Dems must reject the economic illiteracy of Trump's blanket tariffs that will drive prices up, investment down, growth down--pushing us towards stagflation. That doesn't mean embracing status quo policies that led to Trump. Gov't has to improve life for many struggling.

We can do it in a financially sound way. The way we reduce deficits is by taxing the wealthy more, cutting the bloated defense budget, cutting fossil fuel subsidies, & having Medicare negotiate against drug manufacturers to lower costs.

We also need new high paying jobs and economic growth. The times demand a Marshall plan for America's economic renewal. We can spur high paying job creation in every town & city that will lead to growth & increased tax revenue reducing deficit.

We cant simply go back to an America where we neglect inequality, or watch jobs being shipped offshore passively, or are resigned to wealth piling up in NY and SV while most Americans have no economic security.

Why would we want to go back to that --where people in too many communities do not have high paying jobs, young folks can't afford a house, many are struggling to pay medical debt or afford childcare?

We need a transformative vision so that ordinary Americans have a shot at success in the modern economy. That is what my economic patriotism is about. It is about finally getting economic security and independence for the majority of Americans.

Taxing the very rich & cutting defense contractors to pay for Medicare for All, universal education and $10 day childcare. And having the biggest high paying jobs development initiative this country has seen in decades. A pro growth, fiscally sound, progressive vision!

Amid a wellspring of discontent over the Pennsylvania senator’s coziness with Israel and Republicans, people are demanding campaign donation refunds.

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/05/john-fetterman-israel-campaign-donation-refunds/

To begin, the recent Morning Consult poll seems a press release, as it doesn't even when the 2028 Democratic Presidential primary polling was done.

Secondly, The Economist/YouGov according to this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html seems to slightly oversample conservatives.

But this The Economist/YouGov poll (econTabReport_Uo7FRzc.pdf) is important because of the details.

Remember that in the 2020 Democratic Presidential primary, US Senator Elizabeth Warren was in the lead and on her way to becoming POTUS. Until she moved to the Right on Medicare For All.

Much of the Mainstream Media and the elite media already seem to support AOC for a POTUS 2028 run or at least aren't averse to it.

AOC is already considered by many the de facto leader of the Democratic Party.

Pete Buttigieg aside from his mayoral time and his time as US Transportation Secretary will also have to answer for being out of elected politics for 4 years for no good reason instead of running for Governor of Michigan or Michigan US Senator.

If VPOTUS Kamala Harris doesn't run for Governor of California in 2026 and win and do good as Governor, she'll have to answer for being out of elected politics for 4 years for no good reason.

These times are these times and it's certainly not being a fighter if you decide to not have actual power for 4 years.

A campaign would just have to remind people of the 2024 Veep debate to sink Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

So far, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is barely registering in 2028 Presidential polling.

Mark Cuban? Mayor Michael Bloomberg was easily ousted out of the 2020 race. And at least he was a 3-term mayor of New York City and was a major Democratic donor.

A campaign would just need to remind people of what Mark Cuban was saying about corporate regulation, Lina Khan, etc. in 2024 to sink him.

AOC's numbers and standing are already great and she has never ran for POTUS. Probably around 6-10% or less don't know enough about VPOTUS Kamala Harris. That number is probably around 30-32% for AOC.

Governor Tim Walz? Compare his social media numbers, his rally sizes, etc. to AOC's and US Senator Bernie Sanders's.

Pete Buttigieg ran for POTUS in 2020 and was the US Secretary of Transportation for 4 years. Yet more people know AOC. Pete has possibly hit his ceiling.

And AOC is already actually beating California Governor Gavin Newsom.

And if US Senator Bernie Sanders endorses AOC? His supporters go to her.

@moreperfectunion with another banger.

America’s political history of dismantling anything beneficial for society, which disrupts capitalism.

Pro-society shouldn’t be anti-American.

Fascinating to see the same playbook work 70 years later.

Premeditated demolition of Pruitt-Igoe trained against 1) housing, 2) healthcare, 3) education, 4) mail, 5) utilities

Profit motive leads to innovation…my ass.

In today’s politically charged atmosphere, it can be challenging to distinguish genuine impact from mere noise. To help clarify the landscape, I've devoted over 500 hours to developing a robust page that tracks political developments and the actions of various politicians despite having no prior coding experience. I’m eager to hear your honest feedback, as your insights are invaluable in refining this project. Did I spent a lot of money... does my wife think I'm crazy? Yes to both, but I thought it was important.

Feedback PLEASE!!

What's in this Post comment is what I remember, my opinions, etc.

To begin, Michelle Cottle is effectively center-right at-best. And that's important context given the piece is clearly about AOC's being a possible frontrunner for the 2028 Democratic Presidential Nomination. But it's also important when considering Ms. Cottle's analysis.

However, it's important that this stalwart of the center-right voice in the New York Times effectively in the piece argues that AOC should either be the next Democratic US Speaker of the House of the Representatives or the next Democratic POTUS.

All quotes from: Opinion | A.O.C. Wants the Democrats to Think Anew - The New York Times

[AOC] wishes Democrats would stop thinking “that the power struggle within the party is between progressives and moderates,” as she told me recently.

“Whether it’s advisers or the consultant class, they are losing elections because of it,” she said.

Instead, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez believes her party can come together around fighting for the little guy and gal, a core value she insists does not belong to any particular ideological camp — or at least shouldn’t. “I believe economic populism is the path forward,” [AOC] said, a message she has taken on the road recently with Senator Bernie Sanders, at joint rallies on his Fighting Oligarchy tour that are the closest thing to an organized, energized bounce-back effort within the Democratic Party since Republicans won full control of Washington in November.

And

the important thing for Democrats at this early stage of the Trump-wilderness period is that she is putting big ideas and arguments on the table. There’s not enough of that in the party right now.

And

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is taking up that mantle like few others, and along the way, challenging some of the caricatures of her as an upstart ideologue.

Case in point: In talking to me about economic populism, she didn’t cite members of the lefty Squad, but instead name-checked a very different colleague. “Look at a front-liner like Jared Golden, who is on Medicare for all,” she said, citing the Maine congressman who has staked out a liberal position on health care despite being a self-identified “progressive conservative” representing a Trumpy district. “This is why I say we need to have a rejection of this left-right, because there are folks that can lean into certain issues,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “Sure, there are third rails like immigration that are not going to fly in every single district. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t vocally support policies that are going to help people pay their bills.”

U.S. House Election Live Results 2024 - The New York Times

In 2024, US Representative Jared Golden had one of the most competitive US House Districts and he barely won.

Secondly, he's effectively another US Representative Marie G. Perez.

Rep. Jared Golden [D-ME2, 2019-2026], Representative for Maine's 2nd Congressional District - GovTrack.us

He's around as much a corporate and conservative Democrat, but both are anti-crypto.

Crypto money is generally used against progressives in the primaries and Democrats in the general election.

It's important that AOC is 'calling out' crypto at these Sanders/AOC rallies. And also that she's saying that "[billionaires] aren't working for these billions, they're stealing them". : r/MurderedByAOC

Regarding given a 'shout-out' to US Rep. Golden, I don't know what AOC's strategy is. But maybe she considers that if she becomes POTUS that she can pressure the Democrats still in Office to vote for popular things such as Medicare For All, A Green New Deal, raising the minimum wage, etc. I would prefer leftists and progressives had more resources and that people like US Representative Jared Golden would be successfully primaried and that the new candidate could win the general election.

But AOC is clearly trying to get broader support from Officeholders. And seems eager to back primary challengers to people who don't support her or her basic economic populist agenda. She's seeming to possibly support Conor Lamb's primarying US Senator John Fetterman if Conor Lamb is the best choice to mount that primary challenge.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is arguably the best-known progressive figure in elected office — sorry, Bernie!

Working Families Power Polling Feb. 24-March 2, 2025. Around 30% of the American people had either never heard of or didn't know enough about AOC to rate her. It's possible these Sanders/AOC rallies during March 20-22, 2025 helped her numbers. And more good exposure would also help her numbers. : r/MurderedByAOC

Around 32% of the American people had either never heard of or didn't know enough about AOC to rate her. That number is around 13% for US Senator Bernie Sanders.

Ms. Cottle goes on to suggest that AOC is perhaps more suited to become the next 'Nancy Pelosi' aka the next US Speaker of the House of Representatives. Which: okay. But the American people want AOC as the US House Minority Leader now and around 70-80% of potential Democratic voters consider US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries isn't doing enough. Yet that switch hasn't happened and there's no guarantee that it'll happen in 2027.

But then Ms. Cottle also mentions that the Sanders/AOC rallies have had "crowds in numbers worthy of a presidential campaign".

Large rallies often get mocked, but they are valuable in many ways, argued Faiz Shakir, Mr. Sanders’s chief adviser. “They build community,” he said, which he sees as critical with the decline of civic organizations and union halls and other places where organizing once took place on the left. “Coming out of the pandemic, people want to be with each other in commonality for an affirmative vision,” he said.

For movement building, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s more personal style of public engagement seems designed for an era of institutional distrust, in which many Americans have little use for party politics. As Mr. Khanna noted, “She connects with her life experiences in a way with young people and people who don’t follow all the details of politics by drawing them in.”

The “life experiences” issue is a hot topic, as Democrats grapple with having become identified as the party of the elite.

“On one hand, I think there are Democrats who think that’s a misperception,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “But on the other hand, we have to look at how people voted. We did lose working-class electorates.”

It is a question not only of message but of “the messenger,” [AOC] offered.

“I think the kind of candidates that maybe a couple of decades ago were once aspirational, like having the Harvard degree and the pedigree and an esteemed job after college,” are in a more complicated position, she said. “The inequality in this country has gotten to a point where it now represents things that people resent that they can’t ever have a chance at having.”

“I think that people need to see some of us who’ve actually made it from really tough backgrounds and have really seen some things in their lives and not just heard about things in their lives. Because it’s visceral. To actually know what it’s like to come home to an apartment and the lights are off, to actually know what it’s like to not be able to afford a prescription, is something that can be really felt.”

There's no quote of US Representative Ro Khanna saying that AOC should primary US Senator Chuck Schumer. Maybe he's now supportive of AOC 2028?

And: "Harvard degree and the pedigree and an esteemed job after college": who does that sound like who wants to run for POTUS in 2028? Some of AOC's messaging seems clearly political as well as policy. Anti-billionaire, anti-crypto, anti-"Harvard degree and the pedigree and an esteemed job after college". It'll be interesting to see if there's any new messaging during the April 12 Sanders/AOC Los Angeles town hall/rally. Or if there eventually is.

Overall, it's a good piece.

Opinion | A.O.C. Wants the Democrats to Think Anew - The New York Times (the comments)

Overall are supportive of AOC.