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.
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.
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.
One of the biggest problems in America is people thinking that suffering is a necessary part of human existence and people having what you have without suffering is an injustice, unless they're rich.
Every time a conservative sees someone getting help they assume it could have been money in their pockets instead. It's sick zero-sum thinking and betrays a total lack of understanding of financial appropriations, tax, really everything, reality even.
As a general advertisement, not even asking for money, liberal groups should send "fake checks" to people and say:
Trump and Musk shut down USAID and saved the taxpayer $21.7B... Here's your share of the rebate ($0.00). Whoops! We had to pay the millionaires and billionaires first. Better luck next time!
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.
Yes, and this is a key difference, on a cruise, that behavior in front of your fellow passengers will be seen in person, and shot down immediately by people with decency, any they would be looked on like total assholes and ostracized . There is no social media machine or group think on a cruise ship. They're are several hundred/thousand people confined to a limited space, and noteworthy events will still be transmitted the old fashioned away. From eyes to brain to mouth to ears to brain to mouth, and so on.
That's why I love using cruise ships for an analogy when I can. It strips away a lot of the bullshit strawman, what if's, and 'but this will happen's'
It helps highlight how actual human behavior often acts in opposition of the hive mind nonsense cultivated and propagated by News and social broadcast outlets that are owned by want to be oligarchs that view our rights as an obstruction to their God given right to rape the American people for profit
Yes, and this is a key difference, on a cruise, that behavior in front of your fellow passengers will be seen in person, and shot down immediately by people with decency, any they would be looked on like total assholes and ostracized
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.