AOC Won't Save Us
A Counterpoint to My Previous Post: "4 Years Ago Today, AOC Became Our Next President"
Last week I argued that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was destined to become our next president. I desperately want that to be the case, but like each of us I must remain nimble in my analysis and continue considering alternative points of view.
While some consider an AOC-led progressive triumph desirable but extremely unlikely in our conservative-pilled political environment, still others see her model of compromise with the mainstream status quo as indicative of a deeper Democratic party bankruptcy, full stop.
’s Dialectics of Decline Substack powerfully challenged my prior assumptions in a recent essay, “The Cavalry is Not Coming,” which I present to you as a counterpoint to my own essay lauding the electability of AOC:
“The Dems ran such an incompetent campaign in 2024 that they managed to lose every single swing state and even the popular vote for the first time in 20 years and yet not a single person in leadership was forced out. The same consultants, the same party heads, the same “thought leaders”, that delivered us to this horrific point in time, have all maintained their positions within the party. There is no accountability, no reckoning at all. There are no new ideas. There is no new approach.
The cavalry is quite simply not coming.”
Scarlet argues persuasively that even the most profoundly progressive iteration of Democratic party politics falls short of the ability o fundamentally address the root causes of our economic and constitutional decline. “We have to be willing to change our minds. We have to be unafraid to change course towards a true path for liberation. After all, we are facing oblivion if we fail. We cannot afford to keep treading the comfortable road we have been traveling down just because the other way, the real way, feels impossible.”
I urge you to give this a read. If you haven’t ready my AOC essay, perhaps read that in conjunction and weigh the two visions together. And of course, subscribe to Dialectics of Decline.
ICYMI, check out these related essays:
In Case of Emergency, Break Glass. Literally.
A primary rapture is precisely what is now needed to shake the Democratic establishment from its feckless complicity while America burns.
While Democrats Do The Fascists' Dirty Work, Attacks on the Left Continue
It is beyond morally indefensible to attack immigrant rights groups and lgbtq rights groups. From someone who claims to oppose autocracy, these positions also form a complete and utter strategic trainwreck.
Will the Real Slim Shady Please Sit Down?
Today the age-old ways of campaigning—indeed the tired philosophies driving quotidian governance and messaging—reflect wholesale disconnection from the tumultuous lived experience of the American voter. Lebron James matters as little as Larry Summers: these days the presence of any kind of elite only further signals the Democratic party’s distance from real life.
 | A guest post by
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Plenty of people thought Donald Trump couldn’t win either
I would prefer a more aggressive stance from AOC (and everyone else), but I can’t assume she is now as tough as she’d like to be. I’m not sure what limitations reality puts on her. She’s trying to move a party that I see as completely inert. She risks losing them if she gets too far out in front of them. If she wants them to follow her, she’s got to ask for baby steps. I still have hope for real aggression from AOC and J. Crockett, and the other (women) Democrats when they think the moment is right.