Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has issued a dire warning to her party about the chaos that could ensue if they succeed in pushing President Joe Biden off the ticket. And she criticized Democrats who’ve given off-the-record quotes that suggest the party has resigned itself to a second Trump term.
In an Instagram Live video on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez warned liberals that a brokered convention could lead to chaos, in part because she says some of the Democratic “elites” who want Biden out also don’t want Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee in his place.
“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP be the nominee,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed none of the people she’s spoken with who are calling on Biden to drop out — including lawmakers and legal experts — have articulated a plan to swap out the nominee without minimizing the serious legal and procedural challenges that are likely to ensue.
Ocasio-Cortez also highlighted the racial, ethnic and class divisions that appear to have formed between the majority of those pining to blow up the ticket — led mostly by white Democrats and media pundits — and those elected officials who feel they and their constituents have too much at stake to upend the process at this point and so are willing to do the work to re-elect Biden-Harris. She alluded to this cultural divide in her video when she spoke out against anonymous sources expressing a sense of fatalism on behalf of Democrats about what might happen if Biden remains on the ticket:
What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose. For me, to a certain extent, I don’t care what name is on there. We are not losing. I don’t know about you, but my community does not have the option to lose. My community does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.
“Trust me, it’ll be super bad (in non-specific ways) to swap out Biden. There are unspecified people pushing to replace Biden for unspecified bad-faith reasons. Just ignore the obvious problems with the candidate, stop saying critical things and get in line. You naysayers don’t want to be responsible for handing Donald Trump the election, do you?”
Super strategy, guys.
(in non-specific ways)
(raises hand)
Who are we replacing him with?
If that doesn’t have an answer then I have one very specific way in which dropping him might make things worse
If the answer is “let the DNC figure it out, they’ve never steered us wrong before with a candidate” then I will have at least one follow up question
The likely answer is Harris, but the actual answer is whoever he endorses. Everyone on both sides of the issue has agreed that forcing him off the ticket won’t work, which is why it’s been a pressure campaign.
In any case, the notion the donors are going to all line up and bring someone we’ve never heard of out of a back room to supplant the obvious choice of the vice president or even a popular governor isn’t realistic.
I agree that in practice, it’ll be Harris. I think then the sensible conversation is whether she’ll have a better chance of winning than Biden will.
To me, the fact that she polls like 2 points ahead of him, while she is as she currently is an unknown quantity without all of the attacks against Biden that have been spun up (he invented inflation, he loves immigrants way too much, he killed Palestine, he betrayed Israel, etc etc pick your poison depending on the target audience involved), is a pretty good argument for rallying around Biden instead of switching to Harris and hoping she’ll keep that 2 points. I think once the same machine that’s been trying to burn Biden down gets spun up for real against her, she’ll crumple up and get crushed worse than Biden currently is. Maybe I am wrong in that.
I can see an argument that Biden may continue to fuck up doing things like he did at the debate, and so we need to switch even if by the calculus right now it’s a losing proposition, because of that risk. That doesn’t seem crazy to me. But it’s telling to me that people are saying “We need to switch to candidate X who can’t be compared against Biden directly”, instead of having the honest conversation about why it should be Harris.
I wish Jon Stewart would attend the convention as a candidate.
The only good argument I can think of for swapping candidates last minute is it will throw the Republican propaganda machine into disarray; they’ll need a good month or so to figure out a narrative against whoever it is. But they’re already gearing up anti-Kamala stuff.
“Trust me, it’ll be super bad to replace Biden without a strategy, and nobody can agree on a strategy”
Much better to stick with the strategy of browbeating anyone who points out Biden is losing and only speaks in complete sentences about half the time.
That’s not a strategy.
I forgot to include “Run out the clock until it really is too late to replace Biden” and “Hope for a miracle in November.”
You’ve already proven that you haven’t read the article, so anything you say at this point can be dismissed.
Okay, I guess if I don’t read so good, someone as smart as you can point out to me the part where AOC articulated the strategy to win while keeping Biden on the ballot.
By calling out how there is no strategy behind the folks asking for him to step down. They have alluded to the fact that they don’t want Harris either. It’s a hard pill to swallow since it doesn’t fit your narrative, but you’re going to have to accept reality.
Pointing out those things isn’t a strategy either.
The strategy this entire time has plainly been for him to voluntarily step aside and endorse a replacement, probably Kamala.
“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP be the nominee,” she said.
Maybe read the fucking article. They’re clearly aiming at having neither Biden nor Kamala as a choice.
We can only hope
I watched her stream, hence the reference to unspecific people for unspecific bad reasons. She vaguely alluded to chaos at the convention, which is highly unlikely if Biden endorses anyone.
Keep digging your head in the sand, then. Ain’t gonna waste my time.
The post you’re responding to says no one is making good suggestions, just saying “give up and come up with a new last minute plan”. Awful advice. Just awful.
No one cares if you critique anyone. It’s not anyone’s job to take bad plans seriously.
Did you read the post?
Did you read it?
What I will say is what upsets me is [Democrats] saying we will lose.
She stated over and over again in the stream that people voicing concerns about Biden’s ability are weakening him, and followed her new recurring habit of failing to rebut any of those concerns.
You’re acting like we’re entering completely unknown waters if we switch candidates. The strategy is simply to get a new candidate, likely the other person already on the ticket, run a campaign and win. The fact that several alternatives are polling neck and neck with the two candidates without even campaigning is a testament to how weak both Biden and Trump are.
That’s just more words, not more substance. You’re doing here exactly what AOC is calling out: giving a vague description of the surface of what you think will happen in a best case scenario with no tactical or even strategic consideration for first mitigating the chaos the basic act will create.
The problem isn’t that you need to come up with the play by play, the problem is that no one has. It’s literally the worst kind of plan: no plan at all.
It’s about the dumbest possible move, really, and it’s telling that the only motivation behind it is that he’s old.
Throw out the incumbent advantage, throw out all current strategies months before the election, hand wave away the candidate slate as objectively better with minimal examination, expose us to huge legal vulnerability against the most litigious party I’ve ever seen, who currently seems to have captured the judicial branch, in the highest stakes election I’ve seen so far, and do it all without any inkling of a play by play to create unity and mitigate doubt or even a hint of an acknowledgment of the problems that the move would cause in the best case scenario?
Awful.
Did you read the post?
They definitely did not.
As opposed to the strategy that’s been spammed here for months:
“Well clearly the Democrats are useless and are going to lose. It’s Weekend at Bernie’s out there except it isn’t even Bernie. The DNC has never done anything for the people and have decided to roll over for Trump. My friends and I are just not going to vote, that’ll give the party a wakeup call.”
Unification is about the only strategy that will win this. I will absolutely vote blue no matter who, but if anyone was serious about replacing Biden they would have had to unify behind another candidate weeks or months ago. “Maybe Newsom” is NOT A STRATEGY.
I was with you until not voting. I have very real concerns about Biden’s ability to even be on the campaign trail. The dude struggles through schedules interviews and appearances in ways that he clearly didn’t used to. It seems to me that they did everything possible to hide his present condition so that there wouldn’t be a real primary, which is a shame, because I think that he’s no longer fit to serve the role of the presidency given present evidence. That said, I would vote for a dead body before I vote for Trump; I’m just frustrated that the democrats are making me.
My friends and I are just not going to vote, that’ll give the party a wakeup call
Then they’ll go all surprised Pikachu that there are no elected officials or candidates pushing their views the next time around.
I’m also absolutely vote blue no matter who. It’s seemed pretty clear to me that the strategy of the people who want Biden to drop out has been pressuring him into doing it voluntarily and endorsing a replacement, likely Harris.
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Keep on, these Ad hominem attacks are surely going to get folks to line up behind you.
This thread is the first I’ve seen where the keep Bideners are in stronger numbers than the ditch Bideners.
It’s refreshing, but, just like the .ml folks, I think y’all need to also look outside your own bubble.
Every single one of these threads, I ask the ditch Bideners for a strategy and have never gotten a single one.
So whatever bubble you think there is, I’m in reality where Biden is the nominee until he isn’t, and the “fuck you I’m taking my ball and going home” crowd are motherfucking fascist apologizers.
The game is on whether or not you take your ball and go home. The lack of a plan or strategy makes it clear that you’re either not serious or panicking.
If you’re not hearing the strategies, then you have done too good of a job at filtering your news.
Wow.
What a strategy.
You know it’s hard to make a strategy if instead of talking about it, someone keeps screeching over it with “Wrong!!! Won’t work! WRONG!!” And keep vilifying anyone thinking what lots of others are as something worse than the actual enemy.
I think panicking is fine and a normal response to situations that require it. If you think yourself above having to make a snap response you might just miss the chance too.
You know it’s hard to make a strategy if instead of talking about it, someone keeps screeching over it with “Wrong!!! Won’t work! WRONG!!”
I mean…maybe stop suggesting things that are wrong and won’t work?
I’m sorry but she says enough here about the machinations of the donor-class that makes me think someone absolutely heinous is being lined up to take Biden’s place
The notion that they’re going to whisk some corporate plant out of a back room that nobody’s ever heard of isn’t realistic. The favorites for a replacement are all no less donor-friendly than Biden has been.
Source: “my ass”
Indeed, even my ass is capable of understanding the donors also don’t want to lose.
The notion that they’re going to whisk some corporate plant out of a back room that nobody’s ever heard of isn’t realistic.
There are corporate plants we have heard of, and I wouldn’t put it past the party to nominate Clinton again. Or Manchin.
I don’t think that’s true. They know they don’t really have to compete in this election, and it shows. It’s the same mindset that was behind HRC16 and the Hillary campaign promoting Trump.
Completely missed the point.
You’ll also lose primary voters. I voted in the primaries, there were multiple candidates, Biden lost the primary in American Samoa. If you throw away my primary vote by swapping in another anointed candidate, why would I ever vote in your primaries again? What is even the point? It’s like the DNC learned nothing from the debacle of them trying to squeeze Bernie out of the race (thank you Wikileaks for revealing their corrupt BS and causing reforms to the primary process). They lost a lot of voters doing that.
I hate the RNC, but if they are the only party that will respect my primary vote, they are the primary I will vote in next election. Dems switching primaries like this may produce a more moderate republican candidate, which is bad news for dems, since they won’t just be able to run on “The RNC is run by crazy christian fascists who want to take all your rights away”.
“Hello, fellow Democrats”
She needs to sit down and shut the fuck up. If Biden stays in, there is 100% certainty that Trump is going to win.
My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.
Im sure she still has some of those crocodile tears she shed at the border for them.
You don’t know that. You are just a blow hard.
Math isnt too hard, and right now the math is not in Biden’s favor
“You see, Joe, the numbers don’t lie. And they spell disaster for you.”
You’re being generous.
I was surprised at the comment until I saw who made it.
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I guess Biden is the ship and the rest of the party is going down with him.
Uhm… Well the news just came in.
AOC for President.
Go back and watch Pelosi’s speeches from the late 70s on C-SPAN. AOC sounds exactly like her, and we’ve seen how out of touch Pelosi and all other politicians are.
So maybe Pelosi shouldn’t be in office for over 50 years then. I’m not throwing away a good thing now because it might spoil later. May as well empty out your fridge while you’re at it with that logic.
That just sounds like Pelosi was straight fire in her prime. Will AOC be stale in 50 years? Maybe, or maybe she ends up a Bernie.
She gonna be a pelosi
Met her briefly at a Sanders campaign rally. Would vote for her in a heartbeat.
see, I have hella respect for Bernie and his heartfelt endorsements (i.e. local, state reps) carry weight. national endorsements are usually more political and harder to guage.
this genuinely creates an internal, personal dilemma.
edit: the deed is done and, I imagine, Bernie is released from any obligations owed for what he got into the biden agenda. will be interesting to watch.
It’d be nice to have a competent candidate for once.
Vast majority of AOC’s support is from the acronym, AOC.
This aged like milk
More like hydrogen-7.
Can you articulate which part you think aged like milk?
Aging like milk implies that she isn’t right about what she said.
Give it until November. If the Biden replacement wins by a landslide, then sure, it will age like milk.
Otherwise, so far, it’s aging like fucking fine wine - and I’m not liking it.
AOC and Bernie are both saying this and I agree 110%. In all occasions. The most important thing is we all make a plan to go out and vote. Talk to other democrats and make sure they fight that demoralization and go out and vote. There is so much at stake with Project 2025 that I dont even care about these headlines anymore.
Agreed. She also pointed out that early voting ballots go out in September. A new campaign would have an eight week runway if it started now.
His health is declining fast and way too many people think he looks too old (both candidates are) and too mentally busted to last 4 more years. Let alone him even staying coherent another 6 months. He is 100% unable to coherently and quickly speak anymore and it’s not going to magically get better. The real issue is that they should have done something about it 4 months ago so a better candidate could have been picked and it could have looked like Bidens choice to no run for a second term.
I still think the best chance is to put in someone else, but it’s pretty much too late for them to get their shit together.
I’m beginning to think the play is for Joe to only last till the election because there’s no fucking way the country is going to learn about and be excited by one single person with the amount of time the completely incompetent DNC has left us with. If Joe decides he’s too banged up on day one, he can leave the office then.
Likely, but the problem is that people don’t want to vote for the guy that may have alzheimers, and Harris isn’t very liked. They needed to do something months ago. Either a different candidate or a shit ton of good PR for Harris.
This whole issue is happening because he decided to try for a second term. That is the origin of this cluster fuck. Because he said he wasn’t going to.
He never said he wasn’t going to. A media outlet reported on rumors he’d only committed to one term and everyone took that as gospel. Turns out he sort of maybe signaled it one interview with Slate as a maybe, he never said he’d only do one term.
Thank you. I’ve been saying this for years now and usually get downvoted for it, which makes me sad – not because I care about downvotes but because so many people seem not to understand that this is 1933 and we need to be all-in against fascism right now.
Biden just stepped down, so it’s even more important that we unite against the threat. I don’t care who’s on the Democrat ticket – whether it’s Kamala or anyone else, even Biden’s bitey dog – this isn’t the time to debate policy. We need to vote and convince everyone who isn’t a fascist to vote against this. If we don’t, they will kill us, and that’s not hyperbole.
Please vote.
No shit. The time for not backing Biden was in the last primary. If the Democrats weren’t so fucking short sighted and power hungry, they would have had a primary all of last year instead of now having to back this geriatric horse against a geriatric, racist, fascist, horse in this race.
That said, I’ll be voting for the geriatric horse because the alternative will end up getting my minority ass killed.
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i’ve decided to turn around. i’m ridin with biden!
Biden just stepped down for elections
Yeah, just saw that on my news feed. While I applaud and massively respect him stepping down, it’s way late for this I’m my opinion, especially with this dragging out.
Democrats put themselves in a no win situation with this and while I’m still going to vote for not the geriatric, racist, fascist, cocaine addled horse, the rest of America probably won’t after Republicans tar the entire Democratic party as incompetent.
She ain’t wrong.
IMO; Biden shouldn’t be forced out.
That way does lead to chaos, and a worse chance in November than with Biden.
Though Biden sucks as a candidate and is very unlikely to win as things now stand.
So, imo, best-case, is Biden choosing to step down. and choosing to stump and campaign full-hog whoever does become president.
I wish our political leaders were rational enough to listen when everyone tells them their wrong and that their putting ego before their responsibilities.
Everyone isn’t saying that about Biden. Monied interests are saying that about Biden.
Biden cannot be forced out. It is Biden’s decision. There is no harm in discussing this topic while we’re waiting for the nomination. Biden has until the virtual convention that is scheduled for the start of August to make a decision. Either option, Biden staying in or dropping out of the race has risks. We need to rally around whoever the candidate ends up being.
I think it makes strategic sense for Harris to takeover and pick Whitmer for her VP. My opinion is a moot point, because I have no say in this. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like Biden is thinking about odds and strategy. He’s thinking about his ego.
Sure he can be forced out.
There’s lots of ways. Like the DNC deciding “nope”.
Even if they don’t go that way, donors pull out, party backstabbing.
Plenty of things to do.
Biden cannot be forced out based on the Democratic Party’s rules as written. The Democratic Party changing the rules to dump Biden would be a historic first. It would be a bashed-slammed-bomb-cyclone-fire-tornado-buzz-word news story that would be the only headline for days, maybe weeks.
Donors are already pulling out. Fundraising is down. Obama signaled Biden should drop out. There will undoubtedly be more in the next two weeks. edit: typo
Based on a court ruling from ‘16, “they’re a private group. They can do what they want.”
Sure, they can do whatever they want. See how doing whatever they want plays with voters though. This would be taking the nuclear option for political parties. If the Democratic Party forced out Biden, angry and/or apathetic Americans would be talking about it for at least the next two election cycles, possibly longer. That’s assuming we win of course and the Republican Party hasn’t killed us all in death camps.
edit: This would be different than Bernie. Biden has won the primary based on the DNC’s rules. edit: typo
Donors have already pulled out saying they want a new candidate. They aren’t stupid enough to throw away their money on a candidate that will 100% lose.
And the Trump campaign hasn’t even started the big spending.
Doners don’t want Biden’s tax hikes, it’s not about electability.
They would have demanded Biden to step down far earlier if this was the case.
And they would never have backed 2020 Biden to begin with.
They waited until they saw weakness.
Well, congrats I guess
If Biden can’t make the case for his cognitive ability to fulfill the requirements of the office internally to his own party, how does he expect to stand up and fight the shit storm that the GOP will escalate in the coming months?
If Biden can’t make the case
Media has already decided the case. It’s a rigged court. Any other Dem candidate will get the same treatment.
I mean, did they really have to try that hard? The man said he was proud to be the first black woman vice president.
When he followed up the debate by calling Zelensky Putin and confusing his own VP with Trump, there’s really nothing else to be said. You can’t make those mistakes. Not in that office. There’s simply no denying those clips.
And Trump has said…damn where do I even begin?
But all the media focuses on is Biden’s gaffes.
So yes, they try REALLY hard.
I’m sure one who isn’t a senior citizen wouldn’t struggle to justify their cognitive ability for the role.
No, they’d likely find some other avenue of bullshit to peddle.
If Biden stays in and loses, AOC doesn’t want centrists to blame the left. They will anyway.
If he stays in and wins, centrists will consider it a mandate to continue moving right from a position that includes Trump’s border policy and genocide.
You’re acting like Centrists don’t want climate change legislation, or didn’t support the Inflation reduction act. Or that they don’t support a wealth tax.
Sinema and Manchin do not represent the full body of Centrists. There are hundreds of them in Congress that supported all of these initiatives.
Sinema and Manchin do not represent the full body of Centrists. There are hundreds of them in Congress that supported all of these initiatives.
If Sinema and Manchin hadn’t stepped up to represent the full body of all centrists to perfection, some other centrists would step up to do so.
I think you’re buying into the Right Wing kool-aid just a little too much.
Obama was able to pass the ACA even with the Centrists. Biden was able to pass the largest green bill in history after concessions were made for Manchin, who particularly didn’t like the stick part of the act, which would have impacted him personally.
Centrists? Ooohhhh, republicans who would “have a beer with Obama”.
Nah, you all vote straight R. Own your bullshit.
Y’all gotta start thinking strategy instead of getting all emotional.
Humans are surprisingly easy to manipulate. If you come across a centrist, that’s a perfect candidate to hit em with communist propaganda and get them thinking critically about how Republican bullshit is bullshit.
The blame and shame strategy doesn’t work cuz it’s just reactionary.
It’s a little more effort dragging the centrists to the left, but we can do it with a bit of kindness and understanding. Unless they prove to be unwaveringly intolerant, in which case blame and shame into oblivion.
(I say this from experience. I have been pushed from right leaning as a teen, to pretty far left from first seeing how shitty Republicans are, and then from kind internet strangers explaining different leftist ideologies to me)
In the USA at least, they are not centrists.
A centrist here is someone who votes Republican but won’t admit to it. They are worse than republicans because they are cowards and won’t own up to voting for the racist fascists.
I wonder how people like you become so far gone. It’s like you must be extreme left or it doesn’t count. I would love to walk a mile in your shoes and see how you got here.
In my 20 years of voting, I’ve voted for a republican precisely twice, one that was the only judge on the ballot and he was recommended by our state union. The other was a local moderate mayor in a sea of further right whackjobs, there was no dem on the ticket.
Keep an open mind, brother, you’ll learn a lot more in life.
See this is your problem, you think anyone who isn’t progressive is a republican. Nice job adding to their tent and limiting yours.
You vote straight R, you are a Republican. What you pander and pretend online doesn’t matter.
anyone who isn’t progressive is a republican
Nope. Just less than adequate.
If they vote dem, they’re adequate.
I’m not super happy with “adequate”, but that’s why we call it “adequate”.
Lemme clarify: There are a whole host of issues we need to keep in mind as we do our little part in the hopes of directing our own country:
- healthcare and education as to one’s requirements
- reproductive rights are healthcare rights, as a body-autonomy issue that doesn’t affect others
- safe food, safe water, safe living, safe working, safe expression, safe discussion
- fixing and improving all infrastructure – power, water, waste, data, commute/travel
- ensuring everyone pays their fair share of taxes, including getting homeless+jobless back on both
- long-term care for those who can’t self-care or work for non-resolving reasons
We have a list of basic minimums, and for me they look like that quick list above, but surely with a few more I’m not thinking of right now.
I will judge the character of governments, governors and people according to the completeness of their support for that list. So there’s a long spectrum of increasing inadequacy between progressive people and republicans, and people who are fail the test are just somewhere on that spectrum.
And that’s okay: everyone gets their opinion. Some people aren’t fit to lead, though, nor to manage our consolidated and shared resources (taxes), and those people need to be retrained for a role where they CAN work effectively.
The Problem Solvers Caucus has 32 Democratic members. And they were notably opposed to keeping Build Back Better intact. They very much do not support a wealth tax and are always shaky on climate change. Centrists are a small problematic sliver of the Democratic caucus.
But… Now hear me out. I’m a mostly lifelong Democrat who is tired of seeing this system get more and more corrupt each cycle. Maybe this capitalist system needs a reboot. I’m losing hope that any candidate the DNC runs is going to fix any of what needs fixing.
It’s almost as if they’ve actually already quietly conceded defeat and are just backfilling the position out of, fuck I don’t know, adherence to decorum? I hope I’m just jaded but I have a bad feeling about it.
