"The race between AOC and Connolly [for Head of the House Oversight Committee] was broadly seen as not just representing a competition between two people but two different futures for the Democratic party. AOC represented a generational shift: a fresh young face and energetic communicator who represents a more anti-establishment spirit. Connolly was business as usual for the Democrats. For a while, it seemed like AOC had a real shot at winning, but then 84-year-old Nancy Pelosi, recovering in hospital from hip-replacement surgery, reportedly made a bunch of phone calls and urged people to back Connolly. On Tuesday, he won by a vote of 131-84."
At the precise time the Dems are recovering, regrouping, after an electoral loss many postmortems attribute to non-college working classes identifying more with the other party the Dems shoot themselves in the foot again. AOC is working class, for crying out loud!
Basically, this is the Dems trying to reassure "fiscal conservatives" and business elites and check or block working class interests and voices in the party. I appreciate seniority values, being a senior myself perhaps more than ever, but this isn't just an ageist issue. Elevating AOC in responsibility and leadership, after the electoral loss in November, was a no-brainer and would be a significant positive step going forward for the party.
I felt more or less the same way about Sanders and Warren after the 2016 loss. Their voices should have been elevated in the party establishment as a progressive reform. Instead, they were shunned or marginalized. Admittedly, and thankfully, Biden did at least partially correct for this DNC neglect by creating a constructive relationship with the congressional progressive caucus during his term.
And, please, make no mistake, these snubs weren't for their cultural liberalism or identity politics. The party establishment is objecting to their economic populism; their open advocacy for working class interests. In particular, I wouldn't be surprised if this snub is at least partly attributable to AOC's open support for banning stock trading by legislators. Pelosi opposed such a ban in 2022 and this is likely a big part of the "trust" Connolly won the committee chair position with.
Breaking News: TPM, Josh and Kate, posted their weekly podcast, "AOC Snubbed," four days before I posted the above hot take, although I swear I hadn't heard it before today. Of course, it's smarter, better informed, more insider baseball on politics than I'll ever be, so if the AOC snub story interests you it should not be missed.
Copy and paste into your browser ought to get you there:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/podcasts/the-josh-marshall-podcast/ep-354-aoc-snubbed/
Notes: I don't always keep up with the podcast. But this is a particularly good one. Josh is his usual irreverent and big picture hardball politics historical takes self. But Kate is in especially rare and fine form, her ire up over the Dems snubbing AOC. By the end they're apologizing a bunch, again, especially Kate, for being such downers, ranting against the Dem leadership for way longer than they'd planned. Not at all. Singing my song on this story, for sure.
I'd only like to add another way to look at that Whip vote that went 130-something for Connolly over 80-something for AOC, even more downer than TPM's take. Consider this a speculative reframing of the behind the scenes question House dems faced: Which do you think is more important to the agenda of the Dem oversight committee in the coming congress: 1) Reassuring our biggest donors or 2) raising to a position of leadership one of our most popular and articulate younger voices, who happens to be in fact working class and a woman and under forty?! A super majority of the House Dems, no sweat, chose Kate's "defensive crouch," again.
AOC's another self-identifying "socialist" and might alienate more of the "fiscal conservative" Dems in the swing states, blah, blah. It isn't that hard to imagine how it would go. And as long as the two parties are perceived as more or less equal on the economy, or equal on their support for working class interests, many more in the working classes will fall for the bigot culture war stuff. The "illegal" immigrants are taking all our jobs, etc.
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