US "The Squad" Megathread - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib Derangement Syndrome

I honestly only know about American politics from what I read on the Internet but since we all love shitting on leftists I figured we'd get a kick out of this. Also it's trending on Twitter so you know it's important.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...irect=on&noredirect=on&utm_term=.960552c9ba53

NEW YORK — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old political novice running on a low budget and an unabashedly liberal platform, upset longtime U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley on Tuesday in the Democratic congressional primary in New York.

The surprise victory by the community organizer in a district that includes parts of the Bronx and Queens came after an energetic, grassroots campaign that mustered more than enough support in a low-turnout race that many had expected to be an easy win for Crowley, a member of the Democratic House leadership.

“The community is ready for a movement of economic and social justice. That is what we tried to deliver,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who has never held elected office and whose candidacy attracted only modest media attention.

She told The Associated Press after her victory that she didn’t have enough money to do polling in the race, but felt in her gut that her message had a chance to connect.

“I live in this community. I organized in this community. I felt the absence of the incumbent. I knew he didn’t have a strong presence,” she said.

Crowley has been in Congress since 1999 and hadn’t faced an opponent in a primary election since 2004, when Ocasio-Cortez was just a teenager. He was considered a candidate to become the next House speaker if Democrats win the majority.

“It’s not about me,” Crowley, 56, told his supporters at a campaign party following his loss. “It’s about America. I want nothing but the best for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I want her to be victorious.”

He later played guitar with a band at the election night gathering, and dedicated the first song, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” to Ocasio-Cortez.

Crowley represents New York’s 14th Congressional District, where he is also the leader of the Queens Democratic party.

Ocasio-Cortez was outspent by an 18-1 margin during her race but won the endorsement of some influential groups on the party’s far left, including MoveOn, as well as the actress Cynthia Nixon, who is running for governor. She defeated Crowley by 15 percentage points.

Born in the Bronx to a mother from Puerto Rico and a father who died in 2008, Ocasio-Cortez said she decided to challenge Crowley to push a more progressive stance on economic and other issues.

She attended Boston University, where she earned degrees in economics and international relations, and also spent time working in the office of the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy.

After graduating, she returned to the Bronx where she became a community organizer. In the 2016 presidential campaign she worked for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Among her issues is expanding the Medicare program to people of all ages and abolishing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. She recently went to Tornillo, Texas, to protest against policies that have separated parents from their children at the southern U.S. border.

Ocasio-Cortez gained some internet attention for a campaign video called “The Courage to Change,” a two-minute spot for which she wrote the script and featured footage from her own home.

Crowley is chair of the House Democratic Caucus, the fourth-highest ranking position in Democratic leadership in that chamber of Congress.

His loss drew the attention of President Donald Trump.

“Wow! Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley, who many expected was going to take Nancy Pelosi’s place, just LOST his primary election. In other words, he’s out! That is a big one that nobody saw happening. Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!” he tweeted.

The Republican candidate for the office, Anthony Pappas, is running unopposed and had no primary. Pappas teaches economics at St. John’s University.

She was a Bernie campaigner, is supported by BLM, and wants to abolish Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Also this was in a solid-blue Congressional District so you know she's a shoo-in for next Congress.

But hey, we did get to see Trump laugh at Crowley on Twitter.

 

[The best and greatest]

This right here is what the dems were banking on with this completely idiotic law, a law so fucking poorly written it received 0 yes votes.

You talk about how it's got good ideas buried in it probably, but then you indicate that you actually really have no idea what's in it. So... you just like the name, and what it symbolizes to you, personally. That's what the dems want. That fuzzy, nonspecific "green" policy that shows hey, they're trying to do something, right?

This is why the republicans forced the dems to vote on it. It's complete and utter shit, and they would have pretended to be behind it and all the vague things it symbolizes to people like you. People vulnerable to well marketed big ideas that are never meant to be looked into.

Essentially, this is a child's crayon drawing titled "The solution to everything bad". The dems want to say "The republicans are against a solution to everything bad!" Except, at least a child's crayon drawing doesn't request the entire fucking economy be dismantled.

Sorry for jumping on you, but what you're saying really struck a nerve with me because it's a perfect encapsulation of what other left leaning people I know say and do about this. You know few specifics, but are confident enough to claim the ridiculous stuff isn't actually true. You excuse the nonsense away claiming there's a core of good policy without being at all specific, probably because you haven't read it and don't know of any good policy in it (There isn't any).

And finally, here's the important part, it costs more money than exists. It's so outrageously bad that even if congress 100% wanted to implement it, there isn't enough money in the fucking world to do it. Which, obviously, even the dems realize, including cortex herself, because they accused republicans of pulling a stunt by calling a vote on it.

I'm sure republicans wish the dems would pull that kind of stunt with the legislation they propose.

I think you have some personal misgivings with me over what you think I believe.

Yeah I skimmed the outline and liked some of the overall goals though my criticisms is that its the literal definition of trying to cram your entire legislative agenda through the political machine in one go. I think if you shrank the overall scope of the project to just encouraging infrastructure modernization across the nation you'd have something more approachable. I think we are a nation capable of great feats of engineering, but I neither expect nor want a "Great leap forward."

I think part of what makes "Green" a hard sell to you is that you (Perhaps rightfully) associate green with cost ineffectiveness and lack of ability to meet our demands and while that was definitely the case for the last few decades we've since made some pretty great strides in energy storage and cost efficiency in the green energy sector. I don't think we're quite ready to abandon natural gas though. I think if we wanted to do that we should have made the switch to nuclear decades ago. We could go to Nuclear now, new Salt reactors are definitely feasible and serve an excellent baseline power source with green sources serving areas where such plants are inconvenient to build or where the community serviced is too small to justify the expense. Solar panels and wind turbines are nicely scale-able like that which makes them useful to us.

I'm reserving judgement about the hyperloop. I remain skeptical until I see a working version open to the public but if its everything it offers to be, it really could potentially redefine American life the same way our interstate highway system and railroad networks did before. Affordable fast travel across great spans of distance the likes of Musk and Virgin offer would open up vast opportunities for public mobility and if it lives up to the hype we should absolutely get on board with building one mostly along the length of the interstate highway.

I believe we should reform our agricultural sector and food supply chain generally to be more resource and land efficient. I believe we can do this cheaply and effectively utilizing modern horticulture greenhouse methodology that requires little in the way of material cost and can be adapted to any climate. I do not believe we should do these things out of some fear for our existential being but rather because it makes our food supply more robust and versatile and reduces the need for food to be delivered to localities via truck shipping which helps bring down the cost of food while also reducing wear and tear on our roads and our dependency on in-time delivery logistics. This would also reduce the amount of land overall needed to supply ourselves with food meaning former farm land can be redeveloped into something else.

None of what I listed is something I believe to be unreasonable I think I temper my goals with reasonable expectations pretty well. All of this is what I think of when I think infrastructure modernization and I think it's really too bad that republicans en-masse have lost their appreciation for building things that weren't tanks or walls. I don't think being fiscally conservative means never investing in your public infrastructure, I think being fiscally conservative means not wasting money on shit that does nothing positive which I don't believe is the case for anything I mentioned.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I think you have some personal misgivings with me over what you think I believe.

Yeah I skimmed the outline and liked some of the overall goals though my criticisms is that its the literal definition of trying to cram your entire legislative agenda through the political machine in one go. I think if you shrank the overall scope of the project to just encouraging infrastructure modernization across the nation you'd have something more approachable. I think we are a nation capable of great feats of engineering, but I neither expect nor want a "Great leap forward."

I think part of what makes "Green" a hard sell to you is that you (Perhaps rightfully) associate green with cost ineffectiveness and lack of ability to meet our demands and while that was definitely the case for the last few decades we've since made some pretty great strides in energy storage and cost efficiency in the green energy sector. I don't think we're quite ready to abandon natural gas though. I think if we wanted to do that we should have made the switch to nuclear decades ago. We could go to Nuclear now, new Salt reactors are definitely feasible and serve an excellent baseline power source with green sources serving areas where such plants are inconvenient to build or where the community serviced is too small to justify the expense. Solar panels and wind turbines are nicely scale-able like that which makes them useful to us.

I'm reserving judgement about the hyperloop. I remain skeptical until I see a working version open to the public but if its everything it offers to be, it really could potentially redefine American life the same way our interstate highway system and railroad networks did before. Affordable fast travel across great spans of distance the likes of Musk and Virgin offer would open up vast opportunities for public mobility and if it lives up to the hype we should absolutely get on board with building one mostly along the length of the interstate highway.

I believe we should reform our agricultural sector and food supply chain generally to be more resource and land efficient. I believe we can do this cheaply and effectively utilizing modern horticulture greenhouse methodology that requires little in the way of material cost and can be adapted to any climate. I do not believe we should do these things out of some fear for our existential being but rather because it makes our food supply more robust and versatile and reduces the need for food to be delivered to localities via truck shipping which helps bring down the cost of food while also reducing wear and tear on our roads and our dependency on in-time delivery logistics. This would also reduce the amount of land overall needed to supply ourselves with food meaning former farm land can be redeveloped into something else.

None of what I listed is something I believe to be unreasonable I think I temper my goals with reasonable expectations pretty well. All of this is what I think of when I think infrastructure modernization and I think it's really too bad that republicans en-masse have lost their appreciation for building things that weren't tanks or walls. I don't think being fiscally conservative means never investing in your public infrastructure, I think being fiscally conservative means not wasting money on shit that does nothing positive which I don't believe is the case for anything I mentioned.

Heh, fair enough, and honestly I bet we agree on a pretty good chunk of what should happen. I just don't think the gnd represents anything real.

 

[Dracula's Spirit Animal]

I think you have some personal misgivings with me over what you think I believe.

Yeah I skimmed the outline and liked some of the overall goals though my criticisms is that its the literal definition of trying to cram your entire legislative agenda through the political machine in one go. I think if you shrank the overall scope of the project to just encouraging infrastructure modernization across the nation you'd have something more approachable. I think we are a nation capable of great feats of engineering, but I neither expect nor want a "Great leap forward."

I think part of what makes "Green" a hard sell to you is that you (Perhaps rightfully) associate green with cost ineffectiveness and lack of ability to meet our demands and while that was definitely the case for the last few decades we've since made some pretty great strides in energy storage and cost efficiency in the green energy sector. I don't think we're quite ready to abandon natural gas though. I think if we wanted to do that we should have made the switch to nuclear decades ago. We could go to Nuclear now, new Salt reactors are definitely feasible and serve an excellent baseline power source with green sources serving areas where such plants are inconvenient to build or where the community serviced is too small to justify the expense. Solar panels and wind turbines are nicely scale-able like that which makes them useful to us.

I'm reserving judgement about the hyperloop. I remain skeptical until I see a working version open to the public but if its everything it offers to be, it really could potentially redefine American life the same way our interstate highway system and railroad networks did before. Affordable fast travel across great spans of distance the likes of Musk and Virgin offer would open up vast opportunities for public mobility and if it lives up to the hype we should absolutely get on board with building one mostly along the length of the interstate highway.

I believe we should reform our agricultural sector and food supply chain generally to be more resource and land efficient. I believe we can do this cheaply and effectively utilizing modern horticulture greenhouse methodology that requires little in the way of material cost and can be adapted to any climate. I do not believe we should do these things out of some fear for our existential being but rather because it makes our food supply more robust and versatile and reduces the need for food to be delivered to localities via truck shipping which helps bring down the cost of food while also reducing wear and tear on our roads and our dependency on in-time delivery logistics. This would also reduce the amount of land overall needed to supply ourselves with food meaning former farm land can be redeveloped into something else.

None of what I listed is something I believe to be unreasonable I think I temper my goals with reasonable expectations pretty well. All of this is what I think of when I think infrastructure modernization and I think it's really too bad that republicans en-masse have lost their appreciation for building things that weren't tanks or walls. I don't think being fiscally conservative means never investing in your public infrastructure, I think being fiscally conservative means not wasting money on shit that does nothing positive which I don't believe is the case for anything I mentioned.

I basically agree, but saying they just should have limited the scope to infrastructure is like saying Stalin had a good idea, but should have just limited his scope to modernizing agriculture. What you suggest is not what the GND offered, so you're talking about something else.

 

[Syaoran Li]

If the GND actually got implemented, it would basically result in the American equivalent of the Holodomor and we'd still have the looming issue of Climate Change unresolved, which is oddly fitting considering AOC and her "Justice Democrats" are little more than Bolshevik hipsters.

Do these fuckers really want to save the environment on a national scale?

As others have said, AOC and her GND did not mention nuclear energy at all and instead focused on banning meat, getting rid of passenger airplanes, forcibly rewiring our entire city infrastructures, and possibly giving blacks a government-enforced monopoly on the legal weed trade.

If we really do only have twelve years before the damage is irreversible, the Green New Deal won't' do jack shit to stop it, let alone reverse it.

You want to stop Climate Change in America? Then build more nuclear plants and shut down the coal and gas-based plants. It would be more feasible to do this and you could hook up a lot of the existing electrical infrastructure to nuclear plants more easily than a nationwide system of solar panels and wind turbines.

A nuclear power grid supplemented with wind and solar (for smaller communities where solar and wind are actually practical and efficient) would easily tackle a huge portion of the carbon output in the atmsophere.

As for agriculture, instead of forcing the entire country to become douchebag vegetarian hipsters (granted, I am exaggerating, but not by much) we should end the corn subsidies and overhaul the feedlot system as these corn subsidies are the root cause of this problem.

The reason why the feedlot system of today is so out of hand and high fructose corn syrup is in almost all of our food (which further compounds the already nightmarish obesity epidemic in America) is precisely because of the massive corn subsidies that have been in effect since the 1970's.

As for renewable fuel? Two Words: Bio-Diesel

Bio-Diesel is not carbon-neutral but it is a lot more efficient and a lot less polluting than the current oil-based diesel that is the norm. It is less straining on agricultural and mechanical infrastructure than ethanol fuels (which only serve to prop up the corn subsidies) and unlike ethanol, does not damage pre-existing engines.

A normal diesel engine can run on bio-diesel without any modifications and in fact, runs more efficiently and cleanly than petro-diesel in the long run.

Considering all of our freight railroads (and passenger railroads), cargo trucks, construction engines, and oceanic shipping run on either diesel engines or diesel-electric, that is a major step up.

Also, it is easier to motivate the automotive industry to produce diesel-fueled cars than it is to convert the entire transportation infrastructure of the United States to a consolidated high-speed railway system.

This would all be expensive, but still within the realm of practical reality (unlike the Green New Deal) and while difficult, could actually be implemented within twelve years.

Keep in mind that I am just some redneck who literally mows lawns for a living and whose only education is a high school diploma and even I came up with a better and more realistic Green New Deal than the actual Green New Deal that was proposed.

When an elected federal official like AOC can't come up with a better infrastructure plan than some loser gardener who posts on an autism gossip forum using the name of an anime character, that's when you know our government has failed us and that the current DNC cannot get its shit together.

Despite having a corporate monopoly over the mainstream media and a near-monopoly over the surface web, both the Left and the Neocons got their asses handed to them by an incompetent loudmouth reality TV star in 2016 and while the RNC eventually realized they had to get with the program and accept that the days of the Religious Right and the Neocons were over (at least on the national level), the DNC has learned nothing and is doubling down on the Identity Politics that cost them the election in the first place.

I don't like Trump, but I get the feeling Trump is going to win in 2020 and honestly he's a much preferable alternative to Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, or Elizabeth Warren. The only candidate who could reasonably stand a chance to beat Trump would be Bernie Sanders, but he has lost a lot of the steam he had in 2016 and the DNC doesn't like him anyway.

As others have said, the Justice Democrats are like the left-wing version of the Tea Party from 2010. Much as how the Tea Party played a role in Romney's defeat in 2012, I have the feeling the Justice Democrats will do the same to the Democrats in 2020.

AOC is a lot like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann in that regard, popular with the media and the base, but ultimately a liability for the serious Democrat leaders.

And when the Justice Democrats inevitably burn themselves out in the next decade like the Tea Party did in this decade, AOC will lose her prestige and support she has and will probably fade into obscurity.

 

[Gone_Fission]

If the GND actually got implemented, it would basically result in the American equivalent of the Holodomor and we'd still have the looming issue of Climate Change unresolved, which is oddly fitting considering AOC and her "Justice Democrats" are little more than Bolshevik hipsters.

Do these fuckers really want to save the environment on a national scale?

As others have said, AOC and her GND did not mention nuclear energy at all and instead focused on banning meat, getting rid of passenger airplanes, forcibly rewiring our entire city infrastructures, and possibly giving blacks a government-enforced monopoly on the legal weed trade.

If we really do only have twelve years before the damage is irreversible, the Green New Deal won't' do jack shit to stop it, let alone reverse it.

You want to stop Climate Change in America? Then build more nuclear plants and shut down the coal and gas-based plants. It would be more feasible to do this and you could hook up a lot of the existing electrical infrastructure to nuclear plants more easily than a nationwide system of solar panels and wind turbines.

A nuclear power grid supplemented with wind and solar (for smaller communities where solar and wind are actually practical and efficient) would easily tackle a huge portion of the carbon output in the atmsophere.

As for agriculture, instead of forcing the entire country to become douchebag vegetarian hipsters (granted, I am exaggerating, but not by much) we should end the corn subsidies and overhaul the feedlot system as these corn subsidies are the root cause of this problem.

The reason why the feedlot system of today is so out of hand and high fructose corn syrup is in almost all of our food (which further compounds the already nightmarish obesity epidemic in America) is precisely because of the massive corn subsidies that have been in effect since the 1970's.

As for renewable fuel? Two Words: Bio-Diesel

Bio-Diesel is not carbon-neutral but it is a lot more efficient and a lot less polluting than the current oil-based diesel that is the norm. It is less straining on agricultural and mechanical infrastructure than ethanol fuels (which only serve to prop up the corn subsidies) and unlike ethanol, does not damage pre-existing engines.

A normal diesel engine can run on bio-diesel without any modifications and in fact, runs more efficiently and cleanly than petro-diesel in the long run.

Considering all of our freight railroads (and passenger railroads), cargo trucks, construction engines, and oceanic shipping run on either diesel engines or diesel-electric, that is a major step up.

Also, it is easier to motivate the automotive industry to produce diesel-fueled cars than it is to convert the entire transportation infrastructure of the United States to a consolidated high-speed railway system.

This would all be expensive, but still within the realm of practical reality (unlike the Green New Deal) and while difficult, could actually be implemented within twelve years.

Keep in mind that I am just some redneck who literally mows lawns for a living and whose only education is a high school diploma and even I came up with a better and more realistic Green New Deal than the actual Green New Deal that was proposed.

When an elected federal official like AOC can't come up with a better infrastructure plan than some loser gardener who posts on an autism gossip forum using the name of an anime character, that's when you know our government has failed us and that the current DNC cannot get its shit together.

Despite having a corporate monopoly over the mainstream media and a near-monopoly over the surface web, both the Left and the Neocons got their asses handed to them by an incompetent loudmouth reality TV star in 2016 and while the RNC eventually realized they had to get with the program and accept that the days of the Religious Right and the Neocons were over (at least on the national level), the DNC has learned nothing and is doubling down on the Identity Politics that cost them the election in the first place.

I don't like Trump, but I get the feeling Trump is going to win in 2020 and honestly he's a much preferable alternative to Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, or Elizabeth Warren. The only candidate who could reasonably stand a chance to beat Trump would be Bernie Sanders, but he has lost a lot of the steam he had in 2016 and the DNC doesn't like him anyway.

As others have said, the Justice Democrats are like the left-wing version of the Tea Party from 2010. Much as how the Tea Party played a role in Romney's defeat in 2012, I have the feeling the Justice Democrats will do the same to the Democrats in 2020.

AOC is a lot like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann in that regard, popular with the media and the base, but ultimately a liability for the serious Democrat leaders.

And when the Justice Democrats inevitably burn themselves out in the next decade like the Tea Party did in this decade, AOC will lose her prestige and support she has and will probably fade into obscurity.

One of the nice side benefits of legalizing and expanding hemp farming is that hempseed oil can be converted into biodiesel, and the stalks can be fermented into ethanol. Plus, the seeds produce the most amount of protein per acre of any crop

 

[Weppers]

One of the nice side benefits of legalizing and expanding hemp farming is that hempseed oil can be converted into biodiesel, and the stalks can be fermented into ethanol. Plus, the seeds produce the most amount of protein per acre of any crop

Eh, if hemp was such a cash cow waiting to happen someone would have already pushed for the legal growing of a low-THC strain years ago. There are parts of the country, especially corn growing parts of the country, where the stuff grows wild already. Any time I hear someone say that hemp is secretly the best plant for something I can't help but feel it's just some venerable stoner propaganda filtered through a lot of wishful thinking.

 

[Weppers]

And you've also had a lot of bad data and debunked anecdotes in this thread before.

 

[PT 522]

Image edited out over hosting concerns--it was the "croissants at la guardia" tweet

 

[Dante Alighieri]

Gee I wonder why things at airports cost a fuck ton of money. Maybe the economist can enlighten me.

 

[Malodorous Merkin]

View attachment 712626

If you paid a hairnet-wearing mook $15/hour to do coffeeshop work at Laguardia Airport, your $7 croissant would cost $12.

 

[Alexius]

View attachment 712626

Yeah, saw this on Twitter. She got ripped apart for it, then of course played the victim in response.

 

[BubbleButt]

I can agree with her point but she doesn't have to be such a giant bitch about it.

 

[HeyYou]

View attachment 712626

"I was just pretending to be retarded!"

 

[Tanner Glass]

View attachment 712626

SEVEN DOLLARS?

Why you could leave the airport and get it from a small coffee shop in Astoria for only $6.49! Madness!

 

[CWCchange]

View attachment 712626

Croissants aren't seven bucks at LaGuardia because of greed. Croissants are seven bucks at LaGuardia because its fucking LaGuardia.

No wonder this worthless excuse of a "human worth" hates airplanes.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

If the GND actually got implemented, it would basically result in the American equivalent of the Holodomor and we'd still have the looming issue of Climate Change unresolved, which is oddly fitting considering AOC and her "Justice Democrats" are little more than Bolshevik hipsters.

Do these fuckers really want to save the environment on a national scale?

As others have said, AOC and her GND did not mention nuclear energy at all and instead focused on banning meat, getting rid of passenger airplanes, forcibly rewiring our entire city infrastructures, and possibly giving blacks a government-enforced monopoly on the legal weed trade.

If we really do only have twelve years before the damage is irreversible, the Green New Deal won't' do jack shit to stop it, let alone reverse it.

You want to stop Climate Change in America? Then build more nuclear plants and shut down the coal and gas-based plants. It would be more feasible to do this and you could hook up a lot of the existing electrical infrastructure to nuclear plants more easily than a nationwide system of solar panels and wind turbines.

A nuclear power grid supplemented with wind and solar (for smaller communities where solar and wind are actually practical and efficient) would easily tackle a huge portion of the carbon output in the atmsophere.

As for agriculture, instead of forcing the entire country to become douchebag vegetarian hipsters (granted, I am exaggerating, but not by much) we should end the corn subsidies and overhaul the feedlot system as these corn subsidies are the root cause of this problem.

The reason why the feedlot system of today is so out of hand and high fructose corn syrup is in almost all of our food (which further compounds the already nightmarish obesity epidemic in America) is precisely because of the massive corn subsidies that have been in effect since the 1970's.

As for renewable fuel? Two Words: Bio-Diesel

Bio-Diesel is not carbon-neutral but it is a lot more efficient and a lot less polluting than the current oil-based diesel that is the norm. It is less straining on agricultural and mechanical infrastructure than ethanol fuels (which only serve to prop up the corn subsidies) and unlike ethanol, does not damage pre-existing engines.

A normal diesel engine can run on bio-diesel without any modifications and in fact, runs more efficiently and cleanly than petro-diesel in the long run.

Considering all of our freight railroads (and passenger railroads), cargo trucks, construction engines, and oceanic shipping run on either diesel engines or diesel-electric, that is a major step up.

Also, it is easier to motivate the automotive industry to produce diesel-fueled cars than it is to convert the entire transportation infrastructure of the United States to a consolidated high-speed railway system.

This would all be expensive, but still within the realm of practical reality (unlike the Green New Deal) and while difficult, could actually be implemented within twelve years.

Keep in mind that I am just some redneck who literally mows lawns for a living and whose only education is a high school diploma and even I came up with a better and more realistic Green New Deal than the actual Green New Deal that was proposed.

When an elected federal official like AOC can't come up with a better infrastructure plan than some loser gardener who posts on an autism gossip forum using the name of an anime character, that's when you know our government has failed us and that the current DNC cannot get its shit together.

Despite having a corporate monopoly over the mainstream media and a near-monopoly over the surface web, both the Left and the Neocons got their asses handed to them by an incompetent loudmouth reality TV star in 2016 and while the RNC eventually realized they had to get with the program and accept that the days of the Religious Right and the Neocons were over (at least on the national level), the DNC has learned nothing and is doubling down on the Identity Politics that cost them the election in the first place.

I don't like Trump, but I get the feeling Trump is going to win in 2020 and honestly he's a much preferable alternative to Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, or Elizabeth Warren. The only candidate who could reasonably stand a chance to beat Trump would be Bernie Sanders, but he has lost a lot of the steam he had in 2016 and the DNC doesn't like him anyway.

As others have said, the Justice Democrats are like the left-wing version of the Tea Party from 2010. Much as how the Tea Party played a role in Romney's defeat in 2012, I have the feeling the Justice Democrats will do the same to the Democrats in 2020.

AOC is a lot like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann in that regard, popular with the media and the base, but ultimately a liability for the serious Democrat leaders.

And when the Justice Democrats inevitably burn themselves out in the next decade like the Tea Party did in this decade, AOC will lose her prestige and support she has and will probably fade into obscurity.

If they switched to a different sweetener than HFS Americans would be just as fat. The obesity "epidemic" isn't being caused by a mix that has slightly more fructose vs. sucrose than cane sugar would. It's caused by eating too much and doing too little. The reaon HFS is ubiquitous is probably due to the massive corn subsidies though yeah.

 

[Syaoran Li]

Thank God that AOC doesn't lurk Kiwi Farms because I've seen several different users rip her Green New Deal to shreds and come up with better alternatives that could actually be implemented feasibly AND have an actual positive impact on Climate Change.

Imagine the kind of meltdown she would have if she read this thread.

Seriously though, after the 2020 Election, do you think AOC will stand a chance in the 2022 Midterms?

Conventional wisdom would say no, but bear in mind that the DNC and the liberal media have not learned a damn thing from the 2016 defeat and only barely managed to take back the House in 2018.

If anything, they've been doubling down on their tactics, hoping the monopolies run by their corporatist allies (Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Twitter, etc.) will help maintain control of the narrative, combined with more frequent and ever increasingly Draconian attempts at "de-platforming" people they don't like (whether it be de-listing them from Google like 8chan or completely un-personing them like Alex Jones) as well as silencing criticism of pro-leftist groups like BLM and Antifa (despite both groups being a dangerous liability to the wealthy liberal elites in the long term) and all this is doing is further souring the average Americans against them, most notably white men, but now even other groups formerly looked upon favorably by the Left such as Asians, white women, Jews, gay men, bisexuals, and the working class in general are increasingly being shat on by the DNC and their SJW base and in turn are becoming increasingly hostile towards the Millennial Left of the 2010's and by extension, the Democratic Party.

Even if they won't vote for Trump and the Republicans, they probably won't vote for the Democrats either.

Basically, unless you're black, trans, Muslim, a dangerhair lesbian, or one of their allied SJW hipster drones, the modern Left doesn't want anything to do with you and the Democratic Party doesn't either, because they are increasingly trying to pander to the SJW base in a manner similar to how the Republicans were ever increasingly dependent on the Religious Right as a voter base to support the Neocon elites in the 1980's, 1990's, and early 2000's.

This backfired on them spectacularly during the Obama years following the failures of George W. Bush (especially in his second term) and the defeat of Romney combined with the rise and fall of the Tea Party in 2012 made the Republicans rethink their strategy of relying on the Christian Right, with the 2016 Election being the big wake-up call when the voters rejected both the Neocon establishment candidate (Jeb Bush) and the Religious Right candidate (Ted Cruz) and went for Donald Trump, who was initially seen as a joke.

The Democrats had thought that they won, with SJW thought seemingly being the norm among Millennials and their coastal base, and Obama winning two terms despite being a weak president who was little more than a Neocon in sheep's clothing and they got their asses handed to them in 2016 and with the doubling-down on their Identity Politics platform, they are likely to lose again in 2020, although the 2022 midterms is anyone's guess at this point.

And despite the epic failure of the GND and AOC's profound idiocy displayed on social media (and secretly acknowledged by the upper echelons of Democratic leadership) she is still fawned over by both the liberal legacy media (CNN, MSNBC) and leftist internet media (VICE, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, etc.) which makes me think that history is going to repeat again.

I think what happened to the Republicans in the later years of Bush and the Obama years will probably happen to the Democrats in the Trump years, especially if Trump wins in 2020.

In many ways the SJW's of the 2010's are a lot like the Religious Right of the 1990's, and much as how the Republicans got their asses handed to them for listening to a loud vocal minority, the same will go for the Democrats.

The Justice Democrats are just the Tea Party of the Left, with AOC being the Sarah Palin equivalent celebrity figure as others pointed out.

Maybe in 2024 or 2030, we may see a radical shift in the DNC away from the current "woke corporatism" of the Establishment Democrats and the SJW champagne socialism of the Justice Democrat types, much as how the Trump campaign basically was the final nail in the coffin for the Moral Majority's dominance of the Republicans on the national and state levels.

You still have a lot of "Old Guard" Neocons in the Republican Party, but they are pragmatic enough to play ball with Trump against the Democrats, while the Religious Right types only have any real power or relevance on the local and county levels in certain Bible Belt states like Alabama or Kansas.

If things keep going the way they are, the same will happen to the SJW's in the next ten or twenty years, with places like Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco being the leftist equivalent of the Bible Belt holdouts are for the Republicans, a reliable vote for local elections in those specific areas but no longer the main arm of the party.

TL;DR-The DNC has yet to realize that those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

 

[PT 522]

Thank God that AOC doesn't lurk Kiwi Farms because I've seen several different users rip her Green New Deal to shreds and come up with better alternatives that could actually be implemented feasibly AND have an actual positive impact on Climate Change.

Imagine the kind of meltdown she would have if she read this thread.

Seriously though, after the 2020 Election, do you think AOC will stand a chance in the 2022 Midterms?

Conventional wisdom would say no, but bear in mind that the DNC and the liberal media have not learned a damn thing from the 2016 defeat and only barely managed to take back the House in 2018.

If anything, they've been doubling down on their tactics, hoping the monopolies run by their corporatist allies (Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Twitter, etc.) will help maintain control of the narrative, combined with more frequent and ever increasingly Draconian attempts at "de-platforming" people they don't like (whether it be de-listing them from Google like 8chan or completely un-personing them like Alex Jones) as well as silencing criticism of pro-leftist groups like BLM and Antifa (despite both groups being a dangerous liability to the wealthy liberal elites in the long term) and all this is doing is further souring the average Americans against them, most notably white men, but now even other groups formerly looked upon favorably by the Left such as Asians, white women, Jews, gay men, bisexuals, and the working class in general are increasingly being shat on by the DNC and their SJW base and in turn are becoming increasingly hostile towards the Millennial Left of the 2010's and by extension, the Democratic Party.

Even if they won't vote for Trump and the Republicans, they probably won't vote for the Democrats either.

Basically, unless you're black, trans, Muslim, a dangerhair lesbian, or one of their allied SJW hipster drones, the modern Left doesn't want anything to do with you and the Democratic Party doesn't either, because they are increasingly trying to pander to the SJW base in a manner similar to how the Republicans were ever increasingly dependent on the Religious Right as a voter base to support the Neocon elites in the 1980's, 1990's, and early 2000's.

This backfired on them spectacularly during the Obama years following the failures of George W. Bush (especially in his second term) and the defeat of Romney combined with the rise and fall of the Tea Party in 2012 made the Republicans rethink their strategy of relying on the Christian Right, with the 2016 Election being the big wake-up call when the voters rejected both the Neocon establishment candidate (Jeb Bush) and the Religious Right candidate (Ted Cruz) and went for Donald Trump, who was initially seen as a joke.

The Democrats had thought that they won, with SJW thought seemingly being the norm among Millennials and their coastal base, and Obama winning two terms despite being a weak president who was little more than a Neocon in sheep's clothing and they got their asses handed to them in 2016 and with the doubling-down on their Identity Politics platform, they are likely to lose again in 2020, although the 2022 midterms is anyone's guess at this point.

And despite the epic failure of the GND and AOC's profound idiocy displayed on social media (and secretly acknowledged by the upper echelons of Democratic leadership) she is still fawned over by both the liberal legacy media (CNN, MSNBC) and leftist internet media (VICE, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, etc.) which makes me think that history is going to repeat again.

I think what happened to the Republicans in the later years of Bush and the Obama years will probably happen to the Democrats in the Trump years, especially if Trump wins in 2020.

In many ways the SJW's of the 2010's are a lot like the Religious Right of the 1990's, and much as how the Republicans got their asses handed to them for listening to a loud vocal minority, the same will go for the Democrats.

The Justice Democrats are just the Tea Party of the Left, with AOC being the Sarah Palin equivalent celebrity figure as others pointed out.

Maybe in 2024 or 2030, we may see a radical shift in the DNC away from the current "woke corporatism" of the Establishment Democrats and the SJW champagne socialism of the Justice Democrat types, much as how the Trump campaign basically was the final nail in the coffin for the Moral Majority's dominance of the Republicans on the national and state levels.

You still have a lot of "Old Guard" Neocons in the Republican Party, but they are pragmatic enough to play ball with Trump against the Democrats, while the Religious Right types only have any real power or relevance on the local and county levels in certain Bible Belt states like Alabama or Kansas.

If things keep going the way they are, the same will happen to the SJW's in the next ten or twenty years, with places like Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco being the leftist equivalent of the Bible Belt holdouts are for the Republicans, a reliable vote for local elections in those specific areas but no longer the main arm of the party.

TL;DR-The DNC has yet to realize that those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

As the French would say, qui s'en fousse?

 

[Prompt Critical]

The obesity "epidemic" isn't being caused by a mix that has slightly more fructose vs. sucrose than cane sugar would. It's caused by eating too much and doing too little.

This is obviously a big part of the problem. However, it's clearly not the whole picture. One of the reasons HFCS is pointed to as SATAN SUGAR is because there's a large disparity in obesity rates between the USA (which as you said uses HFCS almost exclusively as a sweetner because it's artificially cheap due to production subsidies) and European and East Asian countries that are similarly sedentary but use cane sugar instead. I tend to think this is misdiagnosing the problem. There's a good deal of circumstantial evidence that ethnicities without a long-term history of agriculture have a lower tolerance for high-carbohydrate diets, as a specific reason for why obesity in more prevalent in the USA than European or East Asian countries.

Not to say that white people and east asians can't be fat too (a quick visit to Beauty Parlour should be enough to dispel anyone who thinks that), but the typical US diet and lifestyle seems to be a lot rougher on some ethnic groups than others.

 

[Y2K Baby]

President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Vice President Beto O'rouke
Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton.
Secretary of Treasury: Bernie Sanders.
Secretary of Energy: Jill Stein.
Secretary of Education: Celine Dion.