Regular Agenda January 12.Doc: Fill & Download for Free

(Original Question: Why is the far right going after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez so aggressively? How is she different from all the other freshmen in Congress?)It’s probably worth seeing the Netflix documentary that follows AOC’s road to election, Knock Down the House. Here’s the trailer, watch it for some context.Spoilers (er, election results) below.Following the election of Trump, more than 500 women ran for local congressional seats, an unprecedented groundswell. The documentarians made the choice to follow four of them: There was of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (so-called AOC), also Cori Bush, Paula Jean Swearingen, and Amy Vilella. AOC happened to be the one of the four who won, but it follows the campaigns of all four. Given the timing of the release of the film, so much later to her win, I assume a lot of the story was re-cut after the election to properly set up the rises, falls, surprises and heartbreaks of the narrative. It is very competently done, and the ending, in particular, is quite moving.In the film, the reasons for AOC’s charisma are put in very plain view. She is an absolute natural. She’s also vulnerable, honest and self-effacing, empowered with a sense of mission, and very real— willing to fail openly and on camera, but coming back every time. Movies, documentaries especially—are made by the characters that inhabit them. She’s a character the audience wants to win because they recognize her. The same of course goes for the others, but AOC and in particular, Paula Swearingen, are unique and arresting.AOC didn’t win because of the documentary, of course, which came out long after she had been elected. The film simply documented the process of campaigning, and in some cases the filmmakers simply lucked into having picked a winner. So this was not intended to be “The AOC documentary,” though her victory is now a matter of historical record.She points out an interesting notion, that being a bartender “prepared me for this. Being a bartender you have to learn with people being mean to you, with people trying to hurt you, and have to keep coming back,” something to that effect. I think on this often when I see some of the ridiculous and baseless attacks laid at her feet.Another fact that made incredibly obvious in the documentary is how much her opponent, Joseph Crowley, took the job for granted. Because I live here in NYC I don’t have to take the word of the documentary on this point, we all remember it at the time. She won for it because she actively campaigned for it and presented a vital, engaged progressive alternative to a candidate who appeared to be phoning it in. New Yorkers will remember when Crowley—unbelievably—failed to show up to the town hall with AOC. This was a pure giveaway. You have to show up! His chances weren’t improved by the fact that he didn’t even reside in the district, and lived in Virginia! So Crowley’s was not a candidacy that NY’ers took seriously, and he lost.Someone else might have beat AOC. But she had the benefit of showing up, and was able to capitalize on the win to become a national figure over time, part of the democratic left vanguard. Note that the so-called “Squad” (AOC, Ayanna Pressly, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib) did not exist as a public entity yet at this point.It doesn’t hurt that AOC looks good on camera, and the ability of the media machine to reach her is a decided advantage that she has, at a national scale. If she were a Congressperson from Montana, she’d simply have less access to national cameras. I mean, she looks really good on camera—but she also looks like a real person, not a meticulously crafted spokesbot, like a Kardashian or Fox News anchor. When the media needs to get ahold of her, she’s easily reached. She can take the subway to do a morning appearance on Hot 97 and another on The View. This is a tremendous advantage.The filmmakers admit as much. It was mentioned in an interview later, (paraphrased, not a direct quote) “[We] got lucky with [AOC] because I lived in Brooklyn. I got great footage of the others candidates in the documentary, but [we] didn’t have the budget to be in their districts all the time, but I could take the subway to Queens to follow her around.” So this also substantiates the notion that it helps to be close to ‘the media.’ But this isn’t conspiracy, it’s logistics and budget constraints.AOC has also proven herself to be no slouch in the social media department either, with 4.21 million followers on Twitter and 3.4 million on Instagram. She posts regularly, reaching voters and, in particular, young people where they are, and delivering slice-of-life behind the scenes, ‘can-you-believe-it’ mini-films to her followers and fans. Some of these are increasingly scripted or sanitized, but the ones that made her famous were clearly shot by AOC or her friends (probably her boyfriend, Riley, who can be seen doing as much throughout the doc). These people are professionals, but they are also in their twenties and making a lot of guesses and instinctual gut-calls that panned out.We all remember when some far-right Twitter-bots floated a trial-balloon to see if she could be humiliated by a video that emerged from when she was in college, showing her dancing with friends on a rooftop. She fired back with this:Some people are just good at this stuff. I work with plenty.From Wikipedia:When the 116th Congress convened on January 3, 2019, Ocasio-Cortez entered with no seniority but with a large social media presence. Axios has credited her with "as much social media clout as her fellow freshman Democrats combined" (…) Her colleagues appointed her to teach them social media lessons upon her arrival in Congress. [98]In an interview with the Yahoo News podcast Skullduggery, Ocasio-Cortez said she had stopped using her private Facebook account and was minimizing her usage of all social media accounts and platforms, calling them a “public health risk”. [99][100]Speaking as a marketing professional, I will also add that in my opinion her marketing materials, online campaigns, websites, collateral, street team, etc, were incredibly effective. I donated her money based on a Facebook ad that led me to her campaign maybe a week before the election. This is also a coincidence: she was friends with the Tandem NYC guys, who created a campaign poster for the ages. They made strong use of color, bilingualism, font styles and a very tight brand language to underscore the candidate’s background, vision, and unapologetic style, indeed this is now used as a case study—even before the campaign was over people wanted the posters just to hang as wall art!When I saw the poster for the first time, I was really tickled by the upside down exclamation points, for example, which any Spanish speaker will instantly recognize. Also, using yellow, as opposed to the traditional blue, white or red, was a really bold move (that’s the one I saw on Facebook), whereas she insisted on the Brand New Congress’ purple to symbolize the union of blue and red. Looking up at the angle she does, of course, is often used to symbolize optimism and vision. The entire presentation does not shy from, indeed is grounded in, touchstones of her Hispanic heritage. This is incredibly alluring to those of us who have felt hidden or ignored, but moreover, everyone recognized its boldness.From VOX: “NY-14’s population is 49 percent Hispanic. Half of the residents in the district are immigrants and 70 percent are people of color. Steven Romalewski, from the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York Graduate Center, found that Ocasio-Cortez won, in part, with strong Latino support, but her largest margins of support were in Astoria and Sunnyside, neighborhoods with higher white populations and where millennials are moving.”As an added bonus, her style also drives racists bananas, as you can see examples of throughout Quora.All of that is superficial. Let’s get concrete. I’d like to take us to a favorite moment.Her platform, as comically presented by Fox News:Andrew Lawrence on TwitterIt’s really worth watching that video. Most progressives seeing it laughed, shouting “SPEAK UP, SEAN.” As the original Twitter poster notes, we really can’t believe there is anyone who would seriously present this agenda as a negative. Maybe if you are a prison guard, or work for ICE? I don’t know.Fox News Reminds Us Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Platform Is...Pretty ReasonableMedicare for All has the support of 63 percent of registered voters.Tuition-free public college has 63 percent support.There isn't much polling on "housing as a human right," but there is strong majority support for rent control. We also already subsidize affordable housing, though far more money flows to higher-income homeowners through tax deductions.A federal jobs guarantee is a new initiative, but one poll in May suggested it has 46 percent support. Another poll indicates strong majority support in every state.Three-quarters of Americans support criminal justice reform.There's not much polling on abolishing ICE, but in a Fox News poll last year, 83 percent supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.The following conservative media outlets have more-or-less dedicated an editorial position to attacking AOC: Fox, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, Breitbart, and their other confederates. The New York Post, (a conservative daily here) so far as I can tell, has dedicated a desk to her, publishing an attack piece on AOC a few days a week, sometimes every day. I see many of them here on Quora as paid posts. It should not be a major surprise that the business press is up in arms, as there is a lot of money to be made incarcerating people.Why so much press attention?Back to Wikipedia:In January 2019, when Ocasio-Cortez made her first speech on the floor of Congress, C-SPAN tweeted the video. Within 12 hours, the video of her four-minute speech set the record as C-SPAN's most-watched Twitter video by a member of the House of Representatives. [107]In February 2019, speaking at a Congressional hearing with a panel of representatives from campaign finance watchdog groups, Ocasio-Cortez questioned the panel about ethics regulations as they apply to both the president and members of Congress. She asserted that no regulations prevent lawmakers "from being bought off by wealthy corporations". [108] With more than 37.5 million views, the clip became the most-watched political video ever posted on Twitter. [109]According to reports in March 2019, Ocasio-Cortez continued to receive media coverage early in her congressional tenure on a par with that of 2020 presidential candidates [113]According to a study by Media Matters for America, she has been intensely discussed on sister television channels Fox News and Fox Business, being mentioned every day from February 25 to April 7, 2019, for a total of 3,181 mentions in 42 days (an average of around 75 per day). The Guardian wrote that this points to Fox being "obsessed by Ocasio-Cortez, portraying her as a radical socialist who threatens the American way of life."[116]So another reason she gets press attention is because she gets press attention. It’s a cycle.Also because she is demonstrably dangerous to the Trumpian power structure. When other lawmakers were too restrained to use the Cohen hearings to go after Trump himself, AOC opened up the field to an entirely new area of inquiry, which Cohen happily obliged. She’s no fool. If you want to know what she’s about, check out her various C-SPAN appearances where she asks well-informed questions of various figures. It’s become a genre.Fig 1. Michael Cohen Testimony.Fig 2. Witness testimony is delivered on ICE mistreatment.Fig 3. Questioning the big bank CEOs.So, let’s recap.You’ve got a candidate who is:A womanYoung, urban, millennialProgressive credentialed, idealistic, optimisticCamera-attractant, instinctual media personalityLatina, person of colorDemocratic socialist (-ish)Extremely media-savvyInsurrectionist, insufficiently deferential to established authorityNot co-opted by business interests, does not take corporate PAC moneyUnderstands technology better than any of her peersCommunicates directly with her audience, does not need the intermediation of the establishmentIs extremely progressive, relative to the American mainstream’s self-perception, but actually has ideas that enjoy popular supportHas the intent to upend the established orderHas shown tremendous courage and resilienceIn many cases, if she had all of these characteristics except for #9, corporate America would love her.If you are part of the Trumpian right, it would not be wise to let this go on unchallenged. She is a credible threat. But she is not powerfully-positioned, as so her power is, at this point, mainly organizational and symbolic. She can champion radical ideas at less risk to herself and her position.If you are part of the corporate power structure, the idea that she’s not going to take your money and critically, was able to get elected without it should have you terrified. Some of her freshman colleagues took PAC money and swore off it after, she got elected without it at all. Having proven that point is a major victory and opens the doors to other similar candidates. This pushes the window leftward.She is from New York, and despite this was able to get 4500–5000 attendees to the middle of Wichita (Kansas!) on a working Friday afternoon. This should have progressives in the midwest—the birthplace of the progressive movement—energized, and corporate conservatives concerned.So conservatives are trial-ballooning a lot of various attack styles.At this stage, a lot of the criticism she receives is non-serious: that she is inexperienced, misspeaks, or doesn’t yet have the polish needed for the cameras. “She doesn’t know the branches of government!” or “She would rather be morally correct than factually correct!” Or, “She called it an inauguration!” These are what are called “gaffes” in the industry and can generally be corrected for with a mixture of camera experience and more packaged speaking points. (You’ll note that a lot of these people don’t seem to be concerned that the President of the United States, an actually powerful person who can affect their food, water and shelter, appears to be the most prolific liar in the history of the office, so many of these hair-splitting arguments can be considered bad-faith.) She was 29 when she was elected, she’ll get all that. And only the people of Queens and the Bronx can fire her, and they seem to like her where she is. They don’t appear to be particularly interested that she has been flustered in interviews, and find the assertion that she wants to turn the US into Venezuela or Cuba to be overheated and not credible.Likewise they don’t see that she can effect as much change as they might want. But she is an opinion leader, and her objectives are, for the moment, to move forward the conversation on wages, healthcare, education, the carceral state and the environment. As Trevor Noah put it, she’s the “dream of half the country and the nightmare of another half.”And they recognize that unopposed, she’ll be the first of many.Fingers crossed.