Saturday, June 27, 2026

The Popular Historical Trope…

AOC: The Republican Party’s brand is fear. And they have to constantly churn out what they want people to be afraid of—to be afraid of socialists, to be afraid of immigrants, to be afraid of women. They constantly want Americans in fear of somebody because, if you are not afraid of someone who is your neighbor, you’re going to realize who’s actually pickpocketing you.

And that is the large corporations that are engaged in profiteering and jacking up your prices for no good reason. It’s going to be this administration that is engaged in record levels of swindling, theft, tariffs, and attacks on your housing.

And so this is kind of their new thing of the day. But I think that people are feared out. I think everyone’s nerves are shot from constantly being taught and told what country, person, or community to be afraid of. And they just want a solution. They want their groceries to be more affordable. They want to figure out how we’re going to get health care. They want our housing to get under control.

And I think that we’re ready for an affirmative vision, and we’re ready for an affirmative agenda.
AOC: I actually think the more important advice that I would give would be to my incumbent colleagues, which is: you will create a self-fulfilling prophecy by deciding who these young women are before you’ve met them.

And if you are already panicking and sending little messages in your group chats about how these people need to be reined in, tamped down, and shown their place, you are creating the antagonistic dynamic that we do not need.

These are two young, talented, intelligent women who got elected against all odds, against millions of dollars. Perhaps there is something we can learn from them.
AOC: But there are a lot of folks who talk about change in leadership that don't necessarily articulate what their direction is. And so I would say that it's important we talk pretty specifically about the kind of changes that we want, because there are a lot of people in this country, and there are a lot of forces and lobbyists that want the Democratic party to become even more pro-corporate than it is.

And so when I talk about change, I talk about orienting the Democratic party to be unabashedly working class and to orient itself around working class Americans
AOC: Mike Johnson paints this as though it’s some partisan witch hunt. But if you don’t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don’t do crimes.

And he’s talking about running a protection racket. And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile protection programs in American history.

And so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors, I'm the only thing standing between you, and a consequence that should rattle at the conscience of every American.

What he wants to do is create—or rather, not even create, because it’s already been created—but protect a class of impunity in America that says, “You can commit whatever crime, and so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.”

And that is a model of extortion in American politics. And you know what? That’s their pitch.
AOC: I think we’re now in a new time, and I think there is greater recognition of the brokenness that led to President Trump in the first place, which is that growing inequality yields to authoritarianism, and that economic instability and the collapse of democracy are intertwined…
...is that “great figures,” like Kennedy or FDR (to stick with American presidents), come along when we need them.

So let’s be contrarian and turn that observation onto a President no one would praise. After all, we’re supposed to look forward to this great figure saving us from ourselves. But Trump? Trump came along when we needed him?

Yes. Because we rejected two women to get Trump. We did that each time, and we did it quite deliberately. The second time we did although we knew what he’d done to us during Covid, and we knew he’d been convicted of criminal and civil fraud. We didn’t care. He wasn’t a woman (disappointed Trump voters still won’t admit this; just like they won’t admit his overt racism didn’t bother them). That’s all that really mattered, in the end. (Trump ran a joke campaign, Harris did everything she could. It didn’t matter. That’s a factor neither pundits nor consultants want us to think about.)

So Trump came along when we needed him to teach the truth of FAFO. We fucked around. We found out. Character matters. Government experience matters. Government is NOT a business (and looking at Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and the Tech Bros determined to foist AI in us all for their sole benefit, it’s a damned good thing!), and competence bluntly matters.

Now maybe we can improve how the only two choices we get every four years, come to be the only two choices we get. We, the people, need that, too.
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