 So I want to talk about an article recently published by Politico about Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, because she did something that really angered a lot of leftists, and I think rightfully so. Now, the more perplexing element about this story is that the thing that she did simultaneously pissed off both moderate Democrats and leftists, which is interesting. Having said that, though, I do think it's important that we address this. I'm not one who goes out of my way to criticize political allies, but I do really think there is a meaningful difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism. And what I mean by that is there's a lot of folks online who go out of their way to make Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez public enemy number one. And they work backwards from the conclusion that AOC is bad, and they try to find every single story and every little thing that she says to validate their belief that AOC is bad. They make it seem as if she's the main obstacle to all of our progress, but that's not actually the case. She's one member of Congress, and I do believe that she hasn't really figured out how to effectively wield her power, and she hasn't learned how to use the leverage that she has, as is the case with other lawmakers. So in criticizing her, I don't want to contribute to the noise that's out there, and I don't want to validate the opportunists who make money off of clicks and views just needlessly shitting on AOC nonstop. But I do think it is important that someone who is a good faith actor addresses this and explains to AOC if she manages to see this, why the strategy isn't going to be conducive to success on the left. I don't think that she's a sellout. I don't think that she's ill-intentioned, but what she's doing very clearly isn't going to help her or the leftist movement. So to give you some background, basically every member of Congress is expected to pay dues into the DCCC, which is the election arm of the Democratic Party. AOC doesn't pay her dues. She refuses to pay her dues because she believes that the DCCC is not fair to progressives. I mean, they've previously blacklisted vendors who work with progressive primary challengers. So she's right to not pay dues. So she's circumvented this by trying to reallocate the money that she would otherwise pay to the DCCC, which helps Democrats get elected to just giving directly to members of the Democratic Party. Now, up until this point, she's been pretty selective about who she chooses to allocate election money to. She usually just specifically donates to progressives. But as of late, she's actually broadened out who she's donating to. And now she's donating to more moderate Democrats, and she's not just donating to more conservative, right-leaning Democrats. She's donating to Democrats who very explicitly are hostile, not just to her agenda, but to her specifically. So let's get to the article. As Politico reports, as the midterm campaign's first fundraising deadline approached this week, several vulnerable House Democrats got an unwelcome surprise in their accounts. $5,000 from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The New York Democrat sent the contributions to her colleagues to help keep the House majority ahead of a tough cycle without directly contributing to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, with which she's publicly clashed. But Ocasio-Cortez's largesse and an oversight at the campaign headquarters has instead raised awkward questions among her colleagues as some swing district Democrats fret over whether to return her money before the GOP can turn it into an attack ad. While some are grateful for the infusion of cash, at least three Democrats have so far either declined the initial transfer or said they would return the money. Representatives Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania, Carolyn Bordeaux of Georgia, and Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan, according to multiple sources. Ocasio-Cortez is a prolific fundraiser with a campaign machine of her own that could be a major asset to Democrats as they attempt to hold on to their majority next fall. While she has given to some individual frontline Democrats in the past, such as representatives Michael Levin and Katie Porter of California, as well as Representative Johanna Hayes of Connecticut, her past giving has been more selective. This year's crop of DCCC frontliners include 32 hand-picked Democrats who face some of the toughest elections in the country next November. The majority of them flipped GOP seats in 2018. Some, like Levin and Porter of California, proudly identify with the left wing of the party and would face minimal political risk from an affiliation from the progressive icon. But Ocasio-Cortez's money poses a problem for Democrats such as Representative Jared Golden of Maine and Slotkin, who represent more moderate turf and have sought to distance themselves from the left wing of the caucus. Now, at the time that I record this video, AOC has yet to comment on this article. I'd imagine that she'd say, look, this isn't necessarily about their policies. This is just about me trying to make sure I do my part to keep the Democratic majority as we head into the 2022 midterm elections. Also, she could say, look, I know that they don't agree with me on most things, but this is me extending an olive wrench to them. Perhaps if I donate $5,000 to them, they might either support something that I'm pushing or maybe they just might stop criticizing me. Either way, what it seems like she's doing is she's trying to play 4D chess, where she's trying to move up within the party's ranks by helping other Democrats get elected. That's exactly how you do move up in the Democratic party. The issue that I have with this, however, is that if you truly want to enact a transformative progressive agenda, you can't just try to move up within the system itself once you're inside. As an insider, you have to dismantle the existing structures, the existing establishment from within, not play patty cake with corporate Democrats who absolutely want nothing to do with you. And they hate her so much that they're rejecting the money, some of them are, and they're publicly denouncing this donation. But someone like Connor Lamb, like donating to this individual is unjustifiable because while he may be better than some Republicans, he's pretty comparable to them. And you're literally funding someone with money from progressives who is antagonistic towards your agenda. Connor Lamb just attacked members of the squad. He claimed that people like AOC put the Democratic party's majority at risk, and when it comes to leftist policies like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, he lied about them and said that they're quote, unworkable and extremely unpopular, which is an outright fabrication. I mean, when it comes to Alyssa Slotkin, she came out strongly against Medicare for All and she said, I think for me, the most important thing is that the American way of life is choice and competition. I mean, because that's certainly working out for us currently. So the issue with this is that AOC is giving money to Democrats. She's helping to elect Democrats that are going to in turn fight against the agenda that she's pushing. And the worst part about this is that she's doing this with money that she's using from progressives. If progressives wanted their money to go to Connor Lamb, they would just donate to Connor Lamb. But since they don't want that to happen, you can see why they're angry. You could see why it feels as if they think they were betrayed because you're taking this money and you're justifying it, giving it to Democrats, justifying it by saying, well, I'm helping to enact a Democrat majority because if we lose the majority, then everything's off the table. But I mean, it's even more difficult to justify that if with a Democratic majority currently you're not using the power that you have to push for more progressive legislation. I mean, it's not just AOC. Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders, they were touting Biden's COVID relief package as like one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in modern history. We passed the most significant piece of emergency legislation, which among other things will cut childhood poverty in half. The American Rescue Plan is deemed to be the most progressive policy in decades. But that's not a victory for the left. It was a victory for centrist Democrats. You lost. You tried to get a minimum wage of $15 an hour in that bill, but that didn't happen. So you can say that, sure, there's some good things in that legislation, but to tout their victory as your own, that's a little bit disingenuous. Like I want you to actually fight. And sure, you can critique the Biden administration. AOC is phenomenal at doing that. You can speak to the issues within the system itself, but if you don't actually go to war with the Democratic establishment and fight other Democrats, then you're not going to be very effective. So to fund Democrats who are going to in turn fight against you and fight to, you know, dismantle all of the progress that we've made in building public support for Medicare for All. I don't think that this is smart politics at all. In fact, I think it's terrible politics. And someone who knows AOC very personally, Paula Jean Swaraj, and tends to agree. She says, this is not what we supported when we started. Pretty sure AOC is batting for what the party wanted her to do. Not what will help to pass policies we need. I'm highly disappointed with my colleague and I won't align myself with her anymore. Now I'm not going to go as far as Paula Jean. I'm not going to say I won't align myself with her anymore because I think that if we want to get progressive policies enacted and have any chance whatsoever, then we have to rely on progressives in Congress. But the point that Paula Jean is making is that this move to try to play patty cake with members of the Democratic Party establishment and even trying to help moderate Democrats get elected. I get that you think this is going to help you win over Democrats, but they're never going to like you so long as you will truly support the agenda that it goes against what their donors want. And you see an issue here with AOC strategy is that it is reminiscent of Elizabeth Warren's 2020 presidential campaign strategy and that she wasn't necessarily trying to go against the Democratic Party establishment and Democratic Party leadership. She was trying to build support within the establishment, which is something that I critiqued because if you actually want to make progress, they are the obstacles that stand in your way. So you have to actually treat them like the enemies that they are. So what AOC is doing here, I'd love to hear her try to justify this and explain why she's doing this. Again, I can anticipate her saying, well, this isn't about me. It's just about the Democratic majority. But this isn't going to get them to like you. And even if we secure a Democratic majority in 2022, you haven't fully justified using progressive money to fund conservatives, especially considering that having a Democratic majority hasn't really paid off as far as the left is concerned. Sure, Biden is handling COVID better. We got the $1,400 relief checks instead of the $2,000. But in terms of like what the left is able to accomplish with the Democratic majority, you guys haven't put up anything yet and you really need to put up more. You actually have to go to war with the Democratic Party establishment. And if you don't want to do that, then actually threaten to withhold support for certain bills. Joe Manchin does it all the time. Moderate Democrats are already doing it in the House if Joe Biden doesn't adjust the tax policy in there. So it's just it's really frustrating. And I think that what she's trying to do here, it's just unjustifiable. And again, I hesitate to criticize AOC too hard because I don't want to join the course of people on the left who's just trying to tear her down because I think that that's counterproductive. But I think that this is one of those times where what she's doing isn't just making the left less effective. It's actually hurting the leftist cause. And if she doesn't hear from good faith actors, if she doesn't hear from leftists about why this is problematic and why this is something that a leftist politician should never do, then she's going to be more inclined to just disregard all criticism because she's just going to think, well, it's just from my usual haters who are always shitting on me. So I'm just going to ignore everyone and just try to do what I think is best. But we need to hold them accountable. We hold them accountable and get them to do what we want. And they're not always going to listen to us. But I think that we have to speak up and understand that this movement, it goes both ways, right? We sent AOC to Congress to dismantle the systems that oppress American people and working people from the inside. And so if she thinks she has to try to move up the ranks within the party, that's a misguided approach because you're not going to dismantle it from inside. You're not going to dismantle the establishment from the inside if you're literally propping up the establishment itself and just doing exactly what they want you to do. I understand. I get that these payments are in lieu to her giving the DCCC contributions, which she should not pay her dues to the DCCC. But you can't justify it by saying, well, the money would be going to conservative Democrats anyway if she just gave it to the DCCC. Or, yeah, but I mean, Conor Lamb is bad, but he's better than Republicans. I don't think these are justifiable reasons to give money to people who are antithetical or who stand for everything that's, you know, antithetical to what you believe in. So I think that this ain't it. And the criticism that she's receiving in this instance is absolutely warranted. And I hope that she listens and has a change of heart because her strategy of trying to butter up Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic establishment, it hasn't paid off. And unless it pays off really, really soon, I think it's time for her to reevaluate her strategy in Congress because this isn't working. If she wants to be effective, you can't play nice with the establishment. You actually have to fight. And if she fights, she has millions of leftists in her corner who will go to bat for her. But doing it this way, that's just the saying it, chief.