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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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the_dunk_tank
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I recently read the new book Ryan Grim just put out related to "the squad." (this is not a plug. It is relevant. Full disclosure I pirated the audiobook and ebook. I don't care if you buy it. I'll show you the torrent link I used myself)
He's a reporter for the Intercept and I'd describe him as a socdem. For those unaware he's one of the few US journalists who ever pushes back on the ghouls at the press briefings which is what interested me to see his inside-view towards AOC, etc.
So blah blah blah obligatory statements aside, I left that book with, I suppose, better understanding of who AOC is and isn't. I don't think she ever intended to be nor wants to be any sort of actual "revolutionary." She was just a fairly normal person who held generally left-leaning ideals on a bunch of issues, especially compared to most Americans, and was able to beat out a powerful piece of shit right wing democrat in her district.
I don't know if Grim meant to portray her as naive, or a liar, or too willing to go along to get along. I THINK he's very sympathetic to her. But the stuff he writes about her in a matter of fact way often made me go "holy shit he wrote this? She won't be texting him anymore insider shit." (He references personal texts between himself and various progressive US reps throughout the book)
I left the book disappointed in her but I guess I kinda get it. She never intended to be like Ilhan Omar who legitimately does seem to not give a single fuck. Ironically Pelosi is better friends with Omar, which seems to be for the purpose of driving a wedge between her and the rest of the progressive women in congress. I have no idea why Omar maintains such a relationship unless Ryan's characterization is inaccurate (always possible). Like, fuck Pelosi. Fuck Jeffries too. He's an even bigger PoS.
The only reason he ever seems to cite, and again he draws heavily from quotes most of the book, is they don't want to be mean to the people they work with. Their peers in congress.
I'm not joking. A lot of underlying reasoning seems to be personal like/dislike of individuals and wanting to curry favor with them. A cynical view would lead me to believe that's only to make sure she doesn't allow them to be primaried (although this is Jeffries' job now: and he IS allowing it anyway!).
It does seem that whether she knew it or not (and I'm ok giving her benefit of the doubt) Pelosi and the DNC as a whole has successfully reigned in any sort of leftist electoralism by picking the weakest, least principled progressive and getting her to bend of leadership over and over to dishearten, cause disengagement, whatever else and send the ultimate signal that "it doesn't matter if you send 100 or 400 members like this to congress. We will break all of them. We are all unprincipled and you cannot win."
Obviously Pelosi, et al. wouldn't word it like that. They'd view as like "see! AOC is a team player and she's benefiting from it and her district too!" Or some sort of BS.
In any case, Grim, I think unknowingly to a large degree, laid out a case for anti-electoralism. He was overly positive (he's a socdem after all) about the legislation and ideas AOC managed to push. None of it is meaningful ultimately, imo. Is it something? Sure. But if it's not enough then it doesn't matter with climate change or genocide in Gaza.
Also the book taught me Josh Gottheimer legitimately needs to be in a supermax prison. He's a fascist freak. I didn't know much about this Nazi fuckstick until recent Palestine events, but holy fuck is he disgusting. And these are the people (same party!) that AOC ultimately is ok being friends with or trying to be nice to by voting to explode more children.
I feel like I wrote one of those 7th grader "prove you did the reading" book reports. Fuck.
Hey bud, good effort but I ran your report through an "AI Detection" website and it said it was 89% positive you used AI to write this. I'm going to have to give you an F on the assignment unless you rewrite it again but in your own words.
Those websites also famously will tell you books written in 1950s are generated by AI
It's almost like, if you train a robot to write text based on books written in the 1950s, then train a robot to detect text written by that robot (who is writing text as if it were a book from the 1950s), then naturally that robot will think a book from the 1950s is written by the first robot.
This pretty much lines up with what I’ve read about how the insular, continuing status quo culture of DC perpetuates itself. It’s not that everyone becomes maliciously corrupted, it’s seeing other Congress critters as coworkers and not wanting to rock their boats. Like, Bernie doesn’t call Biden his friend as a moral judgment, it’s literally they’ve been working together for decades and developed the work-friendship relationship that happens at any job. The establishments are good at leveraging these sort of personal relationships to keep the gravy train going for themselves and their donors.
And this is why the saying “If you want a friend in DC, get a dog” exists.
but who cares about any of them? the system prevents them from doing anything corporate and military owners disapprove of. it doesn't matter one lick what they say.
That's the non-electoralism argument yes. Which is basically where I am (not because of this book. I've been here for years. Probably since like 2008 when Obama literally lied to my face. Definitely since 2016 when the DNC subverted any notion of a democratic process)
There's some argument which I can't fully dismiss though for electoralism. There's a bunch of ideas obviously surrounding it, but I imagine if collations of "normal people" were banded together and successfully elected people let's say like AOC or Omar and then those reps said "I will only represent the true interests of the people" basically and then did it. That means vocally voting against Israel money, all DoD spending, any cuts to social programs, etc. you get the idea. Just do it every time and then tell their constituents and the country, to whatever degree they can, what they did and why. The theory then is this resistance to the status quo would grow. Seeing a minority of technically unsuccessful but highly principled politicians always voting exactly how they promised, never compromising, without inspire new runners and shame incumbents. Eventually you get a majority or sizable part of the minority and can force concessions at which point a land slide of support comes and the nation goes full socdem and ground is laid for even further socialism.
So that's my best case idea. Now how do you do literally any of that when even the "best" politicians we can get, I'd say those are currently Omar and Tlaib at the federal level, aren't really meaningfully on path? I dunno. How do you overcome AIPAC money and the might of every politician who is bought coming down on a small group? Again, don't know. I mean I have thoughts, but I don't think it's plausible.
This also all ignores the giant elephant in the room of "how would the MIC react to legitimate pushback?" Arguably, debatably, Kennedy was killed for even the slight suggestion of destroying the CIA after they embarrassed him with the bay of pigs. So, you know, who knows on that front.
yeah i agree. the process seems to preclude most from every making it far enough to get elected. should anyone actually follow thru then they're made an example of like Rashida losing her committee positions for having the audacity to speak out about Palestine