can stomach the demsplaining.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

@The Aspie Corner She will have to spell it out.

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@The Aspie Corner

You may, indeed, be right that she won't amount to much in the end--we have seen that happen over and over to be sure. You may be right that the establishment will quash her into absolute ineffectiveness.

But that Jason Unruhe guy doesn't represent what I want. It seems to me there has never been a real socialist/communist movement that hasn't immediately devolved into a de facto oligarchical dictatorship, and between that and the "MaoistRebels" and guns in their logos, I'm not convinced.

When have elections led to real change? FDR. Lincoln. There are some--okay, not MANY . . . but some. And, no, they have never been perfect. And, yes, capitalism and the way it works is behind a lot of the problems in the world.

I am one of those "progressives" (not in the Nancy Pelosi sense, but in a true left sense) that Jason disparages and sighs about in the video. You know what I would like to see?

A country with universal health care. With a universal income. Closing military bases overseas. With three-quarters of the military budget spent on converting this country to a renewable energy base, with a countrywide smart grid, a universal water supply plan for the next century, and plans for moving people over the next decades away from the coastlines in an orderly way that puts everyone out of work to work. Legalized drugs. Demilitarized police forces. No private prisons, and a dramatic reduction in the prison population. No debt college. Heavily regulated and heavily enforced capitalism. Somehow prohibit sociopaths and psychopaths from politics. Maybe that really means getting money out of the political system. And a bunch of other stuff.

I'll support anyone who is actually willing to go for at least a few of those. Let's give her a chance, and see how she actually votes before complaining too much.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

@apenultimate

A country with universal health care. With a universal income. Closing military bases overseas. With three-quarters of the military budget spent on converting this country to a renewable energy base, with a countrywide smart grid, a universal water supply plan for the next century, and plans for moving people over the next decades away from the coastlines in an orderly way that puts everyone out of work to work. Legalized drugs. Demilitarized police forces. No private prisons, and a dramatic reduction in the prison population. No debt college. Heavily regulated and heavily enforced capitalism. Somehow prohibit sociopaths and psychopaths from politics. Maybe that really means getting money out of the political system. And a bunch of other stuff.

I'll support anyone who is actually willing to go for at least a few of those. Let's give her a chance, and see how she actually votes before complaining too much.

And as I've pointed out countless, FDR only let the New Deal pass because he was facing huge pressure from the labor movement, the very thing both parties have since destroyed with the help of the supreme court.

It also helped that the bourgeoisie had the Soviets on their asses. If FDR were a real leader, then he would have executed the very pigs who tried to have him assassinate just for something so modest as the New Deal. Even if you manage to heavily regulate capitalism, the pigs will be right back in control and we'll be right back here. Again. Either we break this cycle, or we die.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

@apenultimate You got MY vote!
Fuck Me! Can I use that if I run? THAT'S My platform for a True Left candidate!
If I run, can I hire you to write speeches like that?
Wow.

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

Mark from Queens's picture

Dem Adios: How Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Shellacked the Party of Neoliberalism
By Jack Perry on June 27, 2018

The expression of an electoral socialist revolution is just another part of the unrest and impatience of the part of the people with a transparently dysfunctional Duopoly government.

Both of these political parties are the ruling factions of a tyrannical regime. Their argument is not over the tyranny and injustice of it, their argument is a squabble over who gets to control it. It’s a power struggle. But when someone gets elected who isn’t one of them, they’re terrified because the elections are still the Achilles heel of the regime. The elections are rigged, make no mistake. But they can’t rig all of them. They don’t have the resources. Obviously, they dumped a ton of cash into Crowley, but the usual avalanche of cash failed this time. And it can fail again.

The other thing is, they’re also terrified about public anger manifested in things like being confronted in public and denied seats at restaurants. Both political parties are coming out and condemning this because they know it can eventually lead up to civil unrest if they do get caught rigging an election in favor of the retread. Fear of the people, at this point, is the only thing that will change this system. Everything else has failed. Both political parties have failed, but especially the Democrats. The so-called “checks and balances” have failed with all three branches of government corrupt and compromised. The Supreme Court justifying the Trump ban on certain Muslims entering the country demonstrated the Supreme Court is merely a kangaroo court rubber stamping the decrees of the de facto king.

These politicians are not some type of nobility to be immunized against public rebuke. No. When you create “free speech zones” or send in riot police to quell protests, you just denied people the Constitutional right to petition government for a redress of grievances. When you arrest and jail clergy praying in front of the Supreme Court, you denied freedom of speech and religion. When you punish athletes for taking a knee to protest police brutality, you said they’re not allowed peaceful dissent. So why then are you surprised people have to use confrontation to make their voices heard? You refused to hear their voices in the method the Bill of Rights allegedly protected because you quashed that peaceful dissent. So people decided to take it to the streets. Let me put it this way: If we’re not allowed in your little world, then you are not welcome in our bigger world. Stay behind your gated little bastions and fortresses with your concrete barricades and heavily armed guards. Eat your meals there in your fuehrerbunkers...

Here’s the thing. These public confrontations aren’t civil unrest. Yet. But that’s the direction we’re headed. So you better head the warning signs and start making the changes people want and answering the true needs of the people. Wall Street and the rich have enough money. The military has enough weapons. Now it’s our turn. So you better hop to it and get busy. We’re tired of waiting. This “kicking the can down the road” has gone on for decades now. People are done waiting. You think it can’t happen here? Yeah, well, hold a séance and ask the Shah of Iran how that worked out for him in 1979. Again, you better wake up to the warning signs that people are angry enough to risk arrest to confront politicians publicly. That means people are desperate.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@Mark from Queens I got tears and I'm having trouble catching my breath after reading that.
I want to post it Everywhere.

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

and doesn't want the government to take over the means of production. Give me a break.
OTOH I don't like her silence on endless war & her promise to support whoever the Dims run for POTUS in 2020. Time will tell I guess.

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chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

The Aspie Corner's picture

@chuckutzman Think I'm lying? Watch how quickly she tries to appease the fuckers before the general election. She'll be sucking their dicks in no time at all.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Big Al's picture

@chuckutzman Pisses you off does it? Some of us are not democrats, you do realize that?

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@Big Al mark from queens linked to spells it out, I think. The Achilles heel IS the election Itself. The only weak link, chink in the armor-shit man! YOU know. If you can slip a blade in. . .you can twist it.
And I think we gotta do it. Everywhere. We got no justice.
They get No Peace. If they can't go out without harassment, they're in Prison of their own making.
Do we have the Balls? As a people?
As they said in X-Files-I want to Believe.

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march