Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) lost her bid to lead Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, defeated 131-84 by Rep. Gerry Connolly in a secret caucus vote.
Reports suggest former Speaker Nancy Pelosi actively lobbied against AOC, backing Connolly by making calls and using political capital to sway votes.
Connolly, 74, cited his experience and record as decisive factors in his victory, despite progressive disappointment over AOC’s loss.
Supporters viewed AOC’s bid as a chance to revitalize Democratic strategy, calling the outcome a missed opportunity for the party.
It’s great to see the Democrats have learned absolutely nothing and continue to refuse to evolve.
Why would they? American 2 party system just means they have infinite job security, funding and no reason to adapt. So you can either choose flawed Democrats or literal idiots. What will you do?
I genuinely confused how people expect things to be different here. I’m not an American so maybe I’m missing something, but this genuinely seems a system design flaw rather than anything else.
Oh there are many of us across the political spectrum that are aware of how our two party system fails us. For the record, I don’t expect things to be different but in light of how bad things are it’s hard not to get my hopes up especially when there’s a good chance at meaningful change.
Many of us are becoming further and further disillusioned with our political system. However, things are changing slowly. Municipalities are introducing ranked choice voting systems and there are efforts to expand that to the state level. Maybe someday we’ll put this mess behind us.
A bunch of (5 states) ranked choice voting ballot measures were just rejected directly by citizens, and another went so far as to ban it, and many red states have already done that. Team money won by convincing the public to vote against their own interests. Sorry to bear bad news, maybe there’s something else to be hopeful about still but I’m not seeing it. The only good news I’ve heard in American politics since the election was within the last few weeks, and it gets you banned on most of the Internet for saying so.
They learned alright. They learned that they don’t need to win elections to rake in billions in donations. They just have to put in a half-hearted effort and the cash will roll in. They really do not care if they win or lose. They also don’t care what happens to us when fascists take over as long as there there’s enough zeroes in the DNC checking accounts.
I don’t think they’re ignorant, they’d just rather support the fascists than the progressives.
Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
It’s not their fault they keep loosing, it’s the voters who are too dumb to understand that Democrats are marginally better than fascists. /s
Why would they learn anything? The entire .world instance, Dem Reddit/Twitter, etc. does nothing but run defense for them, tell everyone they need to vote for them no matter what, and browbeat everyone who engages in criticism of the party during every election season, local and national.
It’s your duty to vote to stop fascism (again). I’m so tired of that message. They can earn my vote, I’ve tried stopping fascism twice now, what have they done besides maintain the status quo
OK, but the alternative is allowing fascism, which is worse than voting for the status quo.
We just needed to hold on until the boomers died.
Turns out constantly voting for the status quo when it is shit got us to fascism anyway!
Boomers disappearing won’t fix this, they’ve already indoctrinated members of Gen Z. The problem wasn’t that being born at a specific time made you a conservative, it’s that conservatism requires a lot of idiots to support it. They’ve bred their fresh crop of idiots, and they won’t stop digging their hooks in until we unfuck private media ownership and enforce education standards.
The Democrats are a deeply unserious party even as fascism approaches. They might get what they deserve but the rest of us will have to suffer because of their arrogance. Again.
They will let fascists take over as long as it means they don’t need to share their wealth.
The Democrats promoted Trump’s words because they thought he would be an easy victory. It just gave him free ad time and enabled dipshits to vote for him.
The Democrats promoted Trump’s actions in ads because it raised campaign revenue for the 2018 Midterms and 2020. Dipshits just saw them and went “He’s hurting the people I hate, based and redpilled!!”
The Democrats copied Republican talking points with COVID, Trans people, police brutality and funding, the border “crisis” and then wondered why a fascist voting base doesn’t want a non-white woman running on the platform of “Back to 2016 Trump’s America”.
They would rather have fascists run America because fascists don’t hurt the bottom line and don’t threaten the rich, only the working class.
The Democrats copied Republican talking points with COVID, Trans people, police brutality and funding, the border “crisis”
I don’t remember any of that happening.
a non-white woman running on the platform of “Back to 2016 Trump’s America”.
Treason Trump gave rich people and corporations a gigantic tax cut and raised taxes people making under 75k. Kamala was going to raise taxes on corporations and lower taxes on the middle classes. Tax rates are the #1 thing everyone should be focusing on because wealth inequality is the driver of almost all other problems.
74? Man, I’m so tired of these old fucks… Except Bernie. That guy actually represents his constituents.
I would vote for the ghost of Bernie Sanders. I’m not talking about a hypothetical ghost either because Bernie isn’t a fucking liar and wouldn’t want folks to have faith that he exists. He’d fly right up to the microphone with that badass accent of his and let the assholes have it just like he does now, only with supernatural powers that come with being a ghost.
of course, being a gentleman, Ghost Bernie always gets permission before possessing someone.
Man, the DNC really hates young people. :( smh.
DNC just hates leftists, age doesn’t really matter.
No, they have a thing about not giving power to young people. Everyone has to wait their turn which means not getting leadership positions until you’re at least 70.
I didn’t know Bernie was young.
He also runs as independent, specifically because the Democratic party pulls this shit
They can hate two things.
I mean, it does seem like they have a particularly pointed disdain of young leftists/progresives.
they can hate two things
The DNC hates anyone remotely left of center and absolutely LOVE anyone right of center.
But have the young people tried being born rich?
Isn’t Pelosi supposed to be in an ER with a fractured ego or some shit?
I’m just sitting here hoping her recovery is as pleasant as she is.
Absolutely pathetic that Democrats elected a 74 year old with ethical issues with insider trading and esophageal cancer as the leader.
Really putting the Democratic party looking towards the future and ensuring they have a new vision that might actually win them elections with this new face forward.
God, Democrats are stupid and corrupt and again very glad of my decision a decade ago to never donate to Democrats again unless progressives are the leaders and not these old, out of touch, oligarch supporters.
Jeez and they wonder why they lose elections, first Bernie, now AOC.
They’re not losing elections. They’re improving value to shareholders.
The DNC broke every fundraising record they previously had. They only lost the election by our metrics, they all got fabulously paid this year.
[Both feet profusely bleeding from shooting off each toe] “I’m good to run for 4 more years!”
Nancy wants to burn 🔥 the USA down as long as she and her friends stay wealthy
The oligarchs want fascism. What more could a sociopath capitalist want than a fusion of their corporations and the state; a state sanctioned too-big-to-fail monopoly that is protected and enforced by the military, with socialized losses, and privatized profits?
Competition is for chumps, and npthing more than a self serving virtue signal they will abandon for higher profits; like all the other virtues they never possessed.
The last thing a crook like polosi wants in power is someone who is at heart a decent person.
Nobody cares what Pelosi wants. Her name was included in the title as clickbait trolling.
Surely at this point AOC is going to be in the conversation to run for president in four years. She might not be the frontrunner, but she’s a notable Democrat with a great record.
The best thing to do would be to have them on-side, and working towards a common goal. By alienating her, that battle for her to get the nomination is going to just be more painful. Her platform will be more progressive, because she’ll be stuck in her convictions through being isolated by her party. Her attitude to the old guard will be less about protecting them for their service, and more to do with getting dead wood out.
IMO, anyone that values a progressive platform should back AOC for president right now. Set the wheels in motion, push for stuff you’d think you’d never get, like disarming America, huge tax increases on those earning $1m+, and providing free healthcare.
IMO, anyone that values a progressive platform should back AOC for president right now.
So less than 10% of the senate.
Pelosi is a fucking joke, and its insane that the democratic party bends over backwards to kiss the ass of a corpse that encapsulates all of their failings, rather than embrace young populists within the party.
Democrats lose when they allow their rich donors and geriatic leadership to make decisions that should be made by the voters, or at least in accordance with the best interest of the voters.
Pelosi is a fucking joke, and its insane that the democratic party bends over backwards to kiss the ass of a corpse that encapsulates all of their failings, rather than embrace young populists within the party.
Nobody cares what Pelosi thinks about anything. Nobody changed their vote because Pelosi called them. Her name was included in the title as a clickbait headline to troll people.
Can you prove this?
No, I have not talked to all 131 people who voted against AOC. But unfortunately she would have needed 50 more votes to win. There is no way Pelosi caused AOC to lose. She is not the Speaker and has no power anymore. But the person who wrote this article knew that by including the word “Pelosi”, they could get more people to read the story.
I would advise people to find out how their own congressperson voted. And if they voted for the wrong person than call their office. You have just as much of a voice as Pelosi does.
Right, it’s not like she has a reputation as an incredibly powerful influence in the party or anything. /s
She got sacked over the fact that she doesn’t oppose incumbents being primaried… In find it so ironic that a party labeled as democratic refuses the simple act of choosing leaders via popular vote…
One issue Ocasio-Cortez had to confront was her past support for primary challengers to incumbent House Democrats — a sore subject for many lawmakers.
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/17/aoc-loses-gerry-connolly-democrats-oversight
This is exactly how Rep. Pelosi is going to run again unopposed in two years
Primarying incumbents who wouldn’t go along with them is how the far right took control of the GOP so of course the DNC is scared. That’s exactly how we can take control of it.
[Supporters viewed AOC’s bid as a chance to revitalize Democratic strategy, calling the outcome a missed opportunity for the party.]
While it would be great to see AOC win this, the reporter is really overstating things in order to drive engagement. The House Oversight Committee has a limited area of responsibility, so how would AOC “revitalize Democratic strategy” in any general way? Why can’t AOC “revitalize Democratic strategy” in a general way without being head of this committee? Other Dems will either listen to her or they won’t.
Sentiment.
Humans are a social species as well and someone more left in leadership would probably change things.
god dammit that broken hip didn’t do its fucking job
This will cause quite a stir.
Nah, they’ll all just sit and take it and so will we.
We have thusfar.
