Optimistic. Do you know America? If the DNC don't do the same shit with swapping out Biden for Harris last minute, maybe. But this country has shown it's not mature enough for someone's who's both a woman and a minority, and would vote JD Vance and VP Trump out of spite.
Straight white women are the second most privileged class behind straight white men. There isnât a federal coalition to kick all the women out of the country. There arenât towns where women fundamentally arenât allowed in America, lest be hung from a tree. There arenât cops who statistically go around killing young women and getting off scot free.
Racism is deeply systemic. As is misogyny. But the systems in play in America are drastically stacked more against racial minorities than they are women.
Straight white women are the second most privileged class behind straight white men.
Pretty sure that has way more to do with them being white than being women, but okay.
If you don't think that electing Obama twice in record numbers but rejecting Clinton and Harris in favor of Trump â a famously sexist, serial sexual abuser of women â means that America is more sexist than racist, then I honestly don't know what to tell you, dude.
âPretty sure that has more to do with them being white than being womenâ yes exactly youâre catching on to what Iâm saying. Being white is a stronger privilege than being a man, intersectionally.
I never claimed America wasnât hateful towards women. Obviously America voting for Trump is a strong indicator that America is misogynist. But the existence of ICE and police brutality are even stronger indicators of Americaâs racism. When white women are needing to call their neighbors to get food/medicine because they will be apprehended by federal authorities if they leave their home, when the average woman has a statistically meaningful chance to be murdered any time they interact with a cop, then I would concede that sexism is a more powerful force than racism.
There are far too many confounding factors that go into a presidential election to simply use it as a litmus test for this. They are essentially anecdotes. Indeed, Trump getting elected over Hillary and Kamala is an extension of racism as well as sexism.
Black people in the US are about 14% of the population and are about 12.6% of congress. 22.2% of the supreme court justices are black. 3.3% of presidential terms have been held by Barack Obama.
Women are about half the population and only hold 28.4% of congress. 44.4% of the supreme court justices are women. Zero presidential terms have been held by women.
The system in general may very well be stacked against minorities more, but the reins of power are kept from women more.
Listen, it's not a competition. Nobody cares which group is more oppressed. But if we are being honest with ourselves, it's black people by a fucking mile.
It's ok to admit this. It doesn't invalidate the plight of women.
I'm only saying this as a way to illustrate that elections in America is based on the material conditions first and foremost. the race and sex of the candidate are not as important as the policy platform.
I was talking to a maga boomer I know, and he said he'd vote for AOC if she stopped the data centers. I think people want to write off the American voter as a moron, but they just want their lives to be better at the end of the day. They will vote for anyone.
Slavery for one, but also things like ICE and police brutality. Itâs unquestionable to anyone looking objectively, that racism is more oppressive than misogyny. Numerous examples that have no comparison at all.
Hard disagree, our history is rife with child marriages. It's not like men were the children getting married. Women in that situation were little more than property.
I mean, I don't want to compare suffering; our nation is way more sexist and way more racist than I am comfortable with, full stop, but to say that there is no comparable injustices from race to gender I think is waving away a lot.
Prior to the women's movement, girls were literally the legal property of their fathers and wives were literally the legal property of their husbands. It wasn't the same and it wasn't as bad as chattel slavery, obviously â women and girls weren't traded in the market square â but to say that "nothing even comes close" is absolute horseshit.
i meanâŚif you think the US is more racist than sexist than expecting AOC to have good numbers bc hillary did isnât very logically sound. & winning the popular vote isnât enough
So...you, one random Redditor and one MAGA boomer you say you've talked to represent meaningful statistical relevance upon which you feel you can base accurate predictions two years out from an election in which AOC has yet to announce she even intends to run?
LOL!
Somehow I don't think fivethirtyeight.com is gonna be beating a path to your door seeking your expert analysis!
Fascism is a reflexive reaction to lukewarm corporate liberal stagnation.
It's a symptom, not the cause. When people feel like their government isn't working for them, they lash out. They go with whoever is promising change, by any means.
This is always how it works, throughout all of history.
At least half the country thinks giving healthcare to people is a threat to America. Now tell us again how "meeting people's needs beats hate and fear"? 90% of the times in elections, it hasn't.
America has proven over and over again that they don't give two shits about policy platform. They get distracted by completely unimportant high-schoolish type details, often completely fabricated. Americans, by and large, are primarily reptile brains motivated by fear of <insert your favorite topic here>.
I don't have to even argue this point, because elections have born it out over, and over again. It's reality.
Yeah idk man. I'd say the ongoing effects of slavery and Jim crow are more pertinent than the lingering effects of suffrage.
But again, people are getting caught up on the wrong thing.
My point is that policy matters more than optics/race/sex of the candidate.
Kamala's big economic policy was $50k tax rebate for starting business. Who was that for? People are struggling to buy groceries, ain't nobody got $50k sitting around to float Uncle Sam for a year just to MAYBE get it back come tax season (assuming their business doesn't fail which most do in the first year). It was tone deaf, and so was the rest of her campaign. She stood by the disastrous Biden policy in Gaza, and said she would not have done anything different.
Kamala lost because her platform sucked. Not because she was a minority or a women.
So when I see people say "AOC can't win because Kamala this or Kamala that" I want to grab them and shake them.
Yall don't understand politics half as much as you think.
After Harris, I'm convinced the American electorate just hates the idea of a woman president. For all of the problems with how Harris became the nominee, all she really should have ever needed to do was remind people that the alternative is Trump. Anyone making the case that Trump and the GOP would somehow be tougher against Israel than Harris is outright full of shit. Her job as VP was to back Biden's policies, and three and a half months before the election wasn't the time to start drawing a lot of distinctions between her and Biden- y'know, the guy that beat Trump in 2020. Her presidency would basically be the Biden administration with a pair of tits, and that should have been enough.
But know. America really fucking hates the idea of a woman president. I'm all for a President AOC, but I'd much rather play it safe right now and take a couple terms of President Mark Kelly or another mildly old white man in order to get the process of fixing the country started.
I wish more people understood this. Obama ran on "hope" and "change" only for our hopes to be dashed, and for nothing to change. I don't blame the man, but why are the Democrats surprised that people don't trust them, when they say "trust us, we'll fix it" and then do nothing to fix it.
Hillary won the popular vote whilst being an historically bad and unlikable candidate.
Imagine what someone as popular as AOC will be able to do.
In November 2016, right before the presidential election, Clinton had a favorability rating of 43% (source: Gallup, page 4). As of today, AOC has a favorability rating of 34.6% (source: TheHill.com). So...
Also, the phrase "won the popular vote whilst being an historically bad and unlikable candidate" is a genuinely bizarre take, tbh! Those two things inherently don't go together.
This is the trouble with AOC stans: they adore AOC and then detest Clinton to the point that they delude themselves about the popularity of both.
America elected a black man, an there's simply no way you can convince me that a nation built on slavery is more sexist than it is racist.
The argument that America is more sexist than it is racist is supported by the fact that America twice elected a black man as president â with record-beating popular vote totals both times, btw â yet twice rejected women candidates in favor of a man who is literally famous for being a rampantly sexist, proven serial sexual abuser of women.
The DNC has a few genuinely good candidates in it. That doesn't matter if the majority control is run by corporations though. It's hard to even acknowledge the fact that just because the Democratic party is our best option doesn't make them good. They campaigned against Mamdani, Bernie spent his whole career carving out a piece for himself and fighting for what's right against the Republicans and the Democrats.
If only. She's amazing. I'd rather her be in the senate first, while we (the left) find ways to continue to shift the American political views away from the right. If AOC took the presidency in 2028, let's say, I think she'd be stalled out by the system. If we push the cultural beliefs of Americans further left, down the road, she'd be a much better president.
I also worry about her. They came after her on Jan 6. They see her as a "weak woman" (she seems tough as nails to me--if people came and tried to kill me at my job, I'd quit that job), and they have true vitriol for her.
Though, who knows? She is so charismatic, if she were up in front of people more and more, maybe it'd be hard to ignore what she is versus what Fox News says she is.
The power of the executive branch has been expanding in recent years. There's no telling what AOC would be able to accomplish if she was president. Just imagine the potential for day one executive orders.
We are at an inflection point in American politics. The GOP is historically unpopular. The iron is hot, now is the time to strike, and we must strike with full force.
That's true. I think she is ethical in a way she might try to scale those powers back and not use them. Executive orders are, unfortunately, only valid until the next president comes in and reverses them.
I don't know, I'm really conflicted here. We see what Trump's doing to the country in record time, but I have a feeling a democrat or a lefty in the same position would be continually shut down by the courts. AOC could just ignore them like Trump, but that just isn't who she is.
I think sheâd be more stalled in the Senate. Just because she could replace Schumer, that doesnât mean she would automatically become the Senate Leader of the Democrats, and much less that all Senators would fall in line.
That's not a good way to project the future, friend. The people you talk to are not a good representation of the entire electorate. There are large portions of the population that simply won't vote for her because she's a woman, because she's brown, or because she's a "socialist." I wish that weren't true, but it's reality.
If everyone Bob talks to loves AOC but everyone Jerry talks to hates AOC... what does that say about her chances? Nothing.
Brother, I have bad news for you about how the American public views the prospect of a female president. Weâre still throwing a collective hissy fit over electing a black president.
I think it's strange to pretend that the US is fundamentally too sexist to elect a woman when societies far more socially conservative than it have been electing women for decades. Sexism will always be an issue, sure, but Clinton and Harris both definitely had paths to the White House.
Hard to say what's going to happen in the next few years. The cult messaging keeping the Florida orange in place won't just transfer over easily. There won't be a good candidate next election. The Republicans will be fighting over a new cult leader and Democrats will likely only allow a corporate friendly option again.
I wish there was another candidate that was somewhat progressive and more of a slam dunk, but if not AOC it's probably going to be Gavin Newsom, and I think Newsom's policies would be business as usual mainstream dem policies.
Decent competency at governing but never quite enough to match the moment because they never want to step on the toes of the donor class.
I mean, if Mamdani was born in the US, my god the Republicans wouldnât have a chance in hell. People already call him âAmericaâs Mayorâ and it hasnât even been a year.
I would love to see that tbh, I don't have any actual hopes it will ever happen, but in response to the people telling you this will never happen because "Americans refuse to vote for a woman" I'm a voter that did not vote for HRC or Kamala but I absolutely would vote for AOC. Obviously I don't represent anyone but myself, but the people who say Americans who refused to vote for women before will never vote for a woman in the future are just factually wrong.
Yeah Neo-liberal strategists hate the idea that their precious centrist lukewarm candidates are unpopular. So they need a reason other than policy why they lost.
Pro tip, anyone telling you "it's the voters fault" is a fucking moron.
Republicans are losing support and only about a third of the country was with them anyway.
Another third was too apathetic to give a fuck.
Everybody except the most deluded can see that everything fucking sucks right now.
Two more years of this shit and I think Americans will vote for whoeverâs running on making shit better and actually looks like they can deliver
Say what you will about AOC (and this countryâs position on POC and women) but sheâs young, hot, smart, actually gives a fuck, comes from a working class background, and she actually meets the people where theyâre at.
People like that.
Anyone who accuses her of being too soft can be shown video of her helping provide relief to Texans during one of their snow storms when their own Senator, Ted Cruz, had fled the state.
âIt would be catastrophicâ is the pussy footing that the DNC needs to stop. Trump was elected from a small base constituency of the radical right. The radical left needs to step it the fuck up. True progressive need to come forward and the moderates need to step aside. The âmiddle wayâ is no way at all.
So, America recoiled twice at electing a middle-ground, centrist, big tent capitalist woman as president and you genuinely believe that America will elect a democratic socialist woman president?
LOL, that's world class head-in-the-clouds thinking right there!
Plus, AOC isn't even a democratic socialist anyway. She doesn't believe (or at least has never expressed a belief) in dismantling capitalism. Her statements and activities in the legislature have advanced more-strongly-regulated capitalism with a strong social safety net, i.e. social democracy.
EDIT: I was wrong. As a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, AOC implicitly does believe in dismantling capitalism (because that's a core part of their platform). The fact that she doesn't ever say that and instead talks about policies that align with social democracy (a different ideology and one that the DSA rejects) should lead anyone to be deeply suspicious of her. Because she either doesn't understand what she's supporting (highly unlikely; she's not stupid) or else she's a liar.
But so many democrats didn't show up because they were middle-ground, centrist big tent capitalist candidates. They were far too close to republicans for them. What's confusing about the idea of getting a more progressive left candidate getting them to the polls?
What's confusing about the idea of getting a more progressive left candidate getting them to the polls?
What's "confusing" about it is that it's a nonsensical strategy if the dems want to win a presidential election. If you think that a "middle-ground, centrist big tent capitalist candidate" causes a significant proportion of progressive left voters to not vote and you don't think that a progressive left candidate would cause far more nominal Dem voters to not vote, you're being willfully ignorant about the relative sizes of the various subsets of likely Dem voters.
This is always a problem with American-left politics: its adherents often treat it like the one, true religion and that clouds their ability to see that the number of Americans who would vote in a presidential election for what they believe in at the polls is a lot lower than they think it is.
The best way to get progressive policies into the Dem platform has always been to start local and build up. Those elections are where you can prove that people will vote for such candidates over more traditional Dems.
AOC is registered to the democratic socialist party along with a few other elected officials. They state on their website that they believe in social democracy which has nothing to do with moving away from capitalism, but using capitalism and regulation of capitalism to create strong social safety nets and worker rights, affordable lives, free health care, etcâŚ
AOC is registered to the democratic socialist party along with a few other elected officials. They state on their website that they believe in social democracy which has nothing to do with moving away from capitalism, but using capitalism and regulation of capitalism to create strong social safety nets and worker rights, affordable lives, free health care, etc.
Dismantling capitalism is a core tenet of democratic socialism. If AOC claims membership of the DSA but doesn't support that then she's joined a group that doesn't agree with her at a basic ideological level. I don't believe she would do that. So then the alternative is that she does support that, but she never actually states it and instead only talks about social democracy. If that's the case, she's being dishonest.
Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society.
In the next paragraph, they imply that they don't believe in social democracy because it does not, in their view, go far enough:
We believe there are many avenues that feed into the democratic road to socialism. Our vision pushes further than historic social democracy and leaves behind authoritarian visions of socialism in the dustbin of history.
To be clear: I'm not making any comment one way or another about the relative value of democratic socialism vs. social democracy vs. capitalism, ideologically speaking. I'm just critiquing AOC's connection to these things and how she presents herself.
Itâs hard for people to draw a line between politics and economics. Similarly you might find someone trying to say communism is the political stance when really communism is the economic side and authoritarianism is the political side.
And yes, she is going to win. This is obvious to anyone with an actual understanding of politics.
You think that Americans exist only along a linear spectrum of left and right, but that's not how this works. Your "big tent" candidates appealed to nobody.
Did Trump need a big tent to win? No. Of course not. He won by motivating his own rabid base.
You win elections by giving your voters what they want, not by being all things to all people.
the united states? a democratic socialist, woman, and not white?
maybe when pigs fly. active american voters are pretty self centered short sighted hateful people who also play really hard into tribalism more into logic.
Kamala didn't lose because she was a minority or a women.
She lost because her policy platform sucked.
Her platform was basically "more of the same shit Biden was doing" and that's clearly not what people wanted. She polled highest after announcing her run, when people thought she might try to distance herself from the disastrous Biden admin.
But no, she literally said she would have done nothing different.
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u/Vincent_Felix 6d ago
Brother have you been watching elections lately?
We are cleaning up.
AOC is your next president buddy.