Why Democrats are attacking Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez
In this week's newsletter, I discuss how Democrats' attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are more about defending the status quo than defending party unity; I have some short notes on (a) how the film Vice is reviving troubling language regarding the Iraq War (b) how liberals and leftists should resist the cult of the presidency (c) the dark Netflix movie Cam; and some reading tips on everything from Trump's burger buffet to why his antics on the wall could cost him 2020.
My article on Ocasio-Cortez in Vice
I have an article in VICE this week discussing the drama between AOC and mainstream Dems — here's an excerpt:
A number of Democratic lawmakers appear to be ganging up on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, accusing her of undermining unity in her own party. But underneath their lectures about being a team player lies a deeper concern: that she might have the power to remold the party in her own image.
In a much-talked-about Politico article published on Friday, close to a dozen Democratic members of Congress and staffers criticized the Bronx-born freshman for her brash political style. It was a remarkable report—Ocasio-Cortez has barely been in Congress two weeks, and several of her colleagues were willing to express blunt rebukes of her, many of them on the record. “She needs to decide: Does she want to be an effective legislator or just continue being a Twitter star?” said one Democratic lawmaker.
Outwardly, the common theme of the criticisms was that Ocasio-Cortez is too adversarial toward people who her are on her own side and that “the real enemy” is the GOP. It’s a point that liberals often make: The Democratic caucus needs to be disciplined and tightly coordinated to combat Donald Trump and the Republicans.
But when considered more closely, unity isn’t exactly what they were after.
Ocasio-Cortez isn’t a normal freshman. She toppled a Wall Street-backed ten-term incumbent who was the fourth-most powerful Democrat in House leadership, and did it with virtually no money or political experience. A democratic socialist, she quickly revealed a preternatural ability to discuss left-wing ideas as if they were mere common sense, earning praise from scholars as Reaganesque in her ability to communicate. Telegenic and media savvy, she goes viral without a hint of effort, and is pioneering novel forms of political engagement like the Instagram town hall. And as a young Puerto Rican woman, she has become the iconic face of a rapidly diversifying Democratic caucus that’s beginning to look more like the constituencies it represents.
While Ocasio-Cortez’s critics say she only represents one district and nothing more, her ability to bend the news cycle to her will day after day, to generate weird, obsessive criticism from right-wing media, and to electrify the left nationwide suggests that her message is resonating far more widely.
This is all to say that party unity doesn’t simply mean that Ocasio-Cortez must work with the Democratic Party establishment—it also means that the party establishment must also find a way to work with her. She seemed aware of this power dynamic when she tweeted in response to the Politico article: “To quote Alan Moore: 'None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with YOU. You’re locked up in here with ME.’”
After Bernie Sanders’s surprisingly successful run in the 2016 Democratic primaries, the Democratic Party incorporated many of his policy positions into its official platform and he was assigned a Senate Democratic leadership position, despite the fact that he’s technically an independent. Ocasio-Cortez is not yet deserving of such treatment, but the point is that the establishment was aware that it had a responsibility to acknowledge new political currents and a role to play in bridging divides.
The Politico article, though, revealed a party uneasy with the socialist wunderkind and uninterested in carving out a space for her. Quote after quote demanded that she fall in line with business as usual. Taken together, they don’t amount to a bid to incorporate a new star player into the team—instead, her colleagues are telling her to sit on the bench. In other words, this is more about defending the party’s institutional and ideological status quo than it is about unity.
But a move to sideline Ocasio-Cortez is a mistake—she has shown that she picks her battles carefully. So far she’s been a team player when it has mattered, and her dissent from the caucus is pushing the party in a direction that’s badly needed.
Read the rest at VICE.
Short notes
Talk about the Dick Cheney movie Vice is once again raising the issue of how we define the legacy of the Iraq War, and I find the language used in mainstream accounts to often be nauseating. Check out this passage of a review by Slate's Fred Kaplan:
"It can fairly be claimed, then, that Cheney is responsible for the worst strategic blunder in U.S. history, the destabilization of the Middle East, the growth of our surveillance state, and the deaths of 4,000 American troops and at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians."
Why can't we get this right?
The Iraq war was a war of aggression and a belligerent occupation predicated upon lies. "Strategic blunder" misses the mark, implying it was a technical misstep. It was a moral atrocity.
Credible estimates of Iraqi deaths go much, much higher — around half a million and higher — and should be described as such.
And given that the US voluntarily invaded and killed innocent Iraqis as part of a project of empire, media accounts should list Iraqi civilian deaths before US soldier casualties.
There is a weird and unhealthy impulse among both liberals and leftists to obsess over the idea that any leader they like should be president.
I'm thankful Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't old enough to run for the White House, because some people online are somehow already talking about her being a future president. I think she's quite compelling so far but ... she has virtually no legislative record! She's been in the public eye for less than a year! She has not really had to make any hard decisions! We have no idea how she'd manage a scandal! We don't yet know what her theory of governance actually looks like in action!
Also: Assuming she continues to do well, it would seem that contesting Sen. Chuck Schumer's seat and becoming a leader in the Senate would be a tremendous game-changer for the left.
To me, Beto O'Rourke's charisma and near-success against Cruz in Texas doesn't immediately make me think he should run for the White House, it makes me think he could replace Sen. Cornyn in Texas in 2020.
I understand that despite the fact that about 2 trillion Dems are running for president in 2020, the bench of big, obvious talent isn't actually all that deep. But without a Senate majority, and without strong leaders in the Senate, it's impossible for the left to get stuff done.
I saw the Netflix movie Cam the other day, and it was a wild ride. It's a dark and manic thriller about an up-and-coming cam girl who gets locked out of her user account and notices that she seems to have been replaced by a mysterious doppelgänger. Her quest to figure out what happened gets very creepy very quickly.
What I liked about Cam was the way it defied expectations on many levels. The movie, which was in fact written by a former cam girl, is not interested in championing or denigrating sex work, nor does it exploit the job to delve into obvious territory in a movie that presents itself as a thriller. And even through the film employ horror tropes, it is at its heart a dystopian tale. It's a dense critique of everything from corporate surveillance to the gig economy to Internet sexuality.
The protagonist is played with magnetic intensity by Madeline Brewer. The cocaine-addled camerawork and pacing of the plot simulate the experience of being online — uncomfortably fast, designed to generate constant and immediate satisfaction. And much like being online, there is a way in which things feels flattened and incomplete; the ideas don't feel as alive as they should despite how clever the script is. Finally, I suspect the ending will alienate many viewers, but I respected the way they went about it. Here's the trailer if you're interested.
What I'm reading
Oceans are heating up 40% faster than the UN estimated 5 years ago.
The pure American banality of Donald Trump's White House fast food banquet. (Beautifully written.)
Facebook's 10 year challenge is just a harmless meme, right?
Why Trump's antics regarding the wall could cost him 2020.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is driving more Twitter conversations than the the 5 most prolific news organizations combined.
...that in turn has turned corporate media into unwitting agents of socialist change.
Some superb sportswriting: Andy Murray was a real person walking among gods.
2020 contender Tulsi Gabbard once showed a lot of promise. But her hardline views on Islam, her links to anti-LGBT groups, and her positions on Bashar al-Assad have tainted that promise.
The US is starting to pull equipment out of Syria, but troops levels are the same at the moment. Nobody really knows what the hell is going on.
After 15 years of public racism, Republican Rep. Steve King is finally facing consequences in his party.
The liberal cult surrounding Ruth Bader Ginsburg can be terrifying.
Long read
How beauty is making scientists rethink evolution.
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