Which of these two Democrats will accomplish more

The Justice Democrats Mission Statement.

“We need a Democratic Party that fights for its voters, not big corporate donors. Our goal is to build a mission-driven caucus in Congress by electing more leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, who will represent our communities in Congress and fight for bold, progressive solutions to our current crises.”





Why not a place for both AOC and Pete Buttigieg?

Simple in the world of AOC, the Justice Democrats and other progressive activist groups there is only one way and it’s their way which leaves no place for moderates like Pete Buttigieg in their vision of the Democratic Party.

Why do I say that?

During the primaries when Pete was still running for President he came up option for a progressive idea, that prompted AOC to claim Pete was using “Republican talking points” and was a non starter because it went against the progressive agenda.  I believe it was that instead of all students who go to state colleges getting free tuition Pete would only give free tuition to those who couldn’t afford to pay for it and those who could afford to pay the tuition would pay the tuition. Pete said the money saved by those who could afford to pay the tuition could be better spent elsewhere.  And he has a point if you think about it.  

Also we have AOC with help from the Justice Democrats actively going into House Districts held by Democrats and running progressive candidates against them.  It’s one thing if the folks of that district decide on their own they want a change but it’s another thing when an outside group targets a sitting member of Congress of the supposedly the same party with the intent of knocking them off because they don’t think likes this outside group wants them to think.

The idea is to get more Democrats elected to the House and Senate which would mean if you’re going to target Congressional seats that you would do it where a seat is currently being held by a Republican.  But AOC & Co knows it would be a waste of their time & money because their progressive message would lose in a moderate purple to red district.  So they chose to knock off moderate Democrats and replace them with progressives.  To what end I don’t know if they can’t get a solid majority in the House and Senate.

And that is why, unless there is a “coming to Jesus” moment for the progressives there will never be room for both a AOC and a Pete Buttigieg to play leadership rolls at about the same time in the future Democratic Party.

Which is really too bad.

The difference between Elizabeth Warren and AOC is Warren is willing to compromise when needed and AOC is not.

It was when Warren singled she was willing to compromise and had a 4 year plan to transition to M4A that she started to lose her support among progressives during the primaries.  

I guess those progressives figured that on day one you could just shove 320M people over to Medicare and everything would be honky dory.  Problem solved.

I was looking for a plan on how Sanders or Warren planned on moving people over to M4A if they won.  So when Warren released her plan I actually thought it would work.  And grumbled about it not being a fan of M4A.

It was about this time she started to slide in support.  And it was reported that Bernie Bros , on the sly, started attacking her by saying stuff like she’s not one of us blab blab blab when they were out talking to folks.  I think my favorite attack against Warren leveled by the Bernie Bros was she had too much money.  As if Sanders was living in poverty.  

And I do remember reading some progressives were not happy with her 4 year plan. They thought it was a sell out.   I remember thinking at the time well how stupid is that.   To me her plan was a form of a compromise in that to move folks to M4A it had to be done in stages over a period of years and couldn’t be done all at once.  

Something caused her slide in support among progressives.  There was a lot of support for M4A among the faithful and her transition plan could have been seen as a sell out by some because it took too long in their minds to accomplish the goal.  As indeed some progressives voiced.

I will never be a fan of Elizabeth Warren but that doesn’t mean I can’t see and acknowledge what I see as positive things of her “plans” .  And at one point I actually thought she could become the nominee and was glad she had come up with her transition plan for M4A which showed she really gave the matter some thought.  Even if I disagree with her on M4A.  And IF the Democrats were going to choose a progressive for their nominee I certainly would have wanted  that to be Warren over Sanders.

So cool your jets Warren supporter, I just gave her a compliment.

But I do believe there is little tolerance among some factions of the progressive wing of the party for those who “don’t get with the program” that could prove problematic for the entire Democratic Party down the road.  

There is no doubt in my mind that after Sanders latched on to the Democratic Party for his 2016 Presidential run and received the limited success that he did his goal became to reshape and to use the Democratic Party to push his vision of what the country should be with no compromise.  And all signs point to AOC believing the same as Sanders.

IMO