AOC couldn't even figure out why forcing a vote on M4ALL during a pandemic was important or that breaking the RR strike was not pro labor. First let's figure out a strategy on how do we work with the organized working class that is currently led by business union misleaders incapable and unwilling to organize and energize organized labor and a restless public which is leaderless, and looking for a way forward. This is necessary to actually have a working class led popular uprising. Contrast how public opinion polls show there is a high acceptance of labor unions amongst the public but the organized "leaders" do nothing to mobilize or capitalize on this in a time of wholesale crisis and opportunity. They can't do it because their whole approach is insider Democrat lobbying and labor / management harmony which is a dead end for the rank and file and the whole working class. A debate and discussion is needed on how can a conscious left change the current ineffective and losing direction and move it in a class struggle direction inside unions and amongst the unorganized. Our political leaders will arise from the movement not outside of it.
This is exactly the conversations that need to happen and now is the time to begin. AOC must identify more with the blue collar worker... now, how do we get her into those rooms. We need to push her in, past the bureaucrats in our way.
While I agree with the comments about AOC and her relationship to working class voters, it is also imperative to have a left voice in the '28 primaries. Biden's decision not to step down in 2022 prevented us from having that voice in the last election. If not AOC, who then? AOC has shown herself to be an astute politician and has distanced herself from the sectarians in DSA. Being a senator will not give her the governing experience that people speak of. I'm not even sure it will give her a more visible platform. If she wants the governance route she should have run for mayor or governor. No one can predict what the economic and political environment will be in 2028. If it's anything like 2008, the Democrats could run a dead cat and still win in a landslide. But that isn't the real issue. It's whether AOC can articulate a vision that working class voters can understand and support.
I don’t see her as a left voice, but a voice for a humanitarian approach that supports real democracy and Nature, I think it is very important to be careful when using terms like progressive green socialism as they mean something very different to many depending on what story they associate with the term, Her voting record, speeches, and working class background, coupled with her congressional experience may make her our best candidate,
Yes, true. I love AOC but feel she does not connect with working class voters, including white union members. I would hate for her to run for President, lose, and burn out.
Tom please read my post. It is long, but I researched her voting and speeches and found that she is right in line not just with workers but with all citizens, she might be the perfect candidate to unite all subjugated people , which is most all of us now,
AOC's record is wonderful, but her language and jargon signal "college educated" too often. I wish she could figure out how to reframe her presentation.
Uh-huh. More evidence for what I've said in replies to your other posts. We're expressing what we feel, which comes from decades of bitter experience. And you're telling us our feelings are wrong. Not smart. There can be legit arguments about facts, about ideas, about how to best organize, about why a candidate is better. But not about personal feelings; expressions of individual inner truths. Doing that is disrespectful. It's is a claim to know better about what someone feels than that person does. A serious category mistake logically and a poor strategy politically.
I'm with you on AOC needs to prove more about her ability to govern. It would be far better to challenge Chuck Shumer, and then help lead the Senate. I consider running for President in 2028 is a waste of her talents. Not with you on the working class stuff though
Elly are you aware that Dismissing AOC as unqualified ignores the fact that she actually has more federal legislative experience than Barack Obama did when he successfully ran for president. When Obama announced his candidacy, he had served just two years in the U.S. Senate—whereas AOC is now in her eighth year in the U.S. House of Representatives.Furthermore, while Obama was a junior senator who had to rely on traditional party elites and corporate PACs to get noticed, AOC enters the conversation having already spent nearly a decade authoring era-defining policy frameworks, leading powerful congressional committees, and building a multi-million-dollar national fundraising machine entirely independent of establishment brokers. If two years in federal office was enough to qualify Obama to lead the nation, then nearly eight years of high-stakes legislative and committee experience makes AOC undeniably qualified
Not really relevant. Obama's keynote address to the 2004 Dem party convention was terrific, garnering lots of attention. He turned out to be just another neolib comfortable with the neocons, but that's likely why he became the 2008 candidate in the first place. If AOC becomes an insider, there would be no reason to support her. If she doesn't, then the centrist D party elite, their corporate sponsors, and the rigged rules of the national D party will never let her become the party nominee.
Tafi that my point she won’t Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has built a massive, multi-million-dollar campaign fundraising operation powered entirely by small-dollar individual contributions rather than corporate PACs or lobbyists.Fundraising Scale and Small-Dollar NetworkRecord Hauls: She routinely brings in millions, including a record-breaking $9.6 million raised in the first quarter of 2025 alone.Small Donations: Her funding relies on hundreds of thousands of individual grassroots donors, with average contributions typically ranging between $17 and $21.No Corporate PACs: She strictly rejects corporate PAC money, fossil fuel PACs, and special interest lobbyist contributions.Past Scrutiny and ContextConsulting Vendor Controversy: In 2019, conservative watchdogs filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint questioning payments made by progressive PACs (like Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress) to an LLC run by her former chief of staff.Findings: Campaign finance experts and legal counsel noted that the structure used traditional consulting retainer fees to pay staff and organizers, and there was no evidence of illegal self-dealing or a personal million-dollar enrichment scam.
And you're missing my point. Which is that your claimed truth is as yet an unknown. Do you have any idea how long it has been that the Dems, once the party of the working class, have been screwing us over? It's been more than 4 decades. Our skepticism is bone deep. To pile on masses of funding stats is not enough for instant conversion; all hail the reincarnation of FDR!
Plus I notice you skipped right over the second part--"if she doesn't." Which implies you have little experience with the power machinations of Dem party politics. AOC's saintliness is not being questioned; how to get past formidable opponents is.
Besides, you're ignoring the experiences of us here whom you want to recruit. We workers have lived all our lives with people talking down to us, trying to sell us something, treating us like means to their ends. Seldom like anyone worth listening to. I'm telling you flat out that's what you're coming off like.
I admire AOC; I'm an old line Berner, too. So I sincerely hope the campaign takes what Les wrote and what I've just said to heart.
Rafi, wow it seems you have a big chip on your shoulder and a lot of dirt in your ears, because you are still falsely accusing me, and didn't hear anything that i have said, I don’t deserve to be treated this way, I feels like you want to do to me what you accuse me of doing but that i didn’t do. I am fully aware that after 95 and Gingrich fired all congressional experts and after that corporations have written the laws that destroyed the safety put in by FDR. Clinton's NAFTA didn’t help, super packs, citizen's united, congress relying on dark money for campaigns , the revolving door allowing them to retire and work for lobbyists, Yes how government works is broken just like the previous two Gilded ages. I was hoping to be heard, for a little empathy , understating, willingness to try and understand, and work through possible misunderstandings, to have a respectful meaningful dialogue, but it seems your hurt will only let you behave defensively and comtimue to falsely accuse me so I dom't see any real dialogue happening , that is a shame because I am guessing we could learn from each other, If you change your mind and want to approach me respectfully, let me know.
Re-read what I wrote above. I didn't "falsely accuse you," I made clear why I was objecting to how you made the case, not to you personally. Nor to the merits of AOC. You did ignore my point about the D party structures. Apparently I upset you by explaining why we of the working class are skeptical about being told what we should want. But rather than consider that useful advice, you deflected back onto me. To be effective, know your audience. It's a blue collar thing to be blunt.
She needs way more experience. The rallies have been so popular because Trump is so terrible but I have no confidence in her. She has really never been tested and I do not believe she appeals to white working class voters. She should run for Schumer’s seat. I would not vote for her. She is untested. In international affairs she blew it at the one conference she attended in Europe.
Nancy are you sure. Have you considered that she can be a great unifying as she represents many of the catagories that trump has waged war on?
AOC is qualified for the presidency by her seven years of federal legislative experience, powerful committee leadership, and mastery of a multi-million-dollar national grassroots network. She brings an authentic working-class background and an unmatched ability to mobilize young, diverse, and anti-establishment voters—a distinct populist appeal that typical career politicians lack and that is crucial for building a winning coalition in today's polarized political environment.
How AOC Dismantles the Hustle - AOC is the exact structural antithesis of the corrupt oligarch.
Her existing platform—specifically codified in her Green New Deal legislation—is already built on the exact policies the vast majority of Americans are desperately demanding:
- Healing the Earth: Nature Rights and Healthy Food for Healthy Bodies.
The carney oligarchs treat the American ecosystem and the human body as land to be plundered for profit. Corporate monopolies have poisoned our soil, water, and food supply with toxic chemicals, leaving everyday citizens sick while corporate executives cash the checks.
- AOC can cement a winning majority by fighting for the Rights of Nature and a mandate of healthy food for healthy bodies—core tenets she already championed by mandating universal access to organic, toxic-free food and soil health in the Green New Deal.
- The Winning Data: This is a mathematical winner for her. 80% to 90% of American voters demand federal policies that prioritize healthy food production and hold massive agricultural corporations legally and financially accountable for pollution. Furthermore, 72% of Americans cite personal health benefits and nutrient density as their primary daily motivators, completely outranking abstract environmental talk. By linking soil health, tribal land protection, and toxic-free food straight to human health, AOC can transform a "niche environmental issue" into an essential, universal demand for bodily survival.
- Exposing the Economic Bait-and-Switch
- The authoritarian populist message is a classic shell game: convince white workers that their economic enemies are workers of color and immigrants, while quietly passing billionaire tax cuts, handing the keys of government to corporate polluters, and continuing the erasure of Indigenous land rights. As a former bartender, AOC doesn't have to fake working-class roots; she has lived them. Her legislative record mirrors this: she has consistently voted to heavily penalize giant agricultural cartels, break up corporate monopolies, and stop corporate price-gouging on food and medicine.
Because she completely refuses corporate PAC money, she has the unique leverage required to enforce the law equally—from the street to the corporate boardroom .
- Shattering the Patriarchal Control Mechanism.
Authoritarian rule has always relied on control—using fundamentalist narratives to subjugate women, control their bodies, and eliminate generational progress. AOC directly counters the tired, aging white male authoritarian archetype. She represents a fierce, modern, and articulate rejection of patriarchy. By framing reproductive freedom, climate survival, and childcare as non-negotiable human rights, she locks in Gen Z and female voters. This demographic is already highly mobilized, as evidenced by a record-breaking 85 women launching major gubernatorial campaigns to fight federal overreach.
.Uniting the Multi-Ethnic Majority for Decency.
The current administration uses weaponized agencies like ICE to stoke fear and division, relying on the myth that Americans want to be ruled by a dominant strongman who operates completely above the law.
I read your whole spiel and frankly, I see several warning flags. I was a blue collar rank and file union activist for 28 years, trained in the late '60s by people who'd been CIO labor organizers in the 1930s. I also managed local Dem campaigns starting before the party went neolib, dumping the New Deal and abandoning labor. In addition, I'm BIPOC and LGBTQ. I have decades of direct experience, not merely abstract ideas about how things could be if only the people would behave as enlightened elite progressives wish they would. Sure, you could dismiss me as old and thus by definition irrelevant. If you were to do so, then never mind labor history or the wisdom of elders.
You should understand there's a difference in communication styles between the working class and educated college graduates in the same community or political organizations, regardless of race. The working class people value blunt honesty. The educated go for conciliation, smoothing everything out, which looks tepid or phony to the workers.
There's a far leftist theory called vanguard of the working class. Which implies we're too stupid to run our own organizations. Similar for progressives who think they can speak for us. Made more offensive by talking at us instead of with us. Your claim about "convince white workers their enemies are workers of color" is just another implication we're stupid. Read the stats in Les's 2024 Wall Street's War on Workers--white working class men are not queer hating racists, regardless of what educated elites believe. For them, class prejudice is acceptable. You justify this take as about authoritarian populism, a sentiment common among liberal elites and their MSM allies. Read some history on the Farmer-Labor Populist Party; a coalition of folks, including us now called BIPOC, against the Robber Barons. And it won! Jim Hightower explained it best in the 1980s when he was supporting a group of watermelon growers in south TX. "If we'd have been liberals, we'd have retrained them to do something else. As populists, we changed the market structure that was f*cking them over. That's the difference." Using 'populism' as a pejorative is a huge red flag, warning of gross misunderstanding and political clumsiness.
Nor is it a friendly sign to presume to speak for BIPOC or LGBTQ. Nice white progressives are are often bewildered when we in those groups object. Again, we don't need people speaking for us as if we're incapable compared to our articulate betters. Well organized alliances are what win, and those begin with respect.
Rafi, I don’t understand a lot of your assumptions, and I feel falsely accused and misunderstood. I am straight, but I don’t really know what that has to do with anything, I am mixed but mainly I am jus another human being.. That is one of the problems with communication without facial and body expressions and verbal cues, , I am 75 I was a nurse for 41 years, I took care of beautiful men women and children with aids during the AIDS pandemic when we had no real treatments . These people had to not only deal with this terrible disease but had to deal with the discrimination of many in their communities, and abandonment from family and friends . We were the ones who sat with them, heard their fears, pain, joys and held their hands, I was in a union, and worked with all levels of jobs. Blue collar workers are equal in making society run. I found that it had no real bearing on emotional IQ and communication styles, COLEGE does not determine a persons intelligence or interests or love of democracy and humanity, My grandmother never got to finish high school, but taught herself and could work the NY times crossword in ink every Sunday, I am afraid that you have misread, , it is not my claim,… Your claim about "convince white workers their enemies are workers of color" is just another implication we're stupid…. that is pointing out how trump and his ilk think and use that to divide us behave as predators. It is a way con men work. You can see the same behavior in old tent revivals, That preacher uses people's desire to believe , all economic levels, works the room, and separates people from their money - trumps strategy has been to divide and conquer and you have to admit it has worked,. I speak for all subjugated people, As a woman groomed to be a stepford wife, I wont go into the discrimination and physical harm just for being born female in 1951. and my intend was never to hurt you . In your response i hear hurt fear and anger, which is exactly what trump and his maga regime want. What i was writing about and hoping was to expose this strategy and con and unite all subjugated people. because we have the right to just be who we were born to be, and we should all be able to empathize with each other and unite against the predators I am sorry if I caused you any pain. I have experienced AOC as someone who really cares about the quality of all people’s lives and who understands the need to protect this rare and precious planet that supports life.
"...to expose the strategy..." Do you really think we here haven't noticed?! And again you defend the claim the white working class has been fooled. Read Les's book! After the last election, the D party and its professional and managerial class loyalists explained away their failure by saying voters were stupid. I replied to many on prog sites: What is smart about dissing voters you need to win? What is intelligent about never noticing 4 decades of suffering in the Rust Belt and the well documented deaths of despair? Seems elites can't tell MAGA cultists from a desperate working class, nor do they care to.
We here ARE angry--at the years of neglect, at an econ system that treats us as disposable, at being characterized as fools. After reading this latest reply, I can see you aren't among our oppressors. Although you weren't attacking us, I still feel you need to consider the implications of your words. Besides, writing loads of paragraphs is the equivalent of hitting us over the head with a rolled up newspaper. Like we're too dense to understand otherwise. It's too much. Like I'm doing now in response. Want to be effective? Establish your working class credentials like you did above. Write a couple of paragraphs why AOC would be effective for the working class. Done.
I brought up LGBTQ and BIPOC for two reasons. One, as testimony against the fallacies about white working class men. Two, it actually is offensive to presume to speak for other people. Read White Fragility by Robin Diangelo. Three, it's a direct parallel to class prejudice. Which is rife in this country.
PS--I can back up anything I've said not only by decades of experience, but by well researched reference books I own. Which Les and the regulars here can attest to.
Rafi read my words i have never defended that and if you would read with an open mind you would know that, i I don't need to defend myself to a mean person like you. I think you just like to cause pain. Just one more a hole in the world, You don’t care about other people, I experience you as trifling and cruel, and someone to protect myself from Conversation is over,
I was surprised to see Prof Reich not approve of AOC for a presidential candidate so it made me examine my own thoughts, This regime’s aggressive “war on woman” has made me really want a woman candidate, but the war has been on almost everyone and she has a record of defendimg all of us,, These are my thought s as ti why AOC would be a good candidate
Part 1
AOC Can Run For President If She Welds the Unified Majority to America's Deepest Democratic Wounds
The ongoing erasure of Indigenous rights is America’s deepest anti-democratic wound, representing the absolute opposite of the American experiment. To ignore the foundational theft and colonialism that built this country is to completely miss why this modern white monied male dominate, top-down, authoritarian era is so dangerous—it is pulling from the exact same playbook used to dispossess Indigenous peoples to now subjugate the entire citizenry, crossing every line of class, gender, race, ability, credential, and profession.
The heist has expanded. The majority of citizens now realize that the tactics of erasure and dispossession once reserved for the margins are being turned against the entire population.
This is no longer just an assault on isolated groups. The regime’s dismantling of the rule of law and their overt threats to erase First Amendment freedoms have placed the nation's intellectual, cultural, creative, and blue-collar core under the exact same systemic subjugation. Today, everyday working people, creators, and college-educated professionals—truck drivers and doctors, electricians and lawyers, plumbers and engineers, barbers and professors, beauticians and scientists, retail clerks and journalists, nurses and K-12 educators, sanitation workers and tech workers, construction crews and artists, writers and late-night comedians—are facing the same institutional muzzle. The regime's aggressive campaign to execute a total crackdown on free speech, their fascist drive to force Stephen Colbert off the air, and their direct threats to destroy Jimmy Fallon for mocking them have made millions of people completely furious.
Whether you punch a clock, drive a rig, report the news, write a joke, teach a classroom, or hold a doctorate, this top-down structure views your intellect, your labor, your rights, and your livelihood the same way: as assets to be seized and suckers to be fleeced.
This political era is the direct continuation of America's oldest, ugliest tradition. The current authoritarianism is not an anomaly; it is the descendant of a line that runs through colonialism, the violent erasure of Indigenous rights, slavery, coverture, and the weaponized "othering" used to fracture humanity. Today, the Trump regime is actively reviving the exact same historical playbook that once saw doctors advising parents to execute the forced institutionalization of children born with autism, Down syndrome, and other disabilities—hiding them away from society as if they were defects rather than human beings.
Right now, this administration is aggressively trying to make the very normal ways people, just like all other mammals, are born illegal by criminalizing LGBTQAI+ existence, stripping away disability protections, and forcing the most vulnerable back into isolation. The only difference today is that the modern veil has been entirely ripped away. People have pulled back the curtain and realized the man behind the microphone is no great and powerful Oz. He is just a carney con man running a well-worn American hustle.
The public is seeing through the scam. They are furious at being treated not as honest, intelligent people, but as a flock to be sheared—a bunch of suckers who were eager to be hustled. Donald Trump built his entire empire on a dark, cynical insight he realized from watching his father: The Innate Desire to be Conned. He understood that the opportunity to strip people of their wealth, their land, and their rights relies entirely on a group's own "eagerness to be hustled." He bragged openly about the absolute power he held over his marks, famously declaring that he could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and not lose any voters. His predatory exploitation extended to his open contempt for bodily autonomy, boasting that because of his status, he could "grab them by the pussy" and "they let you do it." He counted on the fact that his targets wanted to believe the illusion, making them incredibly easy marks. There is a calculating, predatory "genius and utility" in how effortlessly he commands a room to separate good people from their hard-earned cash, their health, and their democracy without ever needing direct physical pressure.
But the hustle has run its course. With national approval ratings collapsed to historic lows between 30% and 33%, a massive public awakening is underway [yougov.com,] The majority of Americans—spanning every educational, economic, and professional tier—are exhausted by a weaponized corporate and religious framework designed to subjugate women, exploit intellect, deny science, deny economic reality, and strip away the rights of men and women to be equal and fully human. This widespread rejection of authoritarian male - dominant top down rule creates a historic, wide-open entry point for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) to capture this energy—if she can directly connect today's wholesale exploitation to the historic, unhealed wounds of American colonialism.
AOC flips the script on authoritarian "strength" by showing that true strength belongs to a unified, multi-ethnic public. For Indigenous, Black, Brown, Asian, and LGBTQAI+ communities—as well as men who refuse to see themselves and their families subjugated—AOC offers a platform where the law is applied equally to everyone, from the street to the corporate boardroom.
- Protecting the Vulnerable and Defending Human Variation.
AOC’s platform is built to permanently destroy this weaponized "othering." Her legislative record proves she stands as an unyielding barrier for those the regime tries to isolate. She has fought to permanently protect the LGBTQAI+ community by primary co-sponsoring the Equality Act to ban all forms of discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Furthermore, she has aggressively championed disability justice, co-sponsoring legislation to end the corporate sub-minimum wage loopholes that exploit disabled workers, while heavily funding independent home- and community-based care to ensure that no child or adult born with autism, Down syndrome, or any disability is ever forced into isolated institutionalization.
- The End of the Carneytocracy: Why Her Appeal is Different.
To win the presidency, AOC must reject the old, compromised political playbook. When Barack Obama ran on being a "president for all," his unity was based on elite corporate reconciliation—trying to bring Wall Street, tech CEOs, and working-class people to the same table to find a polite compromise. In this era of raw, male dominant, top-down authoritarianism, that model is dead. AOC’s promise to stand up for all means something entirely different: it is an alliance for shared survival.
Her leverage is her explicit legislative record of fighting the exact corporate parasites that are hollowing out the country. She can win by bringing the victims of the oligarchic hustle into a single, defensive front:
- The Small Businesses and Tech Workers: She has consistently voted and spoken out against tech cartels like Amazon that track what independent operators sell, copy their products under a corporate house-brand, deliberately undercharge to run small businesses out of town, and then jack up prices once they own the market.
- The Squeezed Family Farmers: Her Green New Deal explicitly fights to reverse the corporate consolidation that has wiped out over 500,000 American farms since the 1980s, shifting federal funding away from chemical monopolies and back to independent family operators. Example, Amazon’s complete restructuring of Whole Foods replaces its foundational ethos of supporting localized food systems with machinelike corporate centralization. By systematically removing local suppliers in favor of mass-produced private labels, this shift acts as a cruel betrayal to independent farmers and directly compromises public health by narrowing access to healthy local food for healthy bodies,
- The Creative Frontline:
She stands as a barrier for the artists, writers, creators, and late-night comedians whose satire is actively targeted by top-down censorship because authoritarians are terrified of being mocked.
- The Long-Term Public Service Core:
She champions the dedicated civil servants and public workers who are being systematically muzzled and replaced by corporate privatization.
When 66% of the country actively disapproves of the authoritarian status quo, they are signaling that they are completely done with the con . A presidential run by AOC takes the tools of the carney—the microphones, the massive crowds, the digital spotlight—and uses them to tell the un-sanatized truth. By building a campaign funded entirely by small-dollar grassroots donations, she proves she doesn't answer to the billionaire class. She shows the welder, the doctor, the family farmer, the scientist, and the comedian that their enemy is the exact same top-down boot. By anchoring her campaign in a promise to heal America's deepest democratic wounds, protect our freedoms and the rule of law, and protect the collective health of its people and its land, an awakened, united majority will take their country back.
AOC couldn't even figure out why forcing a vote on M4ALL during a pandemic was important or that breaking the RR strike was not pro labor. First let's figure out a strategy on how do we work with the organized working class that is currently led by business union misleaders incapable and unwilling to organize and energize organized labor and a restless public which is leaderless, and looking for a way forward. This is necessary to actually have a working class led popular uprising. Contrast how public opinion polls show there is a high acceptance of labor unions amongst the public but the organized "leaders" do nothing to mobilize or capitalize on this in a time of wholesale crisis and opportunity. They can't do it because their whole approach is insider Democrat lobbying and labor / management harmony which is a dead end for the rank and file and the whole working class. A debate and discussion is needed on how can a conscious left change the current ineffective and losing direction and move it in a class struggle direction inside unions and amongst the unorganized. Our political leaders will arise from the movement not outside of it.
This is exactly the conversations that need to happen and now is the time to begin. AOC must identify more with the blue collar worker... now, how do we get her into those rooms. We need to push her in, past the bureaucrats in our way.
While I agree with the comments about AOC and her relationship to working class voters, it is also imperative to have a left voice in the '28 primaries. Biden's decision not to step down in 2022 prevented us from having that voice in the last election. If not AOC, who then? AOC has shown herself to be an astute politician and has distanced herself from the sectarians in DSA. Being a senator will not give her the governing experience that people speak of. I'm not even sure it will give her a more visible platform. If she wants the governance route she should have run for mayor or governor. No one can predict what the economic and political environment will be in 2028. If it's anything like 2008, the Democrats could run a dead cat and still win in a landslide. But that isn't the real issue. It's whether AOC can articulate a vision that working class voters can understand and support.
I don’t see her as a left voice, but a voice for a humanitarian approach that supports real democracy and Nature, I think it is very important to be careful when using terms like progressive green socialism as they mean something very different to many depending on what story they associate with the term, Her voting record, speeches, and working class background, coupled with her congressional experience may make her our best candidate,
Yes, true. I love AOC but feel she does not connect with working class voters, including white union members. I would hate for her to run for President, lose, and burn out.
Tom please read my post. It is long, but I researched her voting and speeches and found that she is right in line not just with workers but with all citizens, she might be the perfect candidate to unite all subjugated people , which is most all of us now,
AOC's record is wonderful, but her language and jargon signal "college educated" too often. I wish she could figure out how to reframe her presentation.
Uh-huh. More evidence for what I've said in replies to your other posts. We're expressing what we feel, which comes from decades of bitter experience. And you're telling us our feelings are wrong. Not smart. There can be legit arguments about facts, about ideas, about how to best organize, about why a candidate is better. But not about personal feelings; expressions of individual inner truths. Doing that is disrespectful. It's is a claim to know better about what someone feels than that person does. A serious category mistake logically and a poor strategy politically.
I'm with you on AOC needs to prove more about her ability to govern. It would be far better to challenge Chuck Shumer, and then help lead the Senate. I consider running for President in 2028 is a waste of her talents. Not with you on the working class stuff though
Elly are you aware that Dismissing AOC as unqualified ignores the fact that she actually has more federal legislative experience than Barack Obama did when he successfully ran for president. When Obama announced his candidacy, he had served just two years in the U.S. Senate—whereas AOC is now in her eighth year in the U.S. House of Representatives.Furthermore, while Obama was a junior senator who had to rely on traditional party elites and corporate PACs to get noticed, AOC enters the conversation having already spent nearly a decade authoring era-defining policy frameworks, leading powerful congressional committees, and building a multi-million-dollar national fundraising machine entirely independent of establishment brokers. If two years in federal office was enough to qualify Obama to lead the nation, then nearly eight years of high-stakes legislative and committee experience makes AOC undeniably qualified
Not really relevant. Obama's keynote address to the 2004 Dem party convention was terrific, garnering lots of attention. He turned out to be just another neolib comfortable with the neocons, but that's likely why he became the 2008 candidate in the first place. If AOC becomes an insider, there would be no reason to support her. If she doesn't, then the centrist D party elite, their corporate sponsors, and the rigged rules of the national D party will never let her become the party nominee.
Tafi that my point she won’t Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has built a massive, multi-million-dollar campaign fundraising operation powered entirely by small-dollar individual contributions rather than corporate PACs or lobbyists.Fundraising Scale and Small-Dollar NetworkRecord Hauls: She routinely brings in millions, including a record-breaking $9.6 million raised in the first quarter of 2025 alone.Small Donations: Her funding relies on hundreds of thousands of individual grassroots donors, with average contributions typically ranging between $17 and $21.No Corporate PACs: She strictly rejects corporate PAC money, fossil fuel PACs, and special interest lobbyist contributions.Past Scrutiny and ContextConsulting Vendor Controversy: In 2019, conservative watchdogs filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint questioning payments made by progressive PACs (like Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress) to an LLC run by her former chief of staff.Findings: Campaign finance experts and legal counsel noted that the structure used traditional consulting retainer fees to pay staff and organizers, and there was no evidence of illegal self-dealing or a personal million-dollar enrichment scam.
And you're missing my point. Which is that your claimed truth is as yet an unknown. Do you have any idea how long it has been that the Dems, once the party of the working class, have been screwing us over? It's been more than 4 decades. Our skepticism is bone deep. To pile on masses of funding stats is not enough for instant conversion; all hail the reincarnation of FDR!
Plus I notice you skipped right over the second part--"if she doesn't." Which implies you have little experience with the power machinations of Dem party politics. AOC's saintliness is not being questioned; how to get past formidable opponents is.
Besides, you're ignoring the experiences of us here whom you want to recruit. We workers have lived all our lives with people talking down to us, trying to sell us something, treating us like means to their ends. Seldom like anyone worth listening to. I'm telling you flat out that's what you're coming off like.
I admire AOC; I'm an old line Berner, too. So I sincerely hope the campaign takes what Les wrote and what I've just said to heart.
Rafi, wow it seems you have a big chip on your shoulder and a lot of dirt in your ears, because you are still falsely accusing me, and didn't hear anything that i have said, I don’t deserve to be treated this way, I feels like you want to do to me what you accuse me of doing but that i didn’t do. I am fully aware that after 95 and Gingrich fired all congressional experts and after that corporations have written the laws that destroyed the safety put in by FDR. Clinton's NAFTA didn’t help, super packs, citizen's united, congress relying on dark money for campaigns , the revolving door allowing them to retire and work for lobbyists, Yes how government works is broken just like the previous two Gilded ages. I was hoping to be heard, for a little empathy , understating, willingness to try and understand, and work through possible misunderstandings, to have a respectful meaningful dialogue, but it seems your hurt will only let you behave defensively and comtimue to falsely accuse me so I dom't see any real dialogue happening , that is a shame because I am guessing we could learn from each other, If you change your mind and want to approach me respectfully, let me know.
Re-read what I wrote above. I didn't "falsely accuse you," I made clear why I was objecting to how you made the case, not to you personally. Nor to the merits of AOC. You did ignore my point about the D party structures. Apparently I upset you by explaining why we of the working class are skeptical about being told what we should want. But rather than consider that useful advice, you deflected back onto me. To be effective, know your audience. It's a blue collar thing to be blunt.
O goodie. Another sheepdog with star power.
The time for a mild-mannered, rule-following, norms-abiding work within the system type focused on glitz and image is long past.
What is needed is a Huey P. Long.
She needs way more experience. The rallies have been so popular because Trump is so terrible but I have no confidence in her. She has really never been tested and I do not believe she appeals to white working class voters. She should run for Schumer’s seat. I would not vote for her. She is untested. In international affairs she blew it at the one conference she attended in Europe.
Nancy are you sure. Have you considered that she can be a great unifying as she represents many of the catagories that trump has waged war on?
AOC is qualified for the presidency by her seven years of federal legislative experience, powerful committee leadership, and mastery of a multi-million-dollar national grassroots network. She brings an authentic working-class background and an unmatched ability to mobilize young, diverse, and anti-establishment voters—a distinct populist appeal that typical career politicians lack and that is crucial for building a winning coalition in today's polarized political environment.
Part 2
How AOC Dismantles the Hustle - AOC is the exact structural antithesis of the corrupt oligarch.
Her existing platform—specifically codified in her Green New Deal legislation—is already built on the exact policies the vast majority of Americans are desperately demanding:
- Healing the Earth: Nature Rights and Healthy Food for Healthy Bodies.
The carney oligarchs treat the American ecosystem and the human body as land to be plundered for profit. Corporate monopolies have poisoned our soil, water, and food supply with toxic chemicals, leaving everyday citizens sick while corporate executives cash the checks.
- AOC can cement a winning majority by fighting for the Rights of Nature and a mandate of healthy food for healthy bodies—core tenets she already championed by mandating universal access to organic, toxic-free food and soil health in the Green New Deal.
- The Winning Data: This is a mathematical winner for her. 80% to 90% of American voters demand federal policies that prioritize healthy food production and hold massive agricultural corporations legally and financially accountable for pollution. Furthermore, 72% of Americans cite personal health benefits and nutrient density as their primary daily motivators, completely outranking abstract environmental talk. By linking soil health, tribal land protection, and toxic-free food straight to human health, AOC can transform a "niche environmental issue" into an essential, universal demand for bodily survival.
- Exposing the Economic Bait-and-Switch
- The authoritarian populist message is a classic shell game: convince white workers that their economic enemies are workers of color and immigrants, while quietly passing billionaire tax cuts, handing the keys of government to corporate polluters, and continuing the erasure of Indigenous land rights. As a former bartender, AOC doesn't have to fake working-class roots; she has lived them. Her legislative record mirrors this: she has consistently voted to heavily penalize giant agricultural cartels, break up corporate monopolies, and stop corporate price-gouging on food and medicine.
Because she completely refuses corporate PAC money, she has the unique leverage required to enforce the law equally—from the street to the corporate boardroom .
- Shattering the Patriarchal Control Mechanism.
Authoritarian rule has always relied on control—using fundamentalist narratives to subjugate women, control their bodies, and eliminate generational progress. AOC directly counters the tired, aging white male authoritarian archetype. She represents a fierce, modern, and articulate rejection of patriarchy. By framing reproductive freedom, climate survival, and childcare as non-negotiable human rights, she locks in Gen Z and female voters. This demographic is already highly mobilized, as evidenced by a record-breaking 85 women launching major gubernatorial campaigns to fight federal overreach.
.Uniting the Multi-Ethnic Majority for Decency.
The current administration uses weaponized agencies like ICE to stoke fear and division, relying on the myth that Americans want to be ruled by a dominant strongman who operates completely above the law.
I read your whole spiel and frankly, I see several warning flags. I was a blue collar rank and file union activist for 28 years, trained in the late '60s by people who'd been CIO labor organizers in the 1930s. I also managed local Dem campaigns starting before the party went neolib, dumping the New Deal and abandoning labor. In addition, I'm BIPOC and LGBTQ. I have decades of direct experience, not merely abstract ideas about how things could be if only the people would behave as enlightened elite progressives wish they would. Sure, you could dismiss me as old and thus by definition irrelevant. If you were to do so, then never mind labor history or the wisdom of elders.
You should understand there's a difference in communication styles between the working class and educated college graduates in the same community or political organizations, regardless of race. The working class people value blunt honesty. The educated go for conciliation, smoothing everything out, which looks tepid or phony to the workers.
There's a far leftist theory called vanguard of the working class. Which implies we're too stupid to run our own organizations. Similar for progressives who think they can speak for us. Made more offensive by talking at us instead of with us. Your claim about "convince white workers their enemies are workers of color" is just another implication we're stupid. Read the stats in Les's 2024 Wall Street's War on Workers--white working class men are not queer hating racists, regardless of what educated elites believe. For them, class prejudice is acceptable. You justify this take as about authoritarian populism, a sentiment common among liberal elites and their MSM allies. Read some history on the Farmer-Labor Populist Party; a coalition of folks, including us now called BIPOC, against the Robber Barons. And it won! Jim Hightower explained it best in the 1980s when he was supporting a group of watermelon growers in south TX. "If we'd have been liberals, we'd have retrained them to do something else. As populists, we changed the market structure that was f*cking them over. That's the difference." Using 'populism' as a pejorative is a huge red flag, warning of gross misunderstanding and political clumsiness.
Nor is it a friendly sign to presume to speak for BIPOC or LGBTQ. Nice white progressives are are often bewildered when we in those groups object. Again, we don't need people speaking for us as if we're incapable compared to our articulate betters. Well organized alliances are what win, and those begin with respect.
Rafi, I don’t understand a lot of your assumptions, and I feel falsely accused and misunderstood. I am straight, but I don’t really know what that has to do with anything, I am mixed but mainly I am jus another human being.. That is one of the problems with communication without facial and body expressions and verbal cues, , I am 75 I was a nurse for 41 years, I took care of beautiful men women and children with aids during the AIDS pandemic when we had no real treatments . These people had to not only deal with this terrible disease but had to deal with the discrimination of many in their communities, and abandonment from family and friends . We were the ones who sat with them, heard their fears, pain, joys and held their hands, I was in a union, and worked with all levels of jobs. Blue collar workers are equal in making society run. I found that it had no real bearing on emotional IQ and communication styles, COLEGE does not determine a persons intelligence or interests or love of democracy and humanity, My grandmother never got to finish high school, but taught herself and could work the NY times crossword in ink every Sunday, I am afraid that you have misread, , it is not my claim,… Your claim about "convince white workers their enemies are workers of color" is just another implication we're stupid…. that is pointing out how trump and his ilk think and use that to divide us behave as predators. It is a way con men work. You can see the same behavior in old tent revivals, That preacher uses people's desire to believe , all economic levels, works the room, and separates people from their money - trumps strategy has been to divide and conquer and you have to admit it has worked,. I speak for all subjugated people, As a woman groomed to be a stepford wife, I wont go into the discrimination and physical harm just for being born female in 1951. and my intend was never to hurt you . In your response i hear hurt fear and anger, which is exactly what trump and his maga regime want. What i was writing about and hoping was to expose this strategy and con and unite all subjugated people. because we have the right to just be who we were born to be, and we should all be able to empathize with each other and unite against the predators I am sorry if I caused you any pain. I have experienced AOC as someone who really cares about the quality of all people’s lives and who understands the need to protect this rare and precious planet that supports life.
"...to expose the strategy..." Do you really think we here haven't noticed?! And again you defend the claim the white working class has been fooled. Read Les's book! After the last election, the D party and its professional and managerial class loyalists explained away their failure by saying voters were stupid. I replied to many on prog sites: What is smart about dissing voters you need to win? What is intelligent about never noticing 4 decades of suffering in the Rust Belt and the well documented deaths of despair? Seems elites can't tell MAGA cultists from a desperate working class, nor do they care to.
We here ARE angry--at the years of neglect, at an econ system that treats us as disposable, at being characterized as fools. After reading this latest reply, I can see you aren't among our oppressors. Although you weren't attacking us, I still feel you need to consider the implications of your words. Besides, writing loads of paragraphs is the equivalent of hitting us over the head with a rolled up newspaper. Like we're too dense to understand otherwise. It's too much. Like I'm doing now in response. Want to be effective? Establish your working class credentials like you did above. Write a couple of paragraphs why AOC would be effective for the working class. Done.
I brought up LGBTQ and BIPOC for two reasons. One, as testimony against the fallacies about white working class men. Two, it actually is offensive to presume to speak for other people. Read White Fragility by Robin Diangelo. Three, it's a direct parallel to class prejudice. Which is rife in this country.
PS--I can back up anything I've said not only by decades of experience, but by well researched reference books I own. Which Les and the regulars here can attest to.
Rafi read my words i have never defended that and if you would read with an open mind you would know that, i I don't need to defend myself to a mean person like you. I think you just like to cause pain. Just one more a hole in the world, You don’t care about other people, I experience you as trifling and cruel, and someone to protect myself from Conversation is over,
That's called ad hominem. Shame on you.
I was surprised to see Prof Reich not approve of AOC for a presidential candidate so it made me examine my own thoughts, This regime’s aggressive “war on woman” has made me really want a woman candidate, but the war has been on almost everyone and she has a record of defendimg all of us,, These are my thought s as ti why AOC would be a good candidate
Part 1
AOC Can Run For President If She Welds the Unified Majority to America's Deepest Democratic Wounds
The ongoing erasure of Indigenous rights is America’s deepest anti-democratic wound, representing the absolute opposite of the American experiment. To ignore the foundational theft and colonialism that built this country is to completely miss why this modern white monied male dominate, top-down, authoritarian era is so dangerous—it is pulling from the exact same playbook used to dispossess Indigenous peoples to now subjugate the entire citizenry, crossing every line of class, gender, race, ability, credential, and profession.
The heist has expanded. The majority of citizens now realize that the tactics of erasure and dispossession once reserved for the margins are being turned against the entire population.
This is no longer just an assault on isolated groups. The regime’s dismantling of the rule of law and their overt threats to erase First Amendment freedoms have placed the nation's intellectual, cultural, creative, and blue-collar core under the exact same systemic subjugation. Today, everyday working people, creators, and college-educated professionals—truck drivers and doctors, electricians and lawyers, plumbers and engineers, barbers and professors, beauticians and scientists, retail clerks and journalists, nurses and K-12 educators, sanitation workers and tech workers, construction crews and artists, writers and late-night comedians—are facing the same institutional muzzle. The regime's aggressive campaign to execute a total crackdown on free speech, their fascist drive to force Stephen Colbert off the air, and their direct threats to destroy Jimmy Fallon for mocking them have made millions of people completely furious.
Whether you punch a clock, drive a rig, report the news, write a joke, teach a classroom, or hold a doctorate, this top-down structure views your intellect, your labor, your rights, and your livelihood the same way: as assets to be seized and suckers to be fleeced.
This political era is the direct continuation of America's oldest, ugliest tradition. The current authoritarianism is not an anomaly; it is the descendant of a line that runs through colonialism, the violent erasure of Indigenous rights, slavery, coverture, and the weaponized "othering" used to fracture humanity. Today, the Trump regime is actively reviving the exact same historical playbook that once saw doctors advising parents to execute the forced institutionalization of children born with autism, Down syndrome, and other disabilities—hiding them away from society as if they were defects rather than human beings.
Right now, this administration is aggressively trying to make the very normal ways people, just like all other mammals, are born illegal by criminalizing LGBTQAI+ existence, stripping away disability protections, and forcing the most vulnerable back into isolation. The only difference today is that the modern veil has been entirely ripped away. People have pulled back the curtain and realized the man behind the microphone is no great and powerful Oz. He is just a carney con man running a well-worn American hustle.
The public is seeing through the scam. They are furious at being treated not as honest, intelligent people, but as a flock to be sheared—a bunch of suckers who were eager to be hustled. Donald Trump built his entire empire on a dark, cynical insight he realized from watching his father: The Innate Desire to be Conned. He understood that the opportunity to strip people of their wealth, their land, and their rights relies entirely on a group's own "eagerness to be hustled." He bragged openly about the absolute power he held over his marks, famously declaring that he could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and not lose any voters. His predatory exploitation extended to his open contempt for bodily autonomy, boasting that because of his status, he could "grab them by the pussy" and "they let you do it." He counted on the fact that his targets wanted to believe the illusion, making them incredibly easy marks. There is a calculating, predatory "genius and utility" in how effortlessly he commands a room to separate good people from their hard-earned cash, their health, and their democracy without ever needing direct physical pressure.
But the hustle has run its course. With national approval ratings collapsed to historic lows between 30% and 33%, a massive public awakening is underway [yougov.com,] The majority of Americans—spanning every educational, economic, and professional tier—are exhausted by a weaponized corporate and religious framework designed to subjugate women, exploit intellect, deny science, deny economic reality, and strip away the rights of men and women to be equal and fully human. This widespread rejection of authoritarian male - dominant top down rule creates a historic, wide-open entry point for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) to capture this energy—if she can directly connect today's wholesale exploitation to the historic, unhealed wounds of American colonialism.
AOC flips the script on authoritarian "strength" by showing that true strength belongs to a unified, multi-ethnic public. For Indigenous, Black, Brown, Asian, and LGBTQAI+ communities—as well as men who refuse to see themselves and their families subjugated—AOC offers a platform where the law is applied equally to everyone, from the street to the corporate boardroom.
- Protecting the Vulnerable and Defending Human Variation.
AOC’s platform is built to permanently destroy this weaponized "othering." Her legislative record proves she stands as an unyielding barrier for those the regime tries to isolate. She has fought to permanently protect the LGBTQAI+ community by primary co-sponsoring the Equality Act to ban all forms of discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Furthermore, she has aggressively championed disability justice, co-sponsoring legislation to end the corporate sub-minimum wage loopholes that exploit disabled workers, while heavily funding independent home- and community-based care to ensure that no child or adult born with autism, Down syndrome, or any disability is ever forced into isolated institutionalization.
- The End of the Carneytocracy: Why Her Appeal is Different.
To win the presidency, AOC must reject the old, compromised political playbook. When Barack Obama ran on being a "president for all," his unity was based on elite corporate reconciliation—trying to bring Wall Street, tech CEOs, and working-class people to the same table to find a polite compromise. In this era of raw, male dominant, top-down authoritarianism, that model is dead. AOC’s promise to stand up for all means something entirely different: it is an alliance for shared survival.
Her leverage is her explicit legislative record of fighting the exact corporate parasites that are hollowing out the country. She can win by bringing the victims of the oligarchic hustle into a single, defensive front:
- The Small Businesses and Tech Workers: She has consistently voted and spoken out against tech cartels like Amazon that track what independent operators sell, copy their products under a corporate house-brand, deliberately undercharge to run small businesses out of town, and then jack up prices once they own the market.
- The Squeezed Family Farmers: Her Green New Deal explicitly fights to reverse the corporate consolidation that has wiped out over 500,000 American farms since the 1980s, shifting federal funding away from chemical monopolies and back to independent family operators. Example, Amazon’s complete restructuring of Whole Foods replaces its foundational ethos of supporting localized food systems with machinelike corporate centralization. By systematically removing local suppliers in favor of mass-produced private labels, this shift acts as a cruel betrayal to independent farmers and directly compromises public health by narrowing access to healthy local food for healthy bodies,
- The Creative Frontline:
She stands as a barrier for the artists, writers, creators, and late-night comedians whose satire is actively targeted by top-down censorship because authoritarians are terrified of being mocked.
- The Long-Term Public Service Core:
She champions the dedicated civil servants and public workers who are being systematically muzzled and replaced by corporate privatization.
When 66% of the country actively disapproves of the authoritarian status quo, they are signaling that they are completely done with the con . A presidential run by AOC takes the tools of the carney—the microphones, the massive crowds, the digital spotlight—and uses them to tell the un-sanatized truth. By building a campaign funded entirely by small-dollar grassroots donations, she proves she doesn't answer to the billionaire class. She shows the welder, the doctor, the family farmer, the scientist, and the comedian that their enemy is the exact same top-down boot. By anchoring her campaign in a promise to heal America's deepest democratic wounds, protect our freedoms and the rule of law, and protect the collective health of its people and its land, an awakened, united majority will take their country back.