cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/33487836
By MEE staff
Published date: 21 July 2025 21:11 BSTThe New York lawmaker voted against an amendment by Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene last week that sought to block $500m in Congress’ annual defence spending bill for Israel’s Iron Dome programme.
Fellow Democrats Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar [as well as Democrats Al Green of Texas, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky - PL] had supported Taylor Greene’s amendment, which eventually lost in a 422-6 vote.
In a post on X on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez claimed that Greene’s amendment did “nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza”.
She’s not a neo liberal… Maybe she’ll become a liberal at worst
I believe she’s a good person, I believe she’s a true blue progressive…I just think she has terrible political instincts. It seems like she’s making backroom deals that don’t benefit her positions or even herself
I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. And I don’t think Bernie has been a good influence
We need fighters, and it’s been too long since she actually fought. I still think she’ll be part of the solution, but she’s not panning out into what I hoped she’d be
Everything you typed after this implies the opposite. It’s painful to accept that someone you admired might no longer be who you thought they were. But the sooner you let go of that attachment, the clearer things become. She is not your friend. You do not join the Democratic Party to fight it from within. You join it to become part of its machinery.
Look at her record and measure it against her rhetoric. She voted to fund the Iron Dome in 2021 and then cried on the House floor. That was not courage. That was shame. She has now voted against cutting funding to Israel’s military while bombs are falling on Gaza. She condemns genocide and then votes to fund it. That is not strategy. That is betrayal.
She avoids confrontation with her party even when that party is enabling mass death. She speaks of justice, then backs imperial budgets. She delays, reframes, and pacifies while Palestinians are being erased. Her presence is soothing for liberals and neutralizing for movements. She functions as a release valve. She gives you a reason to believe in a system that should be dismantled.
You said she might be making backroom deals that do not benefit her or her ideals. That is what co-optation looks like. It does not require corruption. It only requires surrender. It happens when staying in the room becomes more important than changing what the room represents.
It is not that she is inactive. It is that she actively helps preserve a violent status quo. That makes her dangerous in a different way. Not because she is cruel, but because she is trusted.
Being disappointed is honest. But if you continue to hold onto the belief that she is still part of the solution, you will miss what she has already become. She is no longer a fighter. She is now a barrier.
She’s not a barrier, she’s still signal boosting progressives all over. She’s just not the fighter we need, but she’s not truly compromised… At least not yet
We can’t just totally disavow people at the first mistake. She’s still on our team, even if she’s getting valid criticism and responding terribly.
I honestly wonder why she came out crying, and since then has actually been consistent on the iron dome. What did Pelosi say? What did she show her? My guess is she showed her dead Israeli children from before the iron dome. Her position is coherent, it’s just naive
And I think Bernie is the main reason she hasn’t been vocal in her criticism for Democrats. AOC has been open in that she doesn’t know what she’s doing but is trying her best…I believe she’s still is. Now she’s just getting bad/dated guidance and turning into another Bernie
And Bernie has been consistent and good his entire career… I’m confident she’ll be the same
That being said, I thought people were mostly being sexist when they said she was too young to be president… But now I just think she doesn’t have the sauce
She’s still on our side, she just can’t be the leader. And that’s disappointing
How many chances does she get? This is the second time she makes the same mistake, are you gonna still count it as one mistake the third time?
Yep.
It’s one issue, and she’s not out there declaring fealty to Israel, it’s specifically the iron dome. It’s a bad take, but I think it’s an honest one. I think she doesn’t have the stomach to do the math with civilian lives, she’s just trying to save everyone, which is understandable but naive
I feel for the Palestinians, but they’re already building camps and disappearing people in our country. The only way to actually stop this is to twist Bibi’s nuts until he allows the world to come in and enforce an end to this.
And we’re never going to do that without progressives in power anyways, so we can’t declare her lost over a less than perfect take on one issue. And she is with us on putting a stop to this
Hell, for all I know Pelosi showed her IDF plans to glass the entire strip instantly if the dome ever goes down
My real problem is how she handled the criticism. That part was weak and whiny, someone with the sauce would have owned it. She could have said “look, I hear you, but this is a hard choice and I can only do what I think is right”. She could have just taken it on the chin and waited for it to go away.
Instead she tried to weasel out of it, and that’s what losers do. And we’re all going to die if we don’t start winning, so I still want her high up in Democratic leadership. I definitely want her on the team
I just think she isn’t the hero we all rally behind, and unfortunately Mumdani can’t be president
I think too many people get caught up on having the perfect candidate and can’t see the other good things a candidate can do. She’s still leagues better than a majority of democrats
Agreed. And it’s a real problem on the left, because we actually believe in things.
We really need to take a breath, ask where are we and where do I want us to go, and ask if this person is pushing in the same general direction
It’s all about momentum
Exactly, monumental change usually moves monumentally slow unless there is a powerful catalyst. So pushing in the right areas instead of wondering why one of the best options in power isn’t better is key to that momentum.