March 24, 2025 - 6:30pm
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not yet on her way to becoming the Democratic Party’s next presidential nominee. But the 35-year-old New York congresswoman is positioning herself well for a run. Bernie Sanders, the 83-year-old Vermont senator who was the standard-bearer for the party’s Left wing in 2016 and 2020, has all but officially designated Ocasio-Cortez his heir. Under the banner of “Fighting Oligarchy”, the two have been holding rallies together which draw crowds of impressively presidential proportions. On Friday, more than 30,000 people turned out to hear them in Denver.
Sanders, of course, fell short of winning his party’s nomination on the two occasions that he ran for president. At the time, his fellow Democrats believed that his Left-wing brand of populism would bring defeat. Is Ocasio-Cortez now giving them a reason to change their minds? Still in her mid-thirties, she would bring much-needed youthful vigour to a decaying party, but her prospects for 2028 depend less on whether she’s a better messenger than Sanders than on whether the time has come for their message.
Donald Trump showed what Right-wing populism can achieve. Should Democrats have faith that Left-wing populism can do as well or better? Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris both lost to Trump by running as anti-populists, upholders of elite respectability in the face of a challenge to the establishment. Joe Biden campaigned that way, too — and won. But in retrospect, his success in 2020, not Trump’s in 2016, appears to be the exception.
In fact, populism, broadly understood, has an impressive record and in recent decades has twice rescued Democrats from their doldrums. Bill Clinton styled himself as a populist when he defeated President George H.W. Bush in 1992. Barack Obama’s political inexperience wound up being a strength, rather than a liability, when he took on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008 and subsequently won the White House. In short, Americans like political outsiders.
What they don’t like, however, are ideologues. Rather than subscribing strictly to any particular ideology, many voters simply dislike much of the country’s leadership class in politics, business, and culture. Campaigning against those leaders is therefore a good starting point. Voters want more economic opportunity for themselves, so populists who promise not only to make the country richer but to share the wealth more widely tend to receive an eager hearing. Given how off-putting undiluted Left- or Right-wing ideology is for the average American, though, populism cannot afford to be too philosophical. After all, too much consistency in applying abstract principles leads to political positions which strike the average American as perverse.
Trump understood all this intuitively. He denounced the leadership of both political parties and much of American society, not even sparing the military. He promised to bring back jobs, and this promise — rather than the fine details of how it would be fulfilled — was what voters responded to.
With Republicans now in power, Democrats have an opportunity to stand as an anti-establishment party. If Ocasio-Cortez can convince voters that her economic message is based around common sense rather than ideological Leftism, she may be able to outflank the 2028 Republican nominee, who will be in the position of having to defend whatever condition the economy is in by then.
The final lesson of successful populism will be the most difficult for AOC, however. Not only must she avoid the extremes to which Left-wing theory leads — on gender, immigration, and defunding the police, for example — she also must be seen to rebuke the ideologues on behalf of ordinary people, the way Bill Clinton rebuked the anti-cop “Sister Souljah” wing of his party and Trump often defies the strictures of movement conservatism.
Without the good luck of a bad economy and an appeal to voters’ common sense, AOC is unlikely to go any further than Bernie ever went. Yet she’s young and knows the road back to power for Democrats begins with denouncing establishment politics and promising Americans a better deal. And if Ocasio-Cortez is too much a prisoner of progressive ideology to capitalise on the opportunity she recognises, someone else — seeing what works for her as well as what doesn’t — will soon enough become the Democrats’ answer to Trump.
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SubscribeThere’s no way the Democrats are going to put up a candidate that’s visibly uncomfortable debating ideas with Republicans. I’m shocked that Ro Khanna is not on the Democrat list of options.
A bare minimum requirement is going to be for the Democrat candidate to be able to go on Conservative media or podcasts and not get rattled.
That will be the test. Can she debate the issues without resorting to the standards of neoliberal globalism or the oppressor/oppressed narratives that dominate the woke/DEI crowd. There are certain phrases, and we all pretty much know what they are, that will cause a certain set of voters to sigh and politely ignore everything else that politician says. AOC has done a lot of this in the past, and it will be hard for her to live down some of her stupider on camera moments.
In this, she really should take a page out of Trump’s book. Trump turned it into a conflict with the media and elites and their reactions became part of his narrative. He was the plain speaking pragmatist speaking the language of the common man and turned his own fight with the media into a struggle between the common man and the intellectual/cultural elites. From what I’ve seen, I just don’t see her as being able to pull this off. It’s not as easy as Trump makes it look.
No way in Hades AOC is going to win the next Demo presidential nomination, much less become president. There is way too much video of her espousing extremely unpopular views. She’s been far too deep in Wokism for far too long to run away from it now or later.
Ah yes, because no politician has ever flip-flopped, rebranded, or walked back previous statements before. Next thing you’ll tell me is that people don’t change their minds when they want power! Step into Tunnel Rush, where every second counts as you weave through a never-ending maze of obstacles, chasing your personal best.
I don’t think she’s bright enough to pull off a reverse ferret on the scale that would be needed.
Come on, let her try.
Many of her woke rantings are the opposite of common sense, so her chances of faking that sufficiently to “appeal to voters” successfully in future are next to zero.
That’s funny. Moderates remember her “social justice” excesses and radicals remember how she sold out to Pelosi with barely a fight. Both are going to hound her future ambitions.
Given that a very large proportion of Trump supporters are former Sanders supporters, a sort of Leftist populism probably would win more support than someone like Biden. Whether it would be enough support remains to be seen.
Very large proportion is an overstatement. Its maybe 2-3% of Trump supporters at most.
“Left populism” is just mob rule. It’s a majority ganging up on a minority to extract money. “Right populism” for all it’s flaws doesn’t have a primary goal of financially punishing political opponents.
Left populism- More hands in a bigger cookie jar.
Right populism- Less hands in smaller cookie jar.
The DNC need a populist candidate to take care of the Working Class Wormtongue Vance when the hour comes.
To win the Presidency she or more likely another needs to learn one thing above all from Trump – beat the crap out of the party hierarchy in the DNC, the way Trump beat up the GOP, and has reforged in his own image.
Dropping pronouns is a miniscule start.
Unlike most in the Democratic movement at least she doesn’t despise working class.
the problem is their entire idealogy is anti working class, to garner Working class support, they need to drop Net Zero, be pro Fossil Fuels (expensive energy hurts the poor more, be it personal transport, cost of food), they would need to drop DEI, also be strict on immigration, which again disproportionately affects the poor.
Likewise the working class is more likely to pro Family, Pro Religion, and not on board with trans activism
So they would have to effectively drop everyone of their positions, alienate the remaining base they have, can’t see it ever happening
Who in the Republican Party saw the trump ascendancy?
of course she did block a Massive Amazon investment in her area, losing out of 1000’s of jobs
Those jobs are only useful if they pay enough to live on, which rarely seems to be the case with Amazon
Starter jobs are a thing.
Billy Bragg?
while yes Amazon are a terrible company to work for , those jobs are going somewhere, as the state Representative , it’s her job to grab them for her state.
It would be nice if your state all had jobs paying 100k , 2 months holiday, but that’s not the real world
I wonder if Elon Musk knows that the Democrats have started their own Space (Cadet) program?!
Only neuro-divergent trans lesbians under 5ft tall may apply!
Is the author on crack? She’s the poster child for woke extremism. No way she can pivot from those positions. I’d have a better chance running.
Yes to crack.
the only people that know of AOC are the Media, the Right wing pundits who make fun of her and a a very small relative part of the US population
She is another case the minute she opens her mouth, she bleeds support to the opposition
She like Harris is clueless, but i guess she’s more adept at communication
If this is what the Dems have on offer another unimpressive women to pander to a group they already have locked in, then yes AOC will ensure that the next President is a Republican
to be honest the most plausible is Newsom, because he knows the lingo, knows how to present himself, of course his record is absymal , but he’s smart enough to know the winds have changed and to say the right things, of course would’nt trust him with a bargepole, but would the Dems ever again go with a Straight White male. If they picked him expect things to get spicey with a lot of their base
denial, not just a river in egypt
She’ll also have to grow a brain. Caught a clip of her talking in Congress last week, which went like this:
“Transgirls are GIRLS. And so there is absolutely nothing wrong with transgirls joining in girls’ sports. I did co-ed sport and it was fine.”
She is entirely ridiculous. Which, come to think of it, makes her perfectly suited for the role of leading the Democrats.
Tulsi should rejoin the Dems to make sure there are no neocons amongst the candidates.
From bartender to President, the American dream…
“On Friday, more than 30,000 people turned out to hear them in Denver.”
GPS device data puts the attendees more around 20K, 20,189 to be precise. Of those roughly 20K devices, 84% had cumulatively attended 9 blm, Antifa, pro-Palestine and/or pro-Hamas rallies and/or a Harris rally and 31% had been in attendance to over 20.
The bulk of the Denver display was manufactured and bussed in by ActBlue with some support from USAID. Have a look for yourself:
https://x.com/TonySeruga/status/1903677337406992400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1903677337406992400%7Ctwgr%5E24a93cd11320da3edff8a37a8a4f5fefa3ad55d1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Ftechnology%2Fgps-data-reveals-bernie-sanders-aoc-rally-was-artificial-full-antifablm-pro-hamas-pro
When will the Democrats get a clue??
Is this a joke? The woman is a red lipsticked Kamala Harris. There’s no there there,
There are cell phone records being tracked of the people attending these rallies. Thousands attending are paid to do so apparently since their cell phones are tracked moving from state to state. No ground up organic movement has supporters traveling to each state. Maybe a few, but not thousands.
That aside some in the crowd were interviewed, especially those wearing certain T shirt logos. All three of the interviews i listened to the interviewee called for Trump to be hung like Mussolini, or Trump to be beheaded, and the last one thought Mangioni her hero and the CEO of the healthcare company he shot in cold blood deserved to die. Nice people at Bernie/AOC rallies.
So, Kamala was not the low point?
I think she would be awesome! She has never built anything or been in charge of anything but she is a person of color and telegenic. She could be the presidential version of Karen Bass!
The entire point of progressivism is to divide the blue collar classes along lines of race, gender and sexuality so that they fight amongst themselves and cease to represent a threat to the interests of the suburban graduate class from which AOC and most of her colleagues come.
Given that Trumpism is inherently a rebellion against everything AOC stands for, it seems unlikely that she will be able to emulate the man with any sort of success.
With her record, she can credibly claim outsider status. She’s opposed moderate Democrats and establishment types regularly enough that voters will buy her as an agent of change. At issue is the nature of that change. She’s likely to be running against a Republican that is associated with or trying to sound like Donald Trump. Vance, Gabbard, Kennedy, and Rubio are all distinct possibilities. There’s no way she’ll be able to capture the populist lane by herself, and it’s debatable whether there’s any upside in trying to be the Johnny come lately to populism and anti-establishment rhetoric. Trump has the first mover advantage, and that can be very difficult to overcome.
Further, she’ll have to do it while also distancing herself from her woke, identity conscious, race baiting past rhetoric. She’s been among the loudest, harshest, voices for woke causes for her entire career to this point. She’s anti-Israel, having recently accused the Israelis of ‘genocide’. This does not convey an awareness of where voters outside the college campus protesters and urban enclaves sit on the issues. She would be running against a Republican on the one hand and against her past self on the other.
As much as I do like Bernie and some of his ideas and policies, I just don’t see AOC being able to effectively succeed him. She’s not the communicator he is. He comes across as compassionate and thoughtful. She comes across as harsh, shrill, and whiny. I rather suspect she wasn’t Bernie’s first choice for a successor, but there was nobody else, and she’s acting out of personal ambition rather than any personal devotion to his policies or his movement. If she starts demonstrating some awareness of voter preferences outside the coastal strongholds, I’ll be more inclined to listen.
At this point, AOC is playing second banana to an old man who was thwarted by elites in front of crowds of people that hate the establishment for thwarting him. I’m not sure that translates into any political success unless there’s a major economic slowdown that doesn’t resolve itself before 2028. The real axis of politics right now is globalism vs. nationalism and until the globalists have been completely defeated, there will be a natural tendency for them to coalesce on one side while the anti-globalists coalesce on the other. That’s how the Democrats got saddled with the anchor of being the elite establishment party. Successfully ridding themselves of that anchor will probably involve embracing policies that the elites hate even more than Trump and his nationalist/protectionist policies. With Sanders being a declared socialist, that’s not beyond the pale. The 2028 Democratic primaries could be a slugfest that completes the realignment and establishes that nationalism/populism is the default and forces elites on both sides to recognize that this is the new normal and there’s no going back.
She is a b..ch
P.S. To those who disagree with me: You know nothing about how dangerous and cruel revolutionary women can be.