A Democratic Socialist has just defeated 10 term incumbent Joe Crowley. This isn't the first time a socialist has held a seat in congress but it is an upset considering the massive difference in campaigns and experience. Crowley outspent Cortez 10 to 1 but still lost in the primary. However, I think this may backfire on the left as many people find socialism too far left and might move to the republican party as an alternative.Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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A socialist has just pretty much won a congressional seat.
Last night, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley.
This guy was powerful.
People thought that he could replace Nancy Pelosi.
He's up there in the Democratic leadership, so this is considered a huge upset.
Now, the reason I say she pretty much won is that this was just a primary, but it's New York City.
There's no real Republican contender, so It's very likely she's going to take this congressional seat.
So let's look at who Alexandria Cortez is, what she believes, and I'll give you my thoughts towards the end.
I think this might actually backfire on the left.
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From CNN, at 2.30 a.m., a 28-year-old Democratic Socialist just ousted a powerful 10-term congressman in New York.
An activist and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Ocasio-Cortez, won over voters in the minority-majority district with a ruthlessly efficient grassroots bid, even as Crowley, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, out-raised her by a 10-to-1 margin.
This was the first time in 14 years a member of his own party attempted to unseat Crowley, who chairs the Queens County Democrats.
His defeat marks a potential sea change in the broader sphere of liberal politics, a
result with implications for Democrats nationwide that would recall, as optimistic progressives
routinely noted during the campaign, former GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor's loss to
the insurgent, Tea Party-backed Dave Brett in June 2014.
Now I made a video just about two months ago talking about how millennials were leaving
the Democratic Party and millennials were becoming conservative.
In the video, I noted that people who are leaving the Democratic Party aren't necessarily joining the Republicans, though some may be.
I believe that many of the young people leaving the Democratic Party are joining the Democratic Socialists of America.
And there was this story from Reason around the same time.
New poll shows millennials are defecting from the Democratic Party.
The story says, Picking up the slack is a growing number of young people who are unsure how they feel about the major parties, plan to support third party candidates or intend to abstain from voting altogether.
It says slightly more than a quarter.
Of those surveyed, this year did not lean toward either Democratic or Republican candidates, up from 18% in 2016.
And obviously, it's not just Millennials who voted for Alexandria Cortez.
But it would seem, at least in my opinion, we are seeing a shift toward the Democratic Socialists of America, particularly after the success of Bernie Sanders and what everyone saw the DNC do to him.
But I don't want to go back in time and talk about shoulda, coulda, or woulda.
Let's talk about the results.
A lot of young people supported Bernie.
They didn't like what the DNC did, and now they are aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America.
And now, we are seeing a DSA member actually take a congressional seat.
For the most part, but it's very likely she's going to win.
According to Wikipedia, the Democratic Socialists of America are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist.
They're democratic socialists, obviously.
Eco-socialists with multi-tenancy and socialist feminism.
And as of right now, which is interesting, they have almost no seats.
Although, in the state lower house seats, there are two members out of 5,411.
Not a very good proportion.
They basically have nothing in this country.
So this congressional victory is a pretty huge deal in the U.S.
Now I want to pause here for some partial nonsense, kind of.
When I was doing research on this story, I went to the Democratic Socialists of America's website and saw this.
This image here, this is their logo.
It is a white hand and a black hand, they are shaking hands, and there is a flower behind them.
The flower is the symbol of socialism.
That's been a long-standing thing.
I'm not sure when the two hands shaking came to be, The DSA was founded in 1982, and there's a reason I bring this up.
This symbol is from the 1984 film, 1984.
And this is the symbol for English socialism.
You can see the white hand shaking the black hand, and there is a V behind it.
This was the symbol of a totalitarian government.
I'm not sure if the movie was looking to the DSA and using a similar logo, or if the DSA's logo came later.
I'm pretty sure that the logo was somewhat different for the DSA back in 1982.
I just gotta say, I think it's a coincidence, but I kind of feel like you should pay attention to this if you're getting into politics, because You know, if you're in the Democratic Socialists of America, you've got to realize your logo is awfully similar to the logo of a fictional totalitarian socialist government, and that's just not a good connotation, is it?
But let's take a look at what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually is campaigning for.
Medicare for all, gun control, assault weapon ban, solidarity with Puerto Rico, higher education, support for seniors.
There are a lot of issues that are fairly straightforward for any left-wing politician, and I don't think any of these are particularly socialist, except for a few of them.
However, she also wants to abolish ICE.
And I see this sort of misconception from so many people on the left.
She says, it's time to abolish ICE, clear the path to citizenship, and protect the rights of families to remain together.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency was created in 2003 in the same suite of post-911 legislation as the Patriot Act and the Iraq War.
Its founding was part of an unchecked expansion of executive powers that led to the widespread erosion of American civil rights.
Unlike prior immigration enforcement under the INS, ICE operates outside the scope of the Department of Justice and is unaccountable to our nation's standard of due process.
I actually have respect for the way they phrased this because too many people are acting like immigration enforcement only came to exist in 2003.
And when they say ICE was formed in 2003, they're technically correct.
But what the government did was it took the Immigration and Naturalization Service and some other agencies and brought them together under ICE.
Which is basically the same thing.
It does basically the same thing.
But I do think it's fair to say that they are not operating under the DOJ, they're operating under DHS, and so they are ripe for criticism.
That's fair.
I appreciate the fact that they mentioned INS in this campaign website, because too many people are acting like it never existed.
Personally, I disagree with a lot of the positions of Alexandria Cortez, but let me just say right now, there is a catharsis to watching a 10-term establishment Democrat get ousted by a young person who wants to see some change.
There's a reckoning coming for the Democrats.
What they did to Bernie Sanders will not be forgotten.
I don't completely agree with the platform of Alexandria Cortez.
It is what it is.
I think she gets a lot wrong, but Hey, man.
It's time for change, I guess.
We'll see what happens.
Now, I do think this could backfire.
I'll get to that in a second.
But first, let's go over this ice issue.
Samantha Bee is one of the people who seems to have no idea what she's talking about or is just lying to people.
About a month ago, she ran an episode with this, Abolish Ice.
The article says, Me touched upon several arguments ICE opponents have made
in recent months, particularly the fact that ICE has only existed since 2003 and has become a
symbol of the U.S. emboldened and often overzealous national security apparatus spurred
on by the 9-11 attacks.
She said, By putting the anti-terrorism people in charge of
immigration, the government signaled that immigrants are a threat.
But ICE's own figures show that most of the immigrants in detention pose no threat to the public.
And there it is.
The argument being given by many people on the left, omitting the fact that the Immigration and Naturalization Service did basically the same thing ICE does.
The only real difference is that it was operating under the Department of Justice, and now it's operating under the Department of Homeland Security.
It's also unfair to say that they put the anti-terror people in charge of immigration, when you could just as easily say they put the immigration people in charge of anti-terrorism.
There's a different understanding to the way you phrase it.
They're not implying that immigrants are terrorists, simply that Homeland Security encompasses all of these things.
By all means, criticize the executive branch.
I, for one, am very anti-authority.
and think ICE, INS, whatever it was, they've all been ripe for criticism.
Executive authority needs to be kept in check.
And I also want to point out when Donald Trump said that people need to be sent back to where they came from
without a hearing, that is a violation of our constitutional rights.
Think about it this way.
If somebody was incorrectly detained, you can't just deport them.
That's what hearings are for.
But it is a complicated issue.
I understand that.
I just want to make sure that when anyone is arguing about this, they know what the hell they're talking about.
And in this instance, Samantha Bee doesn't seem to realize that immigration enforcement has existed since, like, the 1920s.
Actually, I think it's, like, 1890s.
We've had immigration enforcement.
It's a thing.
It wasn't invented in 2003, so that argument is just not accurate.
But now, I want to talk about why I think this socialist victory might actually backfire.
And not necessarily this victory in particular, but I have to think that the average person in this country, the middle American voter, be it in a swing state or otherwise, they're not going to vote in socialists.
And this is one of the big fears the Democrats had with Bernie Sanders, is that he couldn't win in a general election.
Because sure, the Democrats, people who vote blue, might be like, you know what?
I really like these ideas.
I want to vote for a democratic socialist.
But the swing states won't do it, because these are people who are simply looking out for their families, their friends, their communities, and they're looking to which politician is going to do right by them.
If a politician comes in and says, I'm a democratic socialist, I'm anti-capitalist, and I don't think we should have immigration enforcement, The average person's gonna say, yeah, I'm not okay with that.
And there is a conflicting narrative among DSA members, activists, and what the news is saying.
There have been a bunch of news articles saying, no, Democrats don't want open borders, they just want constitutional accountability for ICE.
Hey!
I agree with that.
That sounds great, right?
Except social media is inundated with people who are literally for open borders or no borders.
And these are the people who support the DSA.
A journalist who works for many large publications posted this on Instagram.
Abolish ICE.
No borders.
No states.
Again, this is somebody who has worked for the New York Times and several other very large publications.
Although it is partly a fringe opinion, there are a lot of people who support the DSA who don't believe we should have borders at all.
They tweet at me non-stop.
They post on my Facebook non-stop.
They genuinely believe there should be no enforcement and that anybody should be free to move in and out of the country.
I'm not here to argue whether or not that should or should not be true.
I'm simply going to point out the fact that many Americans will vote against it.
So there is a real concern that if the Democratic Socialists continue to gain power, they just won a congressional seat, that middle Americans are going to start swinging Republican because the left is too extreme for them.
There are people in the middle.
And if the only options are pulling further and further left, and the only middle choice is a Republican, they're probably going to vote Republican.
But I don't know.
I could be wrong.
Maybe none of this matters.
But I certainly think it is the start of something new when we see an actual Democratic Socialist take a Congressional seat.
She hasn't done it yet, but she very likely will, so we'll keep an eye on it.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.