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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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2 hours ago, Mole said:

In summary, the culture of trying to humiliate opponents verbally is making things worse, not better. 

things already are worse, there is no making.  it is made.  we crossed the rubicon on 1/6.

there is no healing when 74m people in this country are certifiably batshit insane and willing to kill for their cause.

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12 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

The Republicans just lost the Presidency and the Senate with places like Georgia and Arizona that were R+10 six years ago going blue.   Republicans are losing the game because they decided to play by those rules.    You’re advocating for a losing strategy because it would feel good to vent on people who disgust you.  

You seem like a good dude but man is this is a naive analysis. As long as I can remember, Republicans have ruthlessly attacked their political opposition with every stereotype possible to characterize Dem politicians as weak, unpatriotic, godless communist hippie lovers. They've waged a forty year culture war against the left and they've done it by dog-whistling to their base with racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, evangelical "Christian" attacks against the evil libs. This is a fundamental way of being for the GOP and this characteristic has only become more vocalized with the rise of the right-wing propaganda machine. This was going on during the Reagan years, it accelerated under the reign of Newt Gingrich, gained more momentum with the neocons behind the Bush administration, and culminated in Trump. Republicans aren't losing because of the tone of their politics--ferffuckssake 74 million people still voted for a charmless, treasonous narcissist wannabe dictator after four years of insane anti-democratic rule-- they're losing because of the absence of humanity and their shameless, brazen disregard for actually governing. They're losing because they have no principles and only exist to exert power in the service of their kleptocracy. I've been a liberal my whole life, I've heard all the insults, I've had the drunken dinner party arguments and Thanksgivings with my rabid right-wing family members. The tone of Democrats vs Republicans is not the issue. I expect Republicans to be nasty as they need to be, it's as reflexively natural to them as a stinger to a scorpion. They didn't get here because of the ugliness of their tactics, they got here because Americans are finally realizing that they only exist to say no. Their only objective is blocking progress and change that *might* just prove to the electorate that good ideas matter more than poisonous cynicism, because cynicism is all they have.

 So spare us the fainting couch about playing footsie with the GOP. The Democrats I support aren't fighting for the end game of spiking a football on Republicans or rubbing their faces in it or settling scores, they're fighting for meaningful policy changes. If they have to run over some Gooper clowns on Twitter to facilitate that goal, I'm all for it. Being super nice so as to not offend the "Fuck Your Feelings" crowd doesn't change anything about the nature of our discourse. It makes no difference, they will still be who they are and not fighting back only fits their end goal of blocking change. I'm disappointed that you can't see that. 

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3 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Just go about your business coldly and efficiently and don’t take the bait of turning this into WWE. 

well, we will see how it turns out.  i'm in the camp that the only way to stop the fascist takeover is to attack it.  going about their business coldly and efficiently didn't work out for the polish, british and french.

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You cannot compromise with them. You cannot act in good faith with them. They are a lost cause and it is not the lefts job to keep moving further to the right and appease them like Chamberlain. They will NEVER act in good faith. They will NEVER compromise. They will NEVER reform without accountability.

They sent a militia to kill people. The republicans who disagreed with it are still running cover for them.

They need to be held accountable BEFORE reconciliation.

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Just now, Gourmand said:

You seem like a good dude but man is this is a naive analysis. As long as I can remember, Republicans have ruthlessly attacked their political opposition with every stereotype possible to characterize Dem politicians as weak, unpatriotic, godless communist hippie lovers. They've waged a forty year culture war against the left and they've done it by dog-whistling to their base with racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, evangelical "Christian" attacks against the evil libs. This is a fundamental way of being for the GOP and this characteristic has only become more vocalized with the rise of the right-wing propaganda machine. This was going on during the Reagan years, it accelerated under the reign of Newt Gingrich, gained more momentum with the neocons behind the Bush administration, and culminated in Trump. Republicans aren't losing because of the tone of their politics--ferffuckssake 74 million people still voted for a charmless, treasonous narcissist wannabe dictator after four years of insane anti-democratic rule-- they're losing because of the absence of humanity and their shameless, brazen disregard for actually governing. They're losing because they have no principles and only exist to exert power in the service of their kleptocracy. I've been a liberal my whole life, I've heard all the insults, I've had the drunken dinner party arguments and Thanksgivings with my rabid right-wing family members. The tone of Democrats vs Republicans is not the issue. I expect Republicans to be nasty as they need to be, it's as reflexively natural to them as a stinger to a scorpion. They didn't get here because of the ugliness of their tactics, they got here because Americans are finally realizing that they only exist to say no. Their only objective is blocking progress and change that *might* just prove to the electorate that good ideas matter more than poisonous cynicism, because cynicism is all they have.

 So spare us the fainting couch about playing footsie with the GOP. The Democrats I support aren't fighting for the end game of spiking a football on Republicans or rubbing their faces in it or settling scores, they're fighting for meaningful policy changes. If they have to run over some Gooper clowns on Twitter to facilitate that goal, I'm all for it. Being super nice so as to not offend the "Fuck Your Feelings" crowd doesn't change anything about the nature of our discourse. It makes no difference, they will still be who they are and not fighting back only fits their end goal of blocking change. I'm disappointed that you can't see that. 

i repped this after the first 3 sentences.

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10 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

You seem like a good dude but man is this is a naive analysis. As long as I can remember, Republicans have ruthlessly attacked their political opposition with every stereotype possible to characterize Dem politicians as weak, unpatriotic, godless communist hippie lovers. They've waged a forty year culture war against the left and they've done it by dog-whistling to their base with racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, evangelical "Christian" attacks against the evil libs. This is a fundamental way of being for the GOP and this characteristic has only become more vocalized with the rise of the right-wing propaganda machine. This was going on during the Reagan years, it accelerated under the reign of Newt Gingrich, gained more momentum with the neocons behind the Bush administration, and culminated in Trump. Republicans aren't losing because of the tone of their politics--ferffuckssake 74 million people still voted for a charmless, treasonous narcissist wannabe dictator after four years of insane anti-democratic rule-- they're losing because of the absence of humanity and their shameless, brazen disregard for actually governing. They're losing because they have no principles and only exist to exert power in the service of their kleptocracy. I've been a liberal my whole life, I've heard all the insults, I've had the drunken dinner party arguments and Thanksgivings with my rabid right-wing family members. The tone of Democrats vs Republicans is not the issue. I expect Republicans to be nasty as they need to be, it's as reflexively natural to them as a stinger to a scorpion. They didn't get here because of the ugliness of their tactics, they got here because Americans are finally realizing that they only exist to say no. Their only objective is blocking progress and change that *might* just prove to the electorate that good ideas matter more than poisonous cynicism, because cynicism is all they have.

 So spare us the fainting couch about playing footsie with the GOP. The Democrats I support aren't fighting for the end game of spiking a football on Republicans or rubbing their faces in it or settling scores, they're fighting for meaningful policy changes. If they have to run over some Gooper clowns on Twitter to facilitate that goal, I'm all for it. Being super nice so as to not offend the "Fuck Your Feelings" crowd doesn't change anything about the nature of our discourse. It makes no difference, they will still be who they are and not fighting back only fits their end goal of blocking change. I'm disappointed that you can't see that. 

Longhornmatt has been predicting the impending doom of the GOP seemingly forever. 

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1 minute ago, longhornmatt said:

I’ve been predicting the demise of the GOP since Trump took over.  And it’s happening.  They’re losing states that were red for decades.   They’re hemorrhaging educated and suburban voters that were their most reliable supporters.   They’re losing big money.

Yes, Trump got 74 million votes ... in a high turnout election that he lost.   Why are we acting like they -the losers - are the ones who discovered the magic formula?

What the fuck are you talking about?

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38 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

This is what I disagree with.  I actually agree that most of the AOC Tweets are just factually taking down a liar (Cruz et al make this too easy), but this attitude that the Democrats need to fight fire with fire - meaning just being nasty and mean in how we interact - is bizarre to me.

First of all, I know the Ledge has become a meme on this board, but that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if both sides decide it’s already fucked so let’s burn it down.  Why anyone would really want that - other than feeling pissed off in the moment, which is understandable - doesn’t make sense.  It’s like all the talk of secessions and civil wars.   That would be horrifying beyond what we can imagine if it actually came to pass.  Don’t embrace the ledge - especially if  you’re on the side that just won.

Which again brings me to the second point made in the prior post:  Republicans are losing because they’ve done what some of you want Democrats to do!  You’re not fighting fire with fire if you also turn into nasty insane punks who treat people like shit.   You’d be turning down the pocket aces of acting normal to instead fight their 2-7 hand of dickheadedness with your own 2-7 hand, and hoping you’ll draw the flush this time.  You want to win (and would be more likely to win) based on being more sane and competent than your opponent, not based on being the more entertaining dickhead.

And you can even stick it to them in a much more real way than confrontational ‘pub tears performances this way if you want.  Republicans are a now bunch of huckster fools and their marks.  They don’t even know how to govern or what is actually happening in the world outside their dumb, paint by numbers hot take media sources.  They couldn’t even do anything real except cut taxes when they had the whole government, and their voters don’t know the difference. You can make actual substantive policy changes right under their noses and they’re probably too dumb at this point to counteract it or even coherently criticize it in future elections.  

Just go about your business coldly and efficiently and don’t take the bait of turning this into WWE or deciding it’s time to burn it all down.   They already lost with their celebrity showman candidate who is their kindred spirit.  They’re even more fucked in the future when negative charisma weirdos will be leading them.

 

I agree with a lot of this, although not all of it. And, just to be clear, I think fighting fire with fire means using messaging effectively and relentlessly. I've never taken it to mean fighting lies with other lies or distortions. I think AOC is great example of the former. 

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I feel so bad for all the former Republicans who left the party because Donald Trump started saying the quiet parts loud. We definitely need to listen to them now because they’ve surely learned their lesson. Now hold that football steady Lucy so I can take a big windup before I kick it. 

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I started reading this thread at 4am last night at the point when @GW Hayduke showed up to humiliate himself by swinging and missing badly at Brisket and Dahobbs. Holy hell what a shit show. I hope his whiskey was top shelf.

The unity and kumbaya posters who have showed up are arguably as infuriating to me as Trumpkins because they should know better but unwittingly give cover to Republicans by affirming the trite Beltway media jujitsu that puts the onus on Democrats to make Republicans be cool and agreeable and shit. Newsflash: THEY NEVER WILL. 

All this unity/bipartisanship silliness exists to make right-of-center "centrists" feel better about themselves and not have to acknowledge that focusing on bipartisanship is itself ideological and nowhere near as pure as they believe it to be. I have never understood this fascination with bipartisanship and I don't trust it because it's a cudgel only brought out against Democrats when Democrats control either the legislative or executive branches or both. If you aren't a Dem politician in a conservative state and you're laser-focus is bipartisan compromise, you're a tool of the right. You're carrying their water. Stop doing that.

The mainstream tv/print media loves to sing about bipartisanship, but that shit is a fantasy. The reality is that American voters don't actually know what it means when we talk about bipartisanship, they just affirm the idea that it would be swell if the other side would agree with their side's policy proposals and join them in supporting it. That's not realistic and it's childish to think otherwise. When we talk about bipartisanship, we mean we want to win the most important points but also have the other side be cool with it so we can say it was a bipartisan agreement. Who fucking cares? The end goal isn't bipartisan agreement, the end goal is the policy that matters most to your side. Elections have consequences, right?

Obviously there's nothing bad about bipartisan agreement, but our political media fetishizes it to the point where bipartisanship is itself the end instead of the means to an end. The fixation with unity and bipartisanship doesn't necessarily result in better policy, it just serves to make for a more centrist policy, which is an ideological bias towards the middle. You jackasses preaching this shit need to realize that you are just as ideological and you are wrong.

 

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I started reading this thread at 4am last night at the point when [mention=3062]GW Hayduke[/mention] showed up to humiliate himself by swinging and missing badly at Brisket and Dahobbs. Holy hell what a shit show. I hope his whiskey was top shelf.
The unity and kumbaya posters who have showed up are arguably as infuriating to me as Trumpkins because they should know better but unwittingly give cover to Republicans by affirming the trite Beltway media jujitsu that puts the onus on Democrats to make Republicans be cool and agreeable and shit. Newsflash: THEY NEVER WILL. 
All this unity/bipartisanship silliness exists to make right-of-center "centrists" feel better about themselves and not have to acknowledge that focusing on bipartisanship is itself ideological and nowhere near as pure as they believe it to be. I have never understood this fascination with bipartisanship and I don't trust it because it's a cudgel only brought out against Democrats when Democrats control either the legislative or executive branches or both. If you aren't a Dem politician in a conservative state and you're laser-focus is bipartisan compromise, you're a tool of the right. You're carrying their water. Stop doing that.
The mainstream tv/print media loves to sing about bipartisanship, but that shit is a fantasy. The reality is that American voters don't actually know what it means when we talk about bipartisanship, they just affirm the idea that it would be swell if the other side would agree with their side's policy proposals and join them in supporting it. That's not realistic and it's childish to think otherwise. When we talk about bipartisanship, we mean we want to win the most important points but also have the other side be cool with it so we can say it was a bipartisan agreement. Who fucking cares? The end goal isn't bipartisan agreement, the end goal is the policy that matters most to your side. Elections have consequences, right?
Obviously there's nothing bad about bipartisan agreement, but our political media fetishizes it to the point where bipartisanship is itself the end instead of the means to an end. The fixation with unity and bipartisanship doesn't necessarily result in better policy, it just serves to make for a more centrist policy, which is an ideological bias towards the middle. You jackasses preaching this shit need to realize that you are just as ideological and you are wrong.
 

I love everything about this post.

I also love how Biden is defining “bipartisan” - if 51% or more of the voters agree on something, that’s bipartisan.
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1 hour ago, Hank Scorpio said:

I feel so bad for all the former Republicans who left the party because Donald Trump started saying the quiet parts loud. We definitely need to listen to them now because they’ve surely learned their lesson. Now hold that football steady Lucy so I can take a big windup before I kick it. 

We are still a center right country even though the “conservative” party went off the reservation. The dems can still fuck this up

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19 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

ha, point taken. the answer is to shine a light on their assholery so they will never be taken seriously again. 

That’s not how it works. You’re amplifying the message. There’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Never be taken seriously again? You let me know when that happens. 

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The unhinged vitriol the right wing has for her proves her fears for her life were justified and appropriate. These "patriots" were chanting "Hang Mike Pence!!" and we're supposed to believe that AOC was being a drama queen? She'd be foolish not to be afraid and have her head on a swivel with a bunch of loony TrumpQins on the loose during the Jan 6th siege.

We saw the videos in real time, we saw the violence against the capitol police, we heard the many eyewitness stories of those who were terrified and thought they might die that day.

The need for an AP/CNN fact-check of her personal experience during a failed coup attempt by a fat ass fascist wannabe dictator just proves how pathetic the GOP has become. There is no bottom for these repugnant Trump enablers.

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She is supposed to know that it was a policeman talking while she is hiding in fear? I didn't listen very long to this guy who "definitively knows" because he has a douchebag voice but if the argument is that a terrified person is supposed to have the capacity to know who is talking and it is their fault for not distinguishing a "good guy" voice from a marauder then I call bullshit.   

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lulz. Workwithseed up in here with Dim Tool posts. 

I don't need to watch that to know it's 100% bullshit because he has the brain of a kakapo. 

 

ETA: is this the clip where he hilariously refers to the Bronx as upstate New York? 

Edited by Gourmand
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41 minutes ago, burntorangebongos said:

She is supposed to know that it was a policeman talking while she is hiding in fear? I didn't listen very long to this guy who "definitively knows" because he has a douchebag voice but if the argument is that a terrified person is supposed to have the capacity to know who is talking and it is their fault for not distinguishing a "good guy" voice from a marauder then I call bullshit.   

The article says she saw him.  
 

Eta: for the record, I whole heartedly believe she was legitimately terrified.  But I also believe she wasn’t “almost murdered”.   So I guess I’m saying I agree with what the fact checker tweet said. 

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This is where I land too:  for the record, I whole heartedly believe she was legitimately terrified.  But I also believe she wasn’t “almost murdered”.   So I guess I’m saying I agree with what the fact checker tweet said
 

And I don’t begrudge her interpretation or challenge it, it’s hers to have.

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I am sure she wasn’t nearly murdered. I mean those terrorists looked like reasonable people that wouldn’t harm a fly, or a cop, or bring a noose and chant about hanging the sitting Vice President.

I think they just wanted to bring her flowers.

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24 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

This is where I land too:  for the record, I whole heartedly believe she was legitimately terrified.  But I also believe she wasn’t “almost murdered”.  

Are we going to parse the meaning of "almost"?  Come on.  There was a hangman's noose outside the capitol.  There were explicit threats to hang Mike Pence.  Outside of (maybe) Nancy Pelosi, AOC is the most abhorred female Dem member of Congress.

I see zero reason to believe some of those nutjobs would not have harmed or even killed her, had they found her.  That's close enough to "almost" for me.

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19 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

lol come on buddy

No. @Pasken is correct. Do I need to describe a flashback to you? Something that has been repressed for a long time because that is the way that one has figured out how to keep functioning? The images and feelings and thoughts that come unbidden to the head? In a general way, a sense of humor is helpful, but that tweet by a public figure was a specific attack and even folks with tough skin find the whole rubric gets old. You get used to it but it doesn't and shouldn't have to be that way.

 

The whole argument about whether she was 'almost murdered,' is gaslighting. She doesn't have to be standing with a noose around her neck and even then, people would start discussing whether the dernier of the rope was thick enough to have caused harm.

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Just now, Mrs Whiggins said:

No. @Pasken is correct. Do I need to describe a flashback to you? Something that has been repressed for a long time because that is the way that one has figured out how to keep functioning? The images and feelings and thoughts that come unbidden to the head? In a general way, a sense of humor is helpful, but that was a specific attack and even folks with tough skin find the whole rubric gets old. You get used to it but it doesn't and shouldn't have to be that way.

 

The whole argument about whether she was 'almost murdered,' is gaslighting. She doesn't have to be standing with a noose around her neck and even then, people would start discussing whether the dernier of the rope was thick enough to have caused harm.

I think you misunderstood the tone of his post?

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11 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Are we going to parse the meaning of "almost"?  Come on.  There was a hangman's noose outside the capitol.  There were explicit threats to hang Mike Pence.  Outside of (maybe) Nancy Pelosi, AOC is the most abhorred female Dem member of Congress.

I see zero reason to believe some of those nutjobs would not have harmed or even killed her, had they found her.  That's close enough to "almost" for me.

That's more than fair and like I said, I am not the arbiter of what that whole travesty meant to AoC and how she felt I believe is how she felt and what you described is again abhorrent. My personal opinion, which literally is worthless in this scenario, was what I stated and it doesn't even matter. I've also gone on record that I actually like and respect AoC so I more or less take her at face value on this, but I also wouldn't personally say she almost died or Pence almost died, but I get why others would and find the reasoning....reasonable, for a lack of non-redundant term.

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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