No Stupid Questions

speaks common sense and calls out absurdity

Yes, the bar is that low.

"In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king."

But being serious: AOC and politicians like her ARE us "doing it for ourselves." For a very long time, the vast majority of politicians elected in the US have gotten there by getting the backing of wealthy capitalists. They don't say "common sense things" because those things aren't good for the people who helped them get elected. If they did say those things, those capitalists would not only stop funding them, but fund their opposition more. The result is a government comprised of politicians who very rationally don't represent us. (That's not to say some of them aren't crazy on their own, but them being there is a rational outcome of self-interested actors.)

In order to get a politician who does and says things that are good for people, you need an absolutely massive grass roots effort to win an election against the might of rich donors. AOC was one of the notable times when we managed to do that. But this shows the limitations of that strategy within our current electoral system. For every AOC, Illhan Omar, or Mamdani, there are literally hundreds of more races which are still dominated by big money. It took not only a massive on the ground organizing effort locally, but also a lot of support from engaged people across the nation. And it's way more costly for the average person to contribute to a campaign than it is for a billionaire. So even if a lot of us want this, it's going to be really difficult to get a critical mass of wins to actually make an impact.

So that's why they're a big deal. They might be basic social democrats in some less corrupt countries, but here they are the few who are unbought. What they say is less relevant than the fact that they are able to say it at all.

There’s no such thing as common sense.

Any politician that actually speaks common sense is a big deal.

Must be a blissful experience not observing any official political discourse at all. It's all disingenuous rhetoricizing because the 'conservative' right only has a policy of extraction and enriching the insanely affluent, and they know that's not popular, so they simply force the conversation away from practical topics of governing, often with distractions and moarlizing non-issues. The liberal 'left' are happy to descend to that arena because they're also funded by the same insanely rich, and their alleged beliefs and goals conflict with those interests. So it is currently unusual when a politician sidesteps that whole dynamic and just addresses the actual issues living perople everywhere on the political spectrum can identify with in their lived experience. AOC is a pretty good example of someone who is consistently trying to drag the conversation into the practical realm, which the establishment hates because it draws attention to the fact that they have nothing to offer of value to better the lives of the majority of their constituents, and no intention to do so, in fact.

So yes, as crazy as it is, we are just so far off the rails that simple and practical reform and adressing obvious problems seems outlandish and impossible, but that's not an accident; It's what the donor class has paid both sides for. It is a good sign that more political actors are wading into that conversation, and an indicator of the eventual expiry date on corrupting the body politics with bribes.

How many other politicians are doing that? When a mechanic doesn't try to scam you, you tell very person that will listen.

For those here who remember AOC being a monitor company and not some politician, OP is talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is one of the representatives of the state of New York in the House of the Congress of the USA.

Disinformation is so widespread, largely because of O&G marketing firms, that speaking common sense has become a big deal.

I think it's at least partially because everyone else sucks so bad. She's not a great speaker but she gets a lot of coverage from left-wing influencers because there's no one else to promote. She also positions herself just far enough on the left to get their support but she's also close enough to the center to still get coverage in the mainstream media. So she's the face of progressive movent and gets attacked by Fox a lot. So she's everywhere even though she's kind of bland in my opinion (compared with European left at least).

we went off the rails in the 1980s dude. Carter and Nixon were the last presidents that remote had any grounding in reality, and they were both loathed by the public for it. 1970s were a shitshow and instead of fixing shit we decided to just start mortgaging the country for the next 50 years.

we have been riding them every since, no feet on the ground.

We have had like a handful of pols who wanted to like fix shit in this country, but they are not widely popular and the establishment totally hates them, so they are portrayed as radicals.

It might not look like much, but the really impressive part about their journey is how they avoid being dragged into a political sport between the liberal/conservative/MAGA cesspool, and instead drag our attention towards the meaningful.

Its a dreamers game, and those who captures the imagination of the people are the winners.

At the same time, Washington politics is a money game, and Sanders wing have been able to keep up with them only with money from small donors.

Well at least thats my takaway from following us politics between 2015 to 2021.

There is a really excellent documentary called Knock Down the House. It followed four progressive women launching grassroots campaigns against powerful political figures. 

If memory serves AOC is the only one of the four who won her race.

You see MAGA love to hate women. That is one of the reasons why they hate Nancy Pelosi so much.

It is the Howard Stern effect, where people who liked his show listened to about half of it, people who really had no opinion on Stern didn’t listen to any of his show. People who hated Howard Stern listened to every minute of his show. AOC is the same way.

MAGA’s hatred has made her a household name and it is awesome, because I love her. She is just excellent. She is what MAGAs wish Donald Trump was.

It's america. It's because she is easy on the eyes. Don't overthink it.

Because a lot of you are cowards and hid away instead of helping to shape public opinion. When these leaders like AOC and others do not have people creating content on popular platforms then it leaves a runway for the opposition to create any narrative they want. It's a numbers game at this point. The opposition convinced supporters to run away and hide and they did willingly.

Most politicians at that level (maybe all levels) appear to be bought and paid for, are not genuine, and just say whatever the polls and their campaign managers tell them. She seems to be more genuine, competent, charismatic, and a threat to the status quo.

Read all the posts here. Most of them are correct in some way.

• She threatens populism from the economic side forcing the corrupt MAGA politicians to care about 'fake news' like 'affordability'
• She threatens insecure dudes by being smart, attractive and speaking spanish
• She threatens the political republicans because she actually interacted wth the public instead of going to an ivyleague college and being taught to speak folksy by a speech trainer
• Won't somebody think of the lusty christian men?

So she's like perfect ragebait for every right winger

Look up the "overton window"

Did you know South Australia was the first place in the world to grant women both the right to vote AND the right to stand for parliament — and it happened partly by accident.

In 1894, the SA parliament was debating a women's suffrage bill. The bill originally included a clause explicitly preventing women from sitting in parliament. Enter Ebenezer Ward, an MP who was opposed to women's suffrage. He cleverly moved to strike out that exclusion clause, thinking it was so absurd that women could be MPs that the whole bill would be voted down in disgust.

His plan backfired spectacularly — the amendment was accepted, the bill passed, and South Australian women became the first in the world with full political rights (voting and standing for office). This was 1894, predating Finland (1906) and even New Zealand's right to stand (1919).

Like it or not, people need political leaders to follow.

Also, AOC has the advantage of representing a district in New York City, the media capital of the world. She probably wouldn't be as well known if she was the Congressmember from Topeka