Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called for Democrats to elect “brawlers” who fight for the working class to counter GOP power and oppose policies endorsed by figures like Elon Musk.
Speaking alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders in Las Vegas, she criticized Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for not filibustering a GOP spending bill and labeled the decision a “tremendous mistake.”
Ocasio-Cortez urged voters to support candidates willing to take bold stances.
She continues her “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Sanders across Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona.
They kind of are in a different party: the Democratic Socialists of America isn’t on the ballot but Bernie runs as an independent who caucuses with Democrats. If Democrats wanted to, they could run a candidate against him. But to form a truly independent third party, you’d just be splitting the votes on the left.
As you get to state and national elections where much of the nation is pretty evenly divided, running as a third party all but ensures the Republican will win (even without winning a majority in most states, though a few use different systems). In essence, our system requires coalitions to be made before the election rather than after.
You could compare it to UK elections. In 2024, Labour won 33% of the votes but won 411 of 650 seats because the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and regional parties split the rest.
They actually couldn’t really. Bernie wins the Democratic primary in his state then just runs as an Independent. He’s the chosen representative of the Vermont Democratic Party.
I stand corrected. Everyone listen to 👆that poster.
My state (Louisiana) has a different election system — actually several and it’s currently a confusing mess — and I’m not really familiar with Vermont’s primaries.
In Louisiana, the November election is actually technically a primary. If no one gets 50%, the top two candidates (regardless of party) have a run-off in December. For various reasons over the years, some elections were changed to be more like first past the post with closed party primaries. Others weren’t. And now, it’s just a messy hodgepodge. (And to top it all off, our governor and many other elections are “off-year” so it doesn’t align with federal elections. We’re voting on Amendments on March 29th. It’s idiotic.)