Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denied claims that she is secretly wealthy, stating she is worth less than $500,000 and doesn’t trade stocks or take corporate money.
Her financial disclosures show modest savings and student debt.
Some conservatives on X, despite opposing her politics, praised her perceived integrity.
Accusations of political corruption have surged online, partly fueled by Elon Musk.
She doesn’t have to start a new party. The left side of the dems should just use The Tea Party and MAGA playbook. They co-opted the GOP by pushing out Republican incumbents in local elections first. A shitton of money from the far-right went to these smaller elections. Then they moved on up and replaced Republican state senators. They created enough momentum that Trump became a viable candidate.
Push enough incumbents out and the Democrats have to take the left seriously. Plus it will normalize left wing rhetoric and policies among the populace. Screaming “cOmmUniSm” won’t work anymore when the people have seen these policies being implemented in their own communities.
Maybe my experience is biased but I don’t think shouting communism works as well as it used to anyways. Plenty of young people will hear “Communist? Then I’ll vote for her!” And the old people are getting exhausted with political hyperbole - “Communist? Yeah like every liberal what else is new.”
So, how many decades will this take, and where are we gonna get this shitton of money?
The tea party did it in two Obama terms. And the money has to come from the public. Starting a viable third party isn’t going to be easier or cheaper.
Taking over an existing party would probably be easier.
The green party is currently a shell designed to launder foreign influence in US elections. But there ain’t a lot of green party members, and fewer still vote in their party’s primaries. Compared to getting the Democratic party to move in a direction other than right or starting an entire new party from scratch, stealing the green party might be doable. Time it right and you can even make russia waste time, money, and effort trying to keep it.
And it’s not like Democrats are ever going to hold honest primaries again.
You could steal the green party but it’s not going to get you anything. You’d have to do the exact same thing of building up the party from local, to state, to federal offices. And you don’t get to drag along the people who are lifelong Democrats. You’d have to build up the green party and then take on both the Democrats and Republicans.
Without the full might of the Democratic Party stopping you from winning primaries.
As opposed to having no party and having to take on both Democrats and Republicans.
Democrats can’t put their putrid ancient mummy thumbs on the scale for general elections, unlike primaries, if we ever have any of those ever again.
If you’re a third party in the general, the deck is stacked against you even stronger than a progressive in the primary.