Socialist beats top-ranking Democrat

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Robert

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This story raised a smile:
Democrats see major upset as socialist beats top-ranking US congressman


Joe Crowley, 10-term Democrat expected to be party’s next House leader, loses to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, in New York

Joe Crowley, a 10-term Democrat pegged as his party’s next leader in Congress, lost his party’s New York congressional primary to a 28-year-old socialist, in a result likely to send shockwaves through the party.

With 98% reporting, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had 57.5% and Crowley had 42.5%, in a majority minority district that included parts of Queens and the Bronx.

Ocasio-Cortez, a Puerto-Rican American and former Bernie Sanders volunteer, defeated Crowley in his re-election bid Tuesday night, after hitting the incumbent on his ties to Wall Street and accusing him of being out of touch with his increasingly diverse district.

Crowley, head of the Queens county Democratic party and the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, was considered to be Nancy Pelosi’s likely successor as House speaker if she stepped down.
 
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if you want a history about this, here's a video (which I hope can play in all countries)

 
what's exciting about this is it effectively kicked out a corporate politician (Crowley) and invigorated the voters using the same techniques Bernie has been using.
 
cecilia said:
what's exciting about this is it effectively kicked out a corporate politician (Crowley) and invigorated the voters using the same techniques Bernie has been using.
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Can't say I see anything wrong with kicking all the corporate bootlickers out of a supposedly more middle-on-down class leaning party.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Can't say I see anything wrong with kicking all the corporate bootlickers out of a supposedly more middle-on-down class leaning party.
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I'd be very happy to see ALL corporate politicians gone for good.
in this case, this directly affects a member of my family and a friend or two.
 
Fact Check: ‘Girl from the Bronx’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Grew Up in One of Richest U.S. Counties

She similarly told the Washington Post: “I wasn’t born to a wealthy or powerful family — mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx. I was born in a place where your Zip code determines your destiny.”

The congressional candidate, who pulled off an upset win against high-ranking establishment Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY), was indeed born in New York City’s Bronx borough. She currently lives there, too.

So what’s the issue? Ocasio-Cortez omits that for most of her formative years, she was actually raised in one of the United States’ wealthiest counties.

Around the age of five, Alexandria’s architect father Sergio Ocasio moved the family from the “planned community” of Parkchester in the Bronx to a home in Yorktown Heights, a wealthy suburb in Westchester County. The New York Times describes her childhood home as “a modest two-bedroom house on a quiet street.” In a 1999 profile of the area, when Ocasio-Cortez would have been ten years old, the Times lauded Yorktown Heights’ “diversity of housing in a scenic setting” – complete with two golf courses.

The paper quoted Linda Cooper, the town supervisor, describing Yorktown as ”a folksy area where people can come, kick off their shoes, wander around, sit in a cafe, listen to a concert in the park, or go to the theater.”

In a fun coincidence, Yorktown, which contains Yorktown Heights, is also home to a 436-acre state park named after – yes, one Donald J. Trump.

After high school, Ocasio-Cortez studied international relations and economics at Boston University and worked for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). Only after college did Ocasio-Cortez return to the Parkchester complex, where she launched Brook Avenue Press, a publishing group aimed at improving the public image of the Bronx.

Westchester County – which the Washington Post, in a glowing profile on Ocasio-Cortez, describes as only “middle class” – ranks #8 in the nation for the counties with the “highest average incomes among the wealthiest one percent of residents.” According to the Economic Policy Institute, the county’s average annual income of the top one percent is a staggering $4,326,049.

Yorktown Heights, specifically, offers a sharp contrast from Bronx living. According to USA.com, the town’s population is 81 percent white, and median household income is $96,413 – nearly double the average for both New York state and the nation, according to data from 2010-2014.
 
Left wing NY Times is not happy. This op ed writer makes some sense.

Democratic Socialism Is Dem Doom

Today’s social democracy falls apart on the contradiction between advocating nearly unlimited government largess and nearly unlimited immigration. “Abolish ICE” is a proper rallying cry for hard-core libertarians and Davos globalists, not democratic socialists or social democrats. A federal job guarantee is an intriguing idea — assuming the jobs are for some defined “us” that doesn’t include every immigrant, asylum-seeker or undocumented worker.

Trump gets this, as does the far right in Europe, which is why they attract such powerful working-class support. Want to preserve the welfare state? Build a wall — or, in Europe’s case, reinstate border controls. Want more immigrants and amnesty? Lower the minimum wage and abolish the closed shop.

But please choose. It’s one or the other.

It’s possible Democrats will surrender to the illusion that they can have both, puffing the sails of Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow travelers. But a Democratic Party seriously interested in defeating congressional Republicans in the fall and Trump in 2020 isn’t going to win by turning itself into a right-wing caricature of the left, complete with a smug embrace of whatever it conceives to be “socialism.”

If Trump is the new Nixon, the right way to oppose him isn’t to summon the ghost of George McGovern. Try some version of Bill Clinton (minus the grossness) for a change: working-class affect, middle-class politics, upper-class aspirations.

I’ve written elsewhere that a chief danger to democracy is a politics in which the center bends toward the fringe instead of the fringe bending toward the center. It’s the way Trump became president. But the antidote to one extreme isn’t another, and Democrats will only win once they reclaim the vital center of American politics.

The center is Dayton and Denver, not Berkeley and Burlington. The center is Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, not Eugene Debs and Michael Harrington. Democrats who want to win should know this.
 
redrumloa said:
Left wing NY Times is not happy. This op ed writer makes some sense.
Click to expand...

I suppose that just shows the team they are playing for. They are looking for an electable blue that won't mess with the established powers. They want more Hillarys and fewer Bernies. Personally I don't think the state is well served by having two dominating parties that are fundamentally indistinguishable regarding their platforms. It makes most elections meaningless - the way Tommy Douglas talked about the mice arguing about whether to vote for the black cats or the white cats.
If elections are going to mean anything then the people need a clear choice between different ideals. To get certain things discussed in the government at all you need to have parties that want to discuss them and to do that you may have to drag along a bunch of other fringey ideas as well, but you have to break the group think in the houses - and that means you need viewpoint diversity.

Right now I feel that what is called the "center" politically is still hard right and favouring the power class. Most of the population, even those calling themselves conservative, are to the right of what is calling itself the center. By throwing a bunch of far lefties into the party and therefore getting them into the houses (because the majority of voters will vote team even if they don't like or agree with their candidates) then the whole discussion can be dragged to a new, more central balance.
 
Leftist Darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Swiftly Wearing Out Her Welcome Among Democrats

https://twitter.com/x/status/1017404605133553665
https://twitter.com/x/status/1017408249513955328
Ocasio-Cortez is either ignorant of New York election laws — likely, given her general ignorance of many things — or she’s attempting to drive the party further to the left by drawing lines. This has Democrats getting defensive.

From The Hill:

She’s carrying on and she ain’t gonna make friends that way,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.). “Joe conceded, wished her well, said he would support her … so she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”

“She’s not asking my advice,” he added, “[but] I would do it differently, rather than make enemies of people.”​

Pascrell added that there is “no doubt” that Ocasio-Cortez is making enemies of Democrats.

Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings also weighed in on the situation, advising the 28-year-old “democratic socialist” that getting things done within the Democratic party requires forging relationships with senior party members, and that popularity alone will not get goals achieved:

“Meteors fizz out,” Hastings said. “What she will learn in this institution is that it’s glacial to begin with, and therefore no matter how far you rise, that’s just how far you will ultimately get your comeuppance.”

He added: “You come up here and you’re going to be buddy-buddy with all the folks or you’re going to make them do certain things? Ain’t happening, OK?”​
 

crowley is a scum, corporate politician. He's been there for some 10 elections and only wants to keep rolling in the money. He doesn't give a flying {bleep} about the citizens in his district.
 
I seem to have glossed over your post first time around.

FluffyMcDeath said:
Right now I feel that what is called the "center" politically is still hard right and favouring the power class.
Click to expand...

Keep this quote in mind for a second.

FluffyMcDeath said:
Most of the population, even those calling themselves conservative, are to the right of what is calling itself the center.
Click to expand...

How does your first quote reconcile with your second quote? Are you suggesting the working class heavily leans right but support far left Liberal ideology? Sounds like an oxymoron to me. The modern day "power class" are tech companies, which are exclusively hard left leaning.

I counter with the admission that the working class is indeed right of center, but they certainly do not support the elites running the country (power class as you put it). If you are unclear who are the elites, let me provide 5 examples for you.

Exon Mobil market cap - $343.04B
Chevron market cap - $238.16B
Google (parent company main stock ticker) market cap - $854.49B
Amazon market cap - $884.86B
Apple market cap - $1.00T

Which of those would you call left and which right?
 
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