Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused establishment Democrats of treating her “like shit” as progressive activists urged her to run for president in 2028.

In a 100-minute long video posted on Instagram, the 37-year-old congresswoman from New York said that the party had a “remarkable opportunity” to pass left-wing policies after the midterm elections. She also accused the party’s leadership of starving funds from left-wing candidates during the campaign.

“There’s this huge conversation about candidates that were under invested in,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She cited Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who came within 240,000 votes of flipping Florida from red to blue, but ultimately lost to the Republican candidate Ashley Moody.

“If Angie Nixon had just had a little bit of that support, that outcome could have changed. But that money has to come from somewhere and it comes from these people,” Ocasio-Cortez said in reference to the party’s Senate leadership.

Reflecting on the period after she was first elected to Congress in 2018 at the age of 29, Ocasio-Cortez accused senior Democrats of being “horrifically cruel” to her. “I mean I was treated like shit,” she said. “Everybody took a swing at me.”

The Bronx congresswoman is seen as the likeliest progressive candidate to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.

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[–] 238 points 1 day ago (14 children)
  • [+] -54 points 1 day ago* (13 children)

    I love her, but Congress needs to change its makeup first to be all progressive and pass progressive legislations that will turn successful before she has any chance of presidency.

    As of right now if she would run I expect she would lose. I think people want to give progressives a chance but likely would still be hesitant until progressives prove themselves.

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  • [–] 117 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

    I’ve literally heard these sentiments my entire life, and progressives keep proving it wrong every time.

    The latest was my dad saying, “well of course a progressive could win in New York, but not anywhere else in the country.”

    I think the nation has shown multiple times in the past decade that what we really don’t want is another fucking status quo democrat. The country is desperate for change, and if the democrats and people with your sentiment would take their foot off progressives’ necks and stand behind us instead, progressives could actually make this country great (for the first time, btw).

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  • [–] 59 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    This is exactly why Hillary lost, FWIW. People were tired of establishment dems being in control. They wanted a shakeup. And in response to that, Dems ran the very personification of the establishment. Hillary was the face of everything that people hated about democrats.

    As far as the establishment saw it, she had done her time as a good little soldier, paid her dues promptly, sang the party’s songs, danced the party’s dances, and was “owed” the chance at a presidency because of that. Not because she was the best candidate for the people, but because she was the one who best embodied the establishment that Dems wanted to uphold.

    Instead, people voted for the candidate who promised exactly what people wanted: A shakeup. Trump wasn’t a good candidate during his first campaign, but he did promise an end to the old status quo. And to a lot of voters, that was the only thing that mattered.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago* (3 children)

    A bit more context on Clinton: The DNC was pretty much broke and their finances were a mess. Clinton came in and cleaned house and raised a bunch of money and basically saved the DNC from total insolvency. In return for saving their asses, her campaign was given a lot of control over the DNC. She had control of finances and hiring and firing.

    How did the DNC get in such bad financial shape in the 1st place? Was it just incompetance or was there also fraud? If you’re a high level DNC leader, do you owe Clinton for saving your job or do you owe her for preventing a scandal that could land you in jail?

    All this to say, from the outside it looks like “she put in her time, it’s her turn” but from the inside it’s more “we’ve totally fucked up and if we don’t let her take the wheel we will be jobless, disgraced and possibly sued or jailed”

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  • [–] 15 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

    That Clinton fundraising didn't save the DNC, it destroyed its soul.

    Do you think those millions of dollars of corporate cash came without strings? Of course not. After accepting this money, the DNC was all-in on support for the military industrial complex, wall street, health insurers, etc.

    This had horrible effects on DNC policy in the following years- supporting the forever wars, abandoning the public option, bailing out wall street while abandoning working people... So many horrible things were set in motion by this Clinton corruption.

    Before the Clinton sellout we had one corporate party and one moderate party. After the sellout we only have 2 corporate parties to choose from.

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  • [–] 8 points 16 hours ago

    Do you think those millions of dollars of corporate cash came without strings?

    No. I do not. And I never said otherwise.

    I was not in any way saying that this was a good thing.

    Before the Clinton sellout we had one corporate party and one moderate party. After the sellout we only have 2 corporate parties to choose from.

    Are you talking about Bill? Cuz the DNC has been all about the donors for a long time. Hillary definitely made it worse (as did citizens united) but they’ve been pretty mid (at best) almost my whole life.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Bruh, Texas just turned blue. Anything is possible rn.

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  • [–] 8 points 23 hours ago (1 child)

    If you look at the answers to surveys people were providing during voting it looks like top issues were affordability and corruption/concerns about democracy.

    Progressives are given a chance and need to deliver on it otherwise they will be treated like trump (remember he promised a lot of that too)

    The 2028 might not get the same boost, although I hope it will.

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  • [–] 1 point 14 hours ago

    Mamdani has delivered undeniable results, El-Sayed pulled off the impossible and his ideas make sense, not in a Trump way, in a common sense way. Many of these candidates were outspent 20 to one or more and they won, previously thought so unlikely as to be impossible. Bernie and AOC's rallies were packed in every city, compared to Trump having to pay what little people he had at his rallies. The country is ready and any more arguments to the contrary are not in good faith imo.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 hours ago

    You expect she would lose because you're not recognizing the material conditions of the moment.

    People want change. People demand change. A progressive president and a supermajority has the potential to do so much good.

    And if it doesn't, the people's contradictions will get worse and worse to the point they'll take matters into their own hands.

    I'd expect better from my instance. But then again, people of my instance are all anarchists who want to throw away all governments without considering how this would affect normal, working class people. Y'all have no solution for improving people's lives.

    Be socialist instead

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  • [–] 174 points 1 day ago (8 children)

    The old guard has helped republicans turn this country into a facist shit hole.

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  • [–] 38 points 23 hours ago (1 child)

    Yes. They’re all ratchet democrats who are in it only for the corporate dollars.

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  • [–] 16 points 22 hours ago

    Honestly you are being too generous. They want the oligarchy to rule this country, they just disagree with Republicans on how to accomplish that.
    They think they should throw some crumbs to working people and pay lip service to democracy so the people don't oppose the. Too much.

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  • [+] -13 points 1 day ago* (5 children)

    It's "fascist", and Republicans did that just fine on their own.

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  • [–] 62 points 1 day ago (9 children)

    I remember Pelosi especially was vicious. AOC didn't get brave again for a year + after that shit. Great point about Angie, she would have won with minimal support. We need to form a 3rd party, enough is enough.

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  • [–] 26 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

    Nah, take over the Democratic party from the inside. Like the tea party did, which paved the way for maga inside the Republican party. Without first fixing our voting system, third parties do nothing but harm

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  • [–] 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

    I agree with you in principle, but the tea party was an astroturf movement so a very different situation. A progressive takeover of the Democratic party could get much more ugly. That majority the Dems now enjoy, includes DINOs like Fetterman, and centrist/establishment types like Schumer and Pelosi. They are facing an existential threat to their kind of politics (the kind where you sell your soul to corporate donors and AIPAC). If push comes to shove, I wouldn't be surprised if they side with the GOP, choosing to scupper the Democratic party rather than work with a progressive agenda.

    I want it to happen, just don't expect it will happen without a hard and dirty fight. The powers behind the political establishment do NOT want this.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 hours ago

    The Democratic Socialists of America are seeing a surge in political power over the last few election cycles. The DSA alone now has over 130,000 active, dues paying members.

    Why the fuck should we throw that all away now?

    We can take over the Democratic party, and in doing so, push the Right-wing Democrats to the Republican party and eliminate the current GOP altogether. There is a future where we permanently shift the Overton Window left.

    Y'all want to kneecap progress when we haven't even gotten started yet.

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  • [–] 35 points 19 hours ago (18 children)

    I will vote for her in the primary and happily the general election if she wins the primary. I certainly hope she does.

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  • [–] 7 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

    I'd consider voting for her in the general even if she lost the primary.

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  • [–] 12 points 16 hours ago (1 child)

    If only we had ranked choice voting nationwide

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  • [–] 10 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

    It's as obvious to them as it is to us. It would be naive to think they don't know. At this point everyone against RCV is telling us who they really support by their actions.

    AOC supports ranked choice voting and that's why she'll likely get my vote.

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  • [+] -14 points 9 hours ago (14 children)

    If she’s the democratic candidate then democrats are dummer then I thought. It’s been proven the US will not vote in a women president. Boomers won’t, Muslims won’t, orthodox Jewish won’t. Uber religious Catholics won’t. Just too much change at once will ruin the it for her. 10:years from now maybe.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. We have had a decade since then. I think you are also way over-generalizing the groups you mention.

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  • [–] -5 points 9 hours ago

    Last time I checked we still have the electoral college. I should have used that example as well as to why a female president won’t happen yet. I say 10 years as that’s when many older boomers will be dead. A see of change will happen in Washington as millennials step up to the plate to control the white house

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  • [–] 6 points 7 hours ago

    I would say it's been proven that Democrats, mostly progressives, won't vote for a candidate who spouts conservative values. Which is what both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris did. For fuck's sake Kamala Harris graciously accepted the endorsement by fucking Dick Cheney and his piece of shit daughter. Literally the moment she did that I knew we lost the race.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 hours ago (6 children)

    you have no idea what you're talking about, so you should stop.

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  • [–] -3 points 5 hours ago (5 children)

    I have a pretty good idea what I’m talking about

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  • [–] 5 points 5 hours ago (4 children)

    obviously, you think you do.

    you don't.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

    More people voted for Hillary Clinton than Trump.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago (1 child)

    Yeah but we have an electoral college so that doesn’t matter and many of the small rural states aren’t the voting women type

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  • [–] 1 point 26 minutes ago

    Sure. My point is that the plurality of voters would vote in a woman, and tried to.

    I'm not saying it's more likely than not, but something like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is possible.

    So, the US as a people would vote in a woman but our antidemocratic political system fucks it up.

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