To say Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is upset about Republican efforts to craft an anti-choice bill that will wind its way through the courts to deliver a fatal blow to Roe v. Wade before the Supremes would be a gross understatement.
She is righteously pissed….
The GOP doesn’t care about babies at all – especially brown, black, or poor ones. If they did, they’d:
– cosponsor the Green New Deal or at LEAST have a real climate plan
– guarantee healthcare so ALL can get prenatal care
– not stand for the death+caging of babies on our border— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 17, 2019
What angers me about the GOP’s attempts to turn the United States into a far-right Christian theocracy is how dishonest they are about it.
At least be forthright about your desire to subvert and dismantle our democracy into a creepy theological order led by a mad king.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 17, 2019
…”a creepy theological order led by a mad king.”
I’m quite sure I’ve never read a more succinct, accurate description of the GOP in the age of Trump.
Kudos to AOC for crafting the Tweet of the Week.
Please follow me on Twitter @durrati
Look: I love you guys & want to support you. But one of the reasons I come here is to escape the endless “OMG OMG OMG AOC SNEEZED!!!!” posts that are infesting both progressive websites like DailyKos, and mainstream and conservative news sites.
Yes, I get that she’s pretty; I get that a lot of people have a crush on her so she’s clickbait. But she said nothing fresh here, nothing others haven’t been saying for years, nothing others didn’t tweet in a much more timely fashion, and nothing others aren’t saying much more powerfully and coherently. Shifting to climate change and GND not only is not powerful, it defuses and demeans what women are going through right now, as well as awkwardly worded — she’s not the comeback genius many of her fans think she is. (Follow Brian Schatz for that).
How about a roundup of where our presidential candidates stand on abortion bans and what they are proposing to do about them? How about one spotlighting a REAL hero on this issue, Kirsten Gillibrand, who has tweeted about almost nothing else all week, starting BEFORE the Alabama ban became law and continuing through her trip to Georgia Thursday specifically to stand with pro-choice advocates there? She posted a dozen tweets this week far more deserving to be called the “tweet of the week” on abortion rights. I heard better and more pointed descriptions of Trump this morning from people working at my urban farm.
Look: nothing against “AOC.” She’s young, unformed and inexperienced. I’d be willing to cut her a LOT of slack except I am seeing people vaulting her above people who are deeply knowledgeable, and have been true advocates and fighters for years, even eagerly taking the bait on that ridiculous Frank Luntz assertion that she’s the only person he can see who could beat Trump, if only she were eligible, sigh. He’s playing us for fools and succeeding.
I didn’t mean to go off like this but I don’t see any good coming from treating her every utterance like the wisdom of the ages and treating her like she has some unique power, authority and incisiveness we’ve never seen before. It’s blotting out a lot of better people we should be paying attention to.
Some of us like to hear from her, and about her. By all means continue your “going off” if it makes you feel better. AOC is smart and accomplished whether you see it or not.
There’s not much difference on the choice issue among the candidates for Prez but if any of them call the Christian right a “a creepy theological order” and drumpf a “mad king ” they will zoom to the top of my list of things to write about.
One story out of 18 on the front page is too much for you?
No, the outsized number of stories about her compared to her legion of equally or more qualified and effective freshman colleagues is what is bothering me, as well as the fact that Democrats are buying in so totally to the marketing of her. I really didn’t want to get into a lengthy argument that simply proves my point, alas, but there is nothing special about her that demands posts about her every clunky retort. This would have gotten zero attention if Katie Porter or Lauren Underwood, both far more qualified and effective freshmen, had posted it. I just wish we paid equal attention to the many heroes we elected last year, not just the one who was specifically identified, recruited, groomed & branded for our attention by a group I don’t trust (The so-called “Justice” Democrats and their affiliates such as “Brand New Congress”).
I personally am watching Katie Hill of CA-25. As vice chair of the oversight committee she wields tremendous power, and while her activities don’t grab headlines like a saucy quip on Twitter, that’s where the real action is.
She’s one of my top picks too. As you say, she was named vice chair of the powerful government oversight committee and she is the co-representative to leadership (with the equally promising Joe Neguse) from the freshman class. Her questioning of witnesses is so sharp I expect that with a little experience she too could make Jeff Sessions nerrrrrvousssss (like Kamala Harris did).
Like a lot of her colleagues who flipped seats and are in swing districts (her DC roommate Lauren Underwood is another), Hill is constantly in touch with constituents, at meetings, rallies, town halls, awards ceremonies, you name it (I can mention several Republicans right in my area who are spotted in their district about once a year and have never held a tow hall). She has even posted on Twitter several times asking constituents to respond so SHE can follow THEM. She’s definitely a future star who deserves more attention. She’s also pretty.
I like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez a lot…but she’s new in this position, and I don’t think every social media tactic she takes is particularly good. This tweet is an example.
What does her conversation accomplish other than deepening the divide and fostering tribalism? Who is encouraged to change their political behavior at all by this dialogue? Who does it benefit?
I know that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez cares about this issue – but she can better demonstrate it by speaking to it, and not taking an opportunity to try to deflect the conversation to her pet issues. Yes we need to address climate change. But every morning I get up and feel terror that women’s rights in this country are about to be plunged back into a dark age…so I can only guess how women feel about that.
I read a story on HuffPost written by a woman who was forced to give birth to a terminally ill baby in Alabama that was conceived out of rape, and her accounting of the year of her pregnancy and her year with this sick child, who slowly but steadily slipped from this world. That story moved me to tears, and strengthened my resolve. But it also gave me hope. It underscored the importance of our work as progressives, and helped illustrate the power of the world we are trying to build.
Having read that earlier in the week and then seeing these tweets…they just feel childish, petulant and lacking. That doesn’t change that I love AOC and what she’s trying to do, but this one is a big miss. There are stories out there with power, stories that demonstrate our moral authority on this. That’s how we can frame the debate…not by using social media to show how fifth-grade we can behave.
She’s saying things that need to be said – and the men sure aren’t saying them.
Like I said, I respect her a lot and hope she has a long and productive career in government. And often she is saying things that need to be said. But in this case she’s calling names, deflecting from a major issue, and speaking in a crassly cynical and insulting voice rather than speaking to the humanity of this issue.
And I think that helps fire up the base…but we don’t need to win the base on this. We need to show that we are a party that will govern for all Americans. We should show tolerance for Christians, even if we disagree with some of them. And we should show tolerance for Republicans, even if we disagree with all of them, ha.
The problem with statements like these is that when someone says “Christians want to turn this into a creepy theocracy,” people who read that don’t discern it as an attack on a subset of Christians…it is often insulting to people not intended as a target of criticism. There are a lot of people in this country who work hard and go to church every week, who want a nation with just laws and ethical governance, and they base a ,out of their values on that in their faith. How are they supposed to feel when someone lashes out at an entire religion? How is this all that different from saying that Muslims want to institute Sharia law in order to legislate extreme religious views?
I’m on board with her anger and activism…I just think in this case she didn’t do a very good job with it.
I feel like the evangelicals are trying to force their beliefs on us which i think are ingnorant and sould be cast aside. Nobody tells the men they can’t get women pregnant. It takes two to get pregnant not onr, I don’t hear anyone saying lock up the men.