Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) signaled in an interview with Axios on Monday that she would not support New York City Council member Chi Ossé in a primary challenge against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Why it matters: Ocasio-Cortez is one of several high-profile progressives distancing from Ossé’s potential run, arguing that it is a distraction from New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory.
Ocasio-Cortez told Axios during a brief interview at the U.S. Capitol that she was “not aware” that Ossé was challenging.
“But,” she added, “I certainly don’t think a primary challenge to the leader is a good idea right now.”
More contrived rage bait about one of the handful prominent elected officials with something approximating a progressive platform. Spinning an uninformed reaction and one offhand remark into a full headline and story.
I guess par for the course when you consider that the Axios is majority owned by Cox Enterprises who, at a glance, donated at 70% for Republicans and the rest to establishment Dems.
Democrats might be a controlled opposition, but it helps to paint real opposition with the same controlled narrative.
That’s fine. We think it’s a good idea.
I was thinking, why does it matter what AOC or Mamdani or anyone says?
Shouldn’t people just vote for who they want to vote for?
because the US electoral system is fundamentally broken and if you vote for who you want to vote for you’re likely to get the exact opposite because that’s the spoiler effect for ya!
That’s only true if we make it true.
Vote for progressive candidates. Kick out Republicans and establishment Democrats. The only chance we have for a bloodless revolution is if we insist on it in the voting booth.
The fascists are already winning. Voting for fascist-enablers isn’t slowing them down.
The spoiler effect is an inherent part of first past the post voting. It’s geometry.
Voting for progressives only works in primaries.
This is about a primary though
The wider thread is, however:
Kick out Republicans and establishment Democrats.
Voting for fascist-enablers isn’t slowing them down.
Given the context NABDad’s comment doesn’t seem to be limited to primaries.
Because 60% would look at the candidates, say ‘meh’ and sit it out. The one with the rabid supporters common people disagree with would win.
Really AOC? Running cover for the establishment now? At least resort to a tactical silence.
…Really?
It could be a situation where she’s merely reminding us to pick our battles under this regime.
People are desperate to get Dem leadership out after they caved the shutdown to Trump for zero gains. We all want Dems replaced. That is why the progressives are supposed to exist to begin with.
And Hakeem Jeffries is one of the biggest corrupt careerists which needs to go.
Lefty Fundamentalist purity tests are what got us Trump in the first place
How about lets win something before we dismantle our army
The current DNC excluding leftists and allying with Liz Cheney is what got us Trump.
DNC gaslighting goes so hard.
That could be true if you ignore all of the actual events that took place
Chuck Schumer throwing the government shutdown for absolutely nothing?
Hello?
Lefty Fundamentalist purity tests are
…normal for the left. The conservatives fall in line, they say, but the progressives need to fall in love. They don’t follow a name with the loyalty of the cons, and they will bail if the character or progress of the current leader isn’t consistent – or if consensus on goals and direction isn’t there.
It’s the shame of having ethics and integrity.
If you remove it, you’re no better than them.
Typical rightie division, demand leftists fall in line and back their shit choices time and time again but throw a fit and try to fuck over any actual leftists from winning at every step.
How about you shut up and stop trying to dismantle us?
How about lets win something before we dismantle our army
What do you do when the people getting protected are hindering those wins?
Hurts to swallow but your right. The problem with Dems is they fail so consistently and intentionally that we never really win enough get out of this mindset
We are often tripped up by trolls.
Billionaires (think Koch Brothers) and authoritarian enemy governments spend untold sums funding troll armies to play the game called:
Let’s you and him fight.
They come with their wedge issues and purity tests and they are very effective.
As soon as we make any headway at all, they come with fresh horrors about transgender girls in high school sports or new pushes to ban guns.
Those issues are perfectly designed to scare any center right (or even center center) supporters back to the GOP.
AOC is making some questionable calls lately. Is she getting ‘bought’ out and into the party mainstream?
And a distraction from a victory? What the fuck AOC? What does that even mean, his victory isn’t important now. It’s already happened, we need to focus on the ‘next’ part. And if anything that energy should be used to help get another leftist (and ally of Mamdani) into power, because that would support Mamdani much more than your political suicide here is.
I think people read to remember the fact that the leader of the party can really fuck over members of their own party in congress. And I think we’ve seen that Hakeem Jeffries is more than capable of being in total ass to members of his own party.
If you’re shocked that she is being political then you’re a fool because no matter what one’s ideals are in Congress they still need to play the game otherwise they will be pushed off to the side and ignored. Which is a hard lesson she learned in her first few years when Nancy Pelosi stuck her in a hole and did her best to make AOC irrelevant in Congress.
You mean when AOC was at the height of her popularity? Oh yeah, she was struggling bad.
Now that she’s selling out, she can go in the bin along with the rest of the centrist trash.
You can play “politics” all you want, don’t be surprised when voters turn off you.
You really don’t know anything at all do you? Yeah she was popular with a lot of people on tiktok and facebook but she had literally no power in congress whatsoever.
And how much power will she have if she loses her powerbase?
You definitely shouldn’t critically analyze any of the positions aoc has held since being elected because then you would be a tankie /s
In short, this is exactly who aoc is. She has been the party mainstream for years and exists to funnel left wing voters back into the democratic party.
This was always her position in the party. No need to be bought out or manipulated. This is her role.
kamala harris is working tirelessly for a ceasefire in gaza
How she still has any credibility as a “leftist” after this is mind boggling
Populist rhetoric, neoliberal policy. Power only ever serves itself.
Agreed. I think it comes more from the fact that she just can’t afford to follow the rising tide of the incoming left’s hard anti-Zionist policies, being a NYC state rep.
She’s much more secure being a social liberal in a moderate party than a moderate Zionist in a truly leftist party. If anti-Zionism ever did become the party policy of the Dems, she would have to make some difficult choices facing her constituency in NYC.
She certianly carries a lot of water for establishment dems for someone they call a progressive. She won’t even call for Schumer to be replaced, guess we should have seen this one coming.
Oh good, more purity tests. That’ll surely defeat the fascist machine, thoroughly vetting every single thing a candidate does until we’re left waiting for the literal Jesus to return.
Explain how valid criticism is a purity test when no one is taking about elections.
Because your “valid criticism” is someone else’s “line crossed”, and there we lost another voter.
Democrats have to fall in love, republicans only need to fall in line. That and rampant cheating via gerrymandering allow the minority to continue to fuck our country.
It sounds a lot like you’re implying you can’t critisize democrats which is as unserious as it is unamerican
I’m implying that perhaps criticism can wait until the fascist threat is nullified. Division helps no one but Temu Hitler - let’s focus on putting him in the grave he deserves, then we can spend our time levying valid criticism at the other side when there isn’t Nazi Gestapo kidnapping brown people off the streets.
I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but priorities. If you’ve got time to bitch about AOC’s failings, it would be time better spent fighting fascism in any way you can.
I think the issue is that the current leadership isn’t doing anything to stop the march if fascism. Id agree with your position of unification if they didn’t just absolutely cave on the shutdown.
“They” was 8 stupid cowards, not the entire Democratic Party - if you want to heap scorn on them I’m all for it, as they helped advance the fascist agenda.
AOC was no part of that. And again, please feel free to hold her to the highest standards, but if you’ve got political energy to burn, maybe burn it fighting fascism.
I’m no fan of the democrats, but we need allies against fascism, and they’re the best we got.
That’s the same thing as saying you can’t critisize them. Just admit you want your own version of fasicm at this point where people can only critisize the politicians you deem safe to critisize. You’re not gonna get rid of red fasicms with blue fascism.
“Wait until the fire is under control to bitch about your taxes”
Is not the same as
“Don’t bitch about your taxes.”
This is fascism as it’s defined, not as one feels. It’s an easy differentiation to make if you put in 6 seconds of effort.
You don’t have to agree with me, but you should remain as intellectually honest as you can manage.
Just admit you’d rather bitch about something safe than resist in any way shape or form, it’s no more shameful than your selective understanding.
It’s because in the real world, you have to deal with reality, not only the couple of pet possibilities that people want to consider. I think AOC is the best shot that any decent person in the US has. She would if she could, but in the real world, these are not actual options.
Part of me agrees with this, part of me thinks that these people are too far into the weeds to know what’s possible. Change brings chaos. And when you’re at your stressful job with a shitty machine that you are constantly trying to keep running, eventually you reach a point where the thought of turning off the machine is unthinkable.
From an outside perspective, it seems obvious. The machine is bad. We should get rid of it and try something different. But that concept is terrifying to the people who work on the machine. Turn it off? But they’ve spent years learning how to work with the machine! They know how to sometimes get the machine to do what they want! If they replace the machine with something else, what if they can’t figure out how to work the new system? Maybe someday they can replace the machine, but right now? In the middle of everything else? No, no, far too risky. Best to try to keep working with the same old machine.
How living in the real world been working for her? Oh thats right they passed over giving her a more powerful position for a old man with terminal cancer who already left.
Leftists need to stop showing loyalty to a party that uses them and then throws them away.
The DNC is not a viable path twoards the left.
Oh you and your reasonable explanations, with their rational basis in organizational communications.
I’m a PoliSci major and I’m baked AF! Now who knows more?!
Ocasio-Cortez told Axios during a brief interview at the U.S. Capitol that she was “not aware” that Ossé was challenging Jeffries.
Ossé filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Monday
AOC angling to be Pelosi 2.0
Mama bear.
- Progressive Change Campaign Committee head Adam Green told Politico"it is not the right moment to launch a primary challenge against Hakeem Jeffries."\
- Mamdani also appeared to discourage his fellow Democratic Socialists of America member on Monday.
- “I believe that there are many ways right here in New York City to both deliver on an affordability agenda and take on the authoritarian administration in the White House,” Mamdani told reporters of Ossé.
Yeah let’s hear all about how Mamdani exists to be controlled opposition, and how his choices are so fucking questionable lately, and how he’s only driving mainstream liberals back to the Democratic party.
C’mon Tankiejerks. If you trash AOC but can’t find the courage to also trash Mamdani, you’re worthless. So let’s hear it. He’s sold out! In two weeks! Booooourgeois!
No? Crickets as usual from the refuseniks? How odd.
Seriously the more shit i see in here the more I wonder how wrong a strategy it is to tack to the center. The so-called-left can’t win a goddamned participation trophy ffs. We have to put a stake in MAGAs heart in less than a year and this kind of garbage only puts us further away from that.
At least RTFA. The ragebait trap caught a bunch of people.
That looks more like Jeff Coltin’s contribution to what Mandani said. Mamdani did the very politician thing and said ‘there are many ways’. Jeff is adding in the discouragement and the ‘but’ to Mamdani’s quote.
That might have something to do with it.
Stop being a divisive wrecker and forcing your purity tests on leftists.
Either fall in line or go away, this is a critical time and we cannot have you righties around trying to wreck our momentum because you’re okay with a little bit of genocide.
Stop being a divisive wrecker and forcing your purity tests on leftists.
Oh that is rich
Either fall in line or go away, this is a critical time and we cannot have you righties around trying to wreck our momentum
No YOU righties stop trying to wreck our momentum because you’re okay with not having a single national presence to point to and perfect is just fine being the enemy of the good.
Feel free to address the hypocrisy I called out w/r/t the article or - as i fully expect - don’t.
None of you realize the democrat leaders are being accused of having no control over their people. If AOC speaks out they will label her the problem like they did with bernie.
Oh no the horror. The DNC which just betrayed Zohran Mamdani and refused to endorse him despite him winning the Democratic primary. We have to play nice with the people who play dirty.
If she doesnt want them to go to the media blaming her than yeah, first time getting into politics huh? Lol
I think people are becoming disillusioned with progressives that follow the orders of decrepit Neoliberals.
Oh no not the “blame” for running opposition against the establishment ghouls. The horror. Nobody in the public would support that. Everyone loooves current DNC leadership.
At least MTG strikes when she sees blood in the water.
Who benefits from everyone turning on the progressives, like you all are doing? Trump and establishment democrats
Fuck AOC she will keep moving to the right until she is the next Nancy Pelosi.
Clearly the majority of the people in this thread are not basing their world view in reality. God forbid an employee will not openly talk bad about a coworker in an interview to the world. It’s like y’all have no idea how politics works.
I’m pleasantly surprised about how many people realize that a ‘progressive’ should not be actively trying to keep one of the biggest AIPAC recipients in power.
That’s not what this is about at all. What you are asking for is a further fracturing of the Democratic Party and gifting the republicans the election on a silver platter. The exact thing you want to do does nothing but weaken the party. Whether you like it or not we unofficially use a 2 party system. You sound exactly like the “Vote third party because Kamala sucks” people. Look how well that went for the country
The Democratic party is already fractured. Decapitated even. After they threw the shutdown everyone wants them gone.
It’s like you don’t. It’s the people who vote, not her coworkers. She needs to be taking them into consideration not her peers.
She is. She’s one of the few people fighting for us. Y’all are asking her to commit career suicide for literally no reason. You have never even heard of Osse.
