Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells NPR: 'Everything feels increasingly like a scam'
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells NPR: 'Everything feels increasingly like a scam'
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., about how Democrats are addressing President Trump's agenda.
Summary
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 35-year-old veteran lawmaker, spoke to NPR about her party’s path forward.
She predicts Republicans will face backlash over Medicaid cuts and federal worker firings.
Despite some Democrats suggesting a new immigration approach post-election, she maintains support for a path to citizenship and recently held a know-your-rights seminar that drew threats of investigation from Trump's border czar Tom Homan.
AOC told NPR "everything feels increasingly like a scam" for ordinary Americans while government serves the wealthy well.
Unlike Trump, she opposes drastically cutting government agencies but questions programs like Medicare Advantage.
It is a scam. Neo liberals control the democratic party and they serve the elite. They were never going to save us.
We need a true populist movement. The parties haven't served us my entire life.
You change the parties the way the Tea Party and Maga changed the Republicans. You start a faction and then work on taking over the existing party.
This could be the right way. Unless Democrats cease to exist in their current form they will never save us from the greed machine.
State level electoral reform will allow 3rd parties to participate in elections without a spoiler effect. We don't need to wait a decade for the old shits in the DNC to die of natural causes. It is possible, Alaska already has passed electoral reform. We can do this before the mid terms.
Videos on Electoral Reform
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems we can try out.
The tea party changed republicans by being belligerent assholes that refused to play along with old GOP leadership. I'm not sure that the left in the US has it in them to do that to the DNC.
Maybe this is a hot take, but why don’t we just make all the law abiding undocumented immigrants legal and just move the fuck on? We need a party that will focus on healthcare and education the most as those two things will create a better society in the long run. Having these other individuals able to fully participate in society could be helpful in many ways as well.
why?
racism
bEcAuSe ThAt WoUlD bE uNfAiR tO tHoSe WhO dId It ThE "rIgHt" WaY
Which is, of course, a completely bullshit argument. But it nonetheless gets trotted out any time there's a proposal to make something easier for anyone middle class or below.
Yeah, I love how that argument completely ignores all the other advantages that come along with 'doing it the right way'
It's like being on a cruise ship in the ocean that rescues some sailors in distress, and then someone gets pissed because the rescued people didn't buy a ticket like everyone else.
That's what Regan and HW Bush did. But they're all against it now.
One big reason is because minorities tend to be left leaning. This is one of the reasons people are against Puerto Rico becoming a state.
If they pay taxes and don't do crime I don't really care who they are or where they are from.
Remember when fucking Reagan gave amnesty to a bunch of people? Ronald Reagan was the biblical devil, and trump is still worse.
Without doing any googling to double check, I'm almost certain that I've heard that was already kinda sorta tried. Ofc, it didn't fix the problem because the exploitive system that creates the conditions for illegal immigration remained, and the government has only made it worse since then. Imo, the only true fix that doesn't involve dumb fucking bullshit is massively loosening our immigration constraints and allowing people to live here as long as they don't start shit.
To be clear, I'm against immigration controls period, but this is me trying to be practical.
Pathway to citizen hasn't been tried because it hasn't been able to get the necessary coalition to pass.
Remember: If it feels like a scam, it is.
Ever try to buy car insurance?
I just bought car insurance. Switched from USAA to Progressive and saved a shitload. USAA hasn't been a good deal for a while now.
THAT SAID - Progressive is always trying to get me to turn on "accident detection" on my phone. Fuck that, I know exactly what they do with that data, it's not happening.
All insurance is a scam.
Game of Thrones should have taught you that.
Yeah I’ve been saying this for a few months now, we are officially in “The Age of the Grifter.” Honestly it makes me a little sick this is what we’ve been reduced to.
Everything's been a scam for a while especially this bullshit society. Capitalism inherently encourages and drives everything towards scamming people gotta "make profit" and no one dare dictate what's egregious or not because "who are you to say" so there is just no limit to the greed whatsoever. Cutting corners/costs can only go so far until the planes start falling out of the sky or however that saying goes. We're past the terminal end stages of capitalism and they have no remedy for it and we're seeing the cancer mutate in to something else now.
Our gov is taking our tax money and not showing us what they are doing with it. If its not a scam, show us where the money is going.
Our gov is showing us what they do with the tax money. It is, in fact, all public information you can get with a couple seconds of digging (and has been that way for a LONG time).
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
The only real black boxes of the government are military and espionage spending. Everything else is out in the open.
That military black box is massive, and the pentagon hasn’t successfully completed one of its past seven audits. This is a prime area for reform and cost cutting, and yet house repugs just voted to add another 100 billion to its budget.
AOC is correct, it’s a grift, and the billionaires and corporations are coming for what little we have left.
Even military isn't that opaque. The published numbers are HUGE.
I agree. But I absolutely do not trust the richest man in the world, who was not elected at all, in charge of those funds. Dude already has been using it to funnel money into his own projects. You’ve handed the keys to your safe to a known burglar, and now you’re offering him blowjobs as well.
Don't forget that he is also firing people who were investigating his companies.
Just not the uninformed shoddy lie filled way DOGE are.
This is a dumb take. It's publicly available information
No, I think the dumb thing to do would be to assume that the person who was convicted of 30+ felonies concerning a legal campaign financing is being fully transparent about his intentions and the amount of money he shifted over to the worlds, greatest billionaire(Musk). Also don’t forget that Donald Trump was convicted of a charity scandal and now he can’t run a charity inside the state of New York without court ordered supervision.
Those government reports should be 100% truthful but if you’re willing to believe that they are under Donald Trump, then I have a bridge to sell you .
Every time I read Tom Homan, I think of that cat walking around meme.
Guys and gals, I have a solution, it involves a guillotine and...
You can chop heads forever and for all time but it will never decrease the number of scams and scammers. Regulations are the only solution.
I read this as Alexandra Daddario and was really confused.
All she’d need to do to get people to listen to her is stare deeply into their eyes.
She also feels like a scam to me for using x and not having a mastodon account
Yeah why is this politician, who clearly finds it important to communicate her messages as widely and effectively as possible, using a massive social media platform which many American voters and basically all, if not all media organizations regularly use to get their information, instead of using some nobody social media platform that almost nobody cares about?!? The only conclusion is she must be a grifter!!!
Why yes I am incapable of thinking about a single subject for more than 5 seconds, why do you ask?
Everything is a scam?
Kind of like AOC voting to protect the rail corporation from a union strike, then presenting herself as a champion of the working class.
I hate Realpolitik, but she did that as part of a backroom deal with Pelosi.
AOC isn't perfect, but she truly does fight for us because she fights to change the system itself. Of the 435 elected House reps, she is easily the least corrupted of the entire lot. Her and Bernie are the best we have.
AOC is just another scam. Where was she for the past 4 years?
Pretty active and critical of the administrations actions. People just don't read anything but headlines and then only actually integrate into memory the negative ones conforming to their preferred world view.
As a NYer yeah, she's definitely been around. She's been fighting Adams a lot
Seriously?
That's what sheepdogs do, they lay low while the blue fascists are in charge and rear up once the red ones take control. Now that Republicans have shifted further to the right the DNC will fill the void left by Republicans.
Ratchet goes click click