 think that the American people are cynical about American politics and rightfully so because we've been betrayed time and again right there's always politicians that run on populism they you know are idealistic but then they get elected and they don't do anything they become complicit and get co-opted by the establishment and they sell out and then we never get the change that they promised there's dozens of examples you know Barack Obama of course is the most obvious example in the last couple of decades but you know we see this when it comes to Senate candidates Tammy Duckworth ran as a progressive sold out within the first year now she's one of the worst centrist Democrats we see this you know when it comes to the House of Representatives people say one thing and then they do another and that's incredibly frustrating and I think that it just turns a lot of people off to politics in general which is why people just kind of tune out and they stop voting but what AOC said in an interview with Chris Hayes it shed light on why this happens it's because DC is a pressure cooker and you know as soon as you get elected there are tons of different voices and special interests who are exerting a lot of pressure on you to conform they're trying to get you to sign on to their pro-corporate legislation and there's really you know a lack of time when you're a member of Congress and on top of that there's a lack of information so what a lot of politicians end up doing is they end up relying on lobbyists they become dependent on lobbyists not just in terms of their campaign contributions but in terms of the services that they provide in terms of you know getting statistical data about policies and whatnot so this is what happens when you get elected right this is why so many people sell out and AOC explained this absolutely beautifully in an interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC I feel like you've been very honest about this about the pressure to conform that you show up in Congress and there's just pressure to conform what does that pressure feel like how does it manifest itself what do you mean by that well that pressure is like a vice and there are so many different mechanisms in Congress that create that pressure one for example is the fact that any bill in legislation that is being voted on is not really debuted to members until about 48 hours before the vote and so sometimes these bills they go through markup they go through individual committees and we all sit on different committees so there's no way that we can all be at every markup at the same time but they move through markup but we often don't know if a vote is coming until and according to House rules 48 hours ahead of time which is an improvement upon Paul Ryan's Congress and which was 24 hours ahead of time and so we're talking about sometimes pieces of legislation that are thousands of pages long and then you say wait wait this is a really big problem that's a really big problem and they say well are you on our side or not yeah and there's all this like lobbyist you know authored provisions that are slipped inside sometimes we're able to catch them and take them out we did that quite a few times in appropriations where we found a couple fossil fuel amendments but but there's a real intense pressure to conform yes do you feel like that intense pressure to conform there's also how do you balance like i'm entering this institution that i ran against in some ways that i viewed as corrupt from the outside now i'm inside it and i don't want to sell out and i don't want the i don't want to be sanded down to conform but also i want to learn how the place works absolutely and those seem to me like those can be in impulses that are in tension with each other do you feel that way um i think well they are naturally in tension but that's where kind of just an individual's personality comes through so if you just think that a person's politics defines who they are and you see every person that is on the other side of you as it as almost a personal enemy that creates a huge amount of problems for you but when you see the result of our political process on the things that come out of our congress as the natural result of pressures on our system then you can treat the individuals inside the that system as human um but also it also almost i don't like using the word civility in politics because i i think it's a term to police how people talk but you're going to get dragged on twitter now yeah exactly but i do think that there is an element where um if i respect you you know like people know that my political positions when i walk in there and what's great is that they know exactly how i feel and who i am and so they know not to come to me with certain things and they also probably save you some conversations it saves me a ton of time ton of time but they also you know they also are willing to reach out to me on unusual things but they feel like would fit in the consistency of my values so i mean that pretty much explains why so many people sell out when they get elected because you are under immense pressure to conform and it is quite literally easier to just acquiesce to the status quo and what lobbyists want because you're you know overwhelmed when you're a member of congress and that's sad right not only do you have to work on legislating and crafting public policy but most people in dc spend hours every single day on the phone fundraising constantly now people like aoc don't have to do that because they rely on small grassroots donations but most people in congress they don't so they have to dedicate so much time and you know they spread themselves so thin that it's easier to just say you know what fuck it i'll support this bill that these lobbyists want me to support because i don't have the time to dive in so they're bad people but it's also due to them being you know lazy and also under a lot of pressure so i think that she really does a good job at explaining from a human standpoint why people sell out it's because that's the easy thing to do now she says the pressure is like a vice and there are so many mechanisms in congress that create that pressure that's exactly it the system isn't designed you know to cater to the needs of you and i we don't have lobbyists there's no lobbyist from the pro medicare for all lobby there's only lobbyists from you know special interests and if you do have organizations and unions that are lobbying members of congress they aren't going to be able to spend as much money lobbying as the special interests which is why you know you see these pro fossil fuel amendments being slipped into appropriations bills that often get voted on and passed and probably a lot of people in congress don't even know what they just voted for because you're given a bill 24 to 48 hours before you have to vote on it and it's a thousand pages and you have to try to decide whether or not to support it and before you can even really decide for yourself if it's a good bill for the american people you have lobbyists and special interests in your ear trying to convince you to go one way or the other i mean the system isn't designed for good public policy making this is why a princeton university study showed that policy outcomes usually reflect what elites want and not what normal americans want we have a statistically insignificant impact on policy outcomes elites actually do influence how policies are crafted and the outcome of policies and that's a problem money in politics isn't just the only issue it's the structure of congress it's the way that dc operates it really is a swamp for lack of a better word but people who claim they want to drain the swamp don't because again there's a lot of work to be done so you have to you know you have to delegate you have to allow your staff to handle a lot of it and you have to have you know um input from different organizations on particular bills oftentimes those are influences that are bad it's just it's a clusterfuck right how else do you describe that dc is a mess and this is why i would never want to be a member of congress because even if you have the intent to do good by the american people think about how difficult it is the amount of pressure that you are under and the stress not to mention the attacks that you get from you know your opponents like fox news aoc is under constant attack by them as a communist or socialist so it's just it's not a good environment for crafting good public policy that's just the way that it is so we need to change the system we need big structural change and that's not going to happen by electing you know some type of wonky technocrat like elizabeth warren we need to redesign the system from the ground up and we do that with a movement who demands change because this much lobbyists that's not going to be conducive to a democratic country that reflects what the people want you know that's that's not going to be what happens it's going to devolve into oligarchy so you know yeah i'm really glad that aoc shed light on this because i think this is this is really important i wish that more members of congress would speak out about this very issue there so that way there would actually be a little bit of urgency and just talk of possibly reforming the way that dc operates