27 reasons AOC is a pro-war establishment tool for the Democratic Party
Americans need more anti-establishment champions willing to fight for working class interests. Unfortunately, AOC doesn’t appear to be one of them.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s defeat of establishment incumbent Joe Crowley in 2018 was a victory built on a promise: AOC pledged to be a departure from the status quo, an “unapologetic champion” of the working class. She alluded to being a peace candidate, one that would fight corporate influence over the political system, one that would push to get Americans healthcare, one that would side with the people over a corporate-owned oligarchy that has been crushing them for generations.
I wanted to believe her.
And yet, at odds with any optimism I wanted to have for AOC is her behavior, which far too often stands contrary to the passionate words in her interviews, speeches, and fiery tweets. Such a discrepancy is an important reminder of a critical takeaway from the Obama years, when millions of voters watched in horror as Obama went from a self-proclaimed “progressive” to a drone-bombing, establishment warmonger no different than his predecessor: wanting to believe that politicians will eventually live up to their rhetoric is an emotionally draining and inevitably disappointing game.
Interestingly, much like Obama, narratives around AOC fall into one of two camps:
On the one hand, she is depicted as a direct descendant of Karl Marx, some kind of a far-left radical communist infiltrator hellbent on tattooing a hammer and sickle on the forehead of every American she meets. This narrative tends to be parroted by the likes of Fox News, Ben Shapiro, and similar entities, and works as a smokescreen for Republicans and other “critics” to attack AOC without doing so in a meaningful or genuine way. It essentially functions to allow a type of shallow, idiotic “debate” that can take up space in the media and distract people from legitimate conversations and criticisms about AOC containing actual value.
The other portrayal of AOC is the “fiery girl from the Bronx” narrative, a predominately manufactured image that ignores the fact that AOC was actually raised in an affluent Westchester County suburb and only changed the address on her voter registration card to the Bronx in 2016. This depiction of AOC is the type that her supporters latch on to and genuinely want to believe, effectively painting her as a rebellious maverick outsider eager to reform the Democratic establishment and usher in a new party focused on working class interests.
It's the latter narrative which I believe deserves attention because it is precisely this narrative that will help AOC continue growing a political base that falsely believes her to be the kind of champion she has repeatedly proven herself not to be.
AOC's increasingly hawkish foreign policy positions are a good place to start.
While she was running for a House seat in 2018, AOC campaigned on a “peace economy”. As it appeared on a mysteriously removed supporter-run campaign website, the United States “has entangled itself in war and occupation throughout the Middle East and North Africa. As of 2018, we are currently involved in military action in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. According to the Constitution, the right to declare war belongs to the Legislative body, not the president. Yet, most of these acts of aggression have never once been voted on by Congress. Alex believes that we must end the forever war by bringing our troops home and ending the air strikes and bombings that perpetuate the cycle of terrorism and occupation throughout the world.”
In January of 2019, she tweeted:
“War is a class conflict, too. The rich and powerful who open war escape the consequences of their decisions. It’s not their children sent into the jaws of violence. It is often the vulnerable, the poor, & working people - who had little to no say in conflict - who pay the price.”
While this tweet is incredibly true, consider:
1. During a 2018 interview with The Intercept, AOC eagerly pounded the neocon war drums for increased US hostilities with nuclear superpowers, fearmongering about Russia “playing a very aggressive role in other nations” before quickly switching to China, claiming they are “starting to fill the vacuum of power that the United States formerly held”, adding: “I think that from our vantage point, within the United States we have to address those two things.”
2. That same year, following the death of career warmonger John McCain, AOC referred to the late Senator’s legacy as “an unparalleled example of human decency”.
3. During the previously mentioned interview with The Intercept, AOC commented on Obama’s 2009 “surge” of US troops into Afghanistan, almost seeming to justify a prolonged US presence in the country:
“Even with the surge, with Obama's surge, I think what he was trying to do was deal with this mess of going into Afghanistan in the first place. In a sense, there are some tough spots that you're in where when you have boots on the ground, and you have those soldiers that are there, pulling out immediately sometimes isn't the most stabilizing course of action.”
4. Later that year, Obama endorsed her 2018 run for the House - and AOC proudly accepted it - wholly disregarding the fact that Obama’s eight years as president was largely spent terrorizing the Middle East and Africa with aerial death machines.
5. In February 2019, she provided cover for a failed US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela, saying: "People want to make this about ideology, about capitalism, about socialism. What people don't understand is that this is about authoritarianism vs democracy in many different ways...” She went on to compare Venezuela to a failed state, adding that the oil-rich country needs "democracy".
6. That same year, AOC voted in support of a bill reaffirming US loyalty to NATO, and later backed another bill that included $738 billion in "defense" spending.
7. In October 2019, she criticized the Trump administration for withdrawing US forces from northern Syria, warning the decision could have "catastrophic consequences".
8. In November, AOC met with supporters of what she later referred to on Twitter as a “coup” in Bolivia, even posing for a photo with them brandishing the tricolor Bolivian flag, which, as Jacob Levich at Counter Punch writes, “had become a signal of support for the golpistas [‘coup leaders’] as opposed to the Wiphala flag, which symbolized popular resistance to the takeover.” AOC reportedly told them “that she supports their ‘democratic grassroots movement’ and offered a ‘direct line of communication.’”
9. In January 2020, AOC rightly condemned Joe Biden for helping to “sell the invasion of Iraq”, adding: “spin it however you want, but those are the facts.”
But after Biden won the Democratic nomination, she endorsed his bid for president.
10. In December 2020, AOC wrote that she was "proud" to vote in support of the Tibet Policy and Support Act, "which would establish as US policy that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is a religious matter that should be decided solely by the Tibetan Buddhists" and "specify that Chinese officials who interfere in the Dalai Lama's succession process will be subject to Global Magnitsky sanctions..."
11. That same month, AOC voted in support of HR 133, a massive omnibus bill which included “not less than” $33 million for “democracy” programs in Venezuela.
12. HR 133 also provided $695.9 billion for the Department of Defense, including $68.7 billion for the Overseas Contingency Operations, and $2 billion for the “Space Force”.
13. Additionally, HR 133 included the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020, which supports deepened US-Taiwanese relations:
“The US should conduct regular sales and transfers of defense articles to Taiwan in order to enhance its self-defense capabilities, particularly its efforts to develop and integrate asymmetric capabilities, including undersea warfare and air defense capabilities, into its military forces.”
14. Among the origins of her 2019-2020 campaign contributions over $200, AOC received donations from individuals working for weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, IBM, and Boeing.
Beyond foreign policy concerns, a few other points to consider:
15. Additional campaign contributions over $200 between 2019-2020 came from individuals working at Nike, Bank Of America, JP Morgan, Starbucks, Wells Fargo, Disney, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google.
16. Digging a little deeper into these specific donations, Crain’s New York Business reports AOC “accepted seven donations totaling $1,450 from Frank Mazzarella, chief operating officer at Bank of America. A $1,000 check came from Kelley Parker, a partner in the corporate department of white-shoe law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison - a practice that boasts CitiGroup among its powerhouse clients.”
These donations are important because historically, they have been received with the expectation of future political favors, as I previously covered with Obama.
17. Although AOC claims she doesn’t take donations from political action committees (PACs), she nonetheless accepted money for her 2020 re-election campaign from PACs such as MoveOn.org and Indivisible Action. Perhaps most noteworthy, however, is the $10,000 she took from the Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union PAC, which represents employees at weapons manufacturers such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
18. AOC made it a point to criticize the Trump administration for its abhorrent immigration policies and for putting kids in cages, yet AOC not only publicly accepted an endorsement from Obama during her run for the House back in 2018, but she also threw her support behind Biden’s 2020 campaign, blatantly ignoring the fact that the Obama/Biden years saw the use of those very same cages.
Moreover, the Obama/Biden years set records for their mass deportations, with Trump surprisingly failing to deport more people in his first term than Obama.
19. Also on the issue of immigration, AOC’s vote in favor of HR 133 provided a million in funding for border wall construction - a project AOC has vocally opposed - and $7.97 billion for Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) - a government agency AOC supposedly wants abolished, though she still supports deportations.
It’s worth noting that a COVID-19 aid bill was attached to HR 133, providing strikingly convenient cover for “progressives” to justify supporting it. Yet AOC initially stated her justification as one of timing:
"This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it. Members of Congress have not read this bill. It's over 5000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in 2 hours. This isn't governance. It's hostage-taking."
Despite criticizing the small window to read HR 133, and later criticizing the bill itself, AOC still voted yes on it.
20. Similarly, back in March 2020, AOC rightly criticized the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, referring to it as "one of the largest corporate bailouts with as few strings as possible in American history."
"We essentially gave away $4 trillion in leveraged funds to Wall Street," she later told Jeremy Scahill during a December 2020 interview with The Intercept.
AOC insists she voted against the CARES Act. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't, but unfortunately, there's no way to know for sure because it was conveniently passed by an unrecorded voice vote. However, there are two tidbits to consider suggesting AOC did, in fact, vote for the CARES Act:
- On March 29th, 2020, AOC interviewed with Megan Rapinoe to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, an exchange that begins with AOC talking about how "it's been a crazy couple weeks for everybody" before adding: "but we were able to pass this bill yesterday and it's something, so we're making baby steps, baby progress."
AOC spends the first half of the interview talking about how great the bill is for everyday Americans, only offering criticisms of the CARES Act - and with a smile on her face - when prompted with a question by Rapinoe.
- While the votes weren't documented, a recorded video of the House's vote fails to provide any audio evidence of AOC’s objection.
If AOC voted for the CARES Act, not only does this mean she supported one of the largest upward transfers of wealth in US history, but also lied about it in the process.
21. AOC claims she is an ally to the #MeToo movement, and yet that didn’t stop her from endorsing Joe Biden for president in 2020, who has been accused by several women of inappropriate behavior and/or sexual assault.
22. AOC claims she wants to reform the criminal justice system and bring an end to marijuana prohibition, and yet that didn’t stop her from endorsing Joe Biden for president in 2020, who not only authored the incredibly racist 1994 Crime Bill, but is also against the idea of legalizing marijuana.
23. AOC’s “Green New Deal” (GND) was not only rejected by Biden during the 2020 presidential debates, but he also supports fracking, which AOC allegedly opposes.
24. The GND also has several major flaws: first, it includes no mention of cutting defense spending, which not only ignores the massive role the Pentagon plays in worldwide pollution, but also the billions in taxpayer dollars the US military receives each year that could be used to fund GND proposals; second, the GND fails to ban fracking; third, the GND doesn't halt fossil fuel production; fourth, the goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions was extended from 2030 to 2050; and fifth, the GND is non-binding, meaning it is merely a list of proposals that are entirely reliant on a corporate-owned political system that has successfully stagnated climate action for decades.
25. On the subject of whistleblowers, AOC said during her December 2020 interview with The Intercept that she believes Edward Snowden should be "considered" for a pardon, and "there are considerations and concerns" with clemency for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. But what is there to “consider”? Both Snowden and Assange are paying with their lives for the revelations they brought to the public’s attention, and it’s truly a shame AOC doesn’t seem to value their sacrifices enough to stand up for them in a more direct and courageous fashion.
26. When the #ForceTheVote campaign in December 2020 emerged and AOC was pressured by progressive supporters to leverage her support for Nancy Pelosi’s speakership bid unless she agrees to a floor vote on Medicare for All, AOC refused.
27. Pelosi received an endorsement back in 2018 from AOC, who unironically referred to her as the “most progressive” choice for Speaker, despite the fact that Pelosi is an establishment dinosaur who built a career taking millions from corporations.
I genuinely would have loved to see AOC defy the critiques I levied against her back in 2018 and live up to the image of a brave, anti-establishment champion. But there is nothing brave about about parroting neocon talking points, backing regime change efforts in oil-rich countries, providing funds for those wars, eulogizing war criminals, accepting endorsements from war criminals, and endorsing war criminals. There is nothing brave about taking money from corporate interests. There is nothing brave about appeasing an established order you were elected to challenge. There is nothing brave about making major concessions on climate legislation and providing even more time for the military-industrial complex and oil companies to destroy what’s left of the environment. There is nothing brave about shying away from clearly stating support for whistleblowers responsible for exposing government wrongdoing.
In the midst of waging at least seven wars and occupations across the Middle East & Africa, combined with a catastrophic healthcare crisis exacerbated by a deadly global pandemic, Americans need more anti-establishment champions willing to fight for working class interests.
Unfortunately, AOC doesn’t appear to be one of them.