About Last Night: Ocasio-Cortez Unseats Crowley in NY-14

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

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25 Responses

  1. Saul Degraw says:

    Here is the thing, NYC and often NYS Democrats rarely face serious challenges. Crowley is a progressive Democrat but he was handpicked by his successor and then never faced a serious primary or general election. The district is D plus 29, no one is spending money here.

    He was also at odds demographically with his district. But his challenger ran a real boots on the ground campaign which is more than you can say for many DSA types. She also overcame a fund raising disadvantage because Crowley does have Wall Street connections.Report

  2. cojonius maximus says:

    Drop the pretense this person is a communistReport

    • dragonfrog in reply to cojonius maximus says:

      You know, communism has a meaning and it is different from democratic socialism, unless you are so far to the right that false perspective blurs the difference.Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to dragonfrog says:

        @dragonfrog

        Haven’t we seen U.S. conservatives do that for decades without any sense that they will ever calm down?Report

      • LeeEsq in reply to dragonfrog says:

        Conservatives define everything even slightly liberal as communist in the United States even when it doesn’t deal with economics at all. Integrated schools and public spaces, same sex marriage, abortion rights, etc. All Communist.Report

  3. Chip Daniels says:

    What I am seeing is how little the old socialist/ capitalist divide matters any more.

    Aside from political wonks and bloggers, economic theories don’t seem to drive political votes.
    Trump won by explicitly promising to use government intervention to help his base, and the massive Republican deficits have elicited only yawns of indifference from the base.

    Meanwhile even on our side, no one is seriously promising to completely put all the factors of producting under public control.Report

    • An excellent and true point. Few theories stand up to “I’m going to give you what you want”, and once someone makes that bargain it’s almost impossible to convince them it was the wrong thing, either in theory or practice, to do.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      I largely agree but I think this is overstating the case. Crowley was just a demographic mismatch with his district. He was a good guy but this wasn’t Eric Cantor being replaced by someone even nuttier. He also did some boneheaded things like not show up for debates. That should cost someone the primary.

      I think people are reading too much into this one primary victory. There were plenty of other further-left, DSA, or whatever candidates who went down in flames in their primaries.

      Where you are correct is that the right-wing guys are overstating their case by calling everything socialism and refusing to budge even an inch. The House Freedom Caucus is not doing themselves any favors by saying “Argh Communism!” to everything the left wants. But they seemingly don’t realize this.

      However, it might all be moot when a judiciary of relatively young Federalist Society firebreathers overturns every action done by a Democratic Congress and President. Trump’s lasting legacy besides performative cruelty will be the stacking of the judiciary with right-wing ideologues.Report

      • pillsy in reply to Saul Degraw says:

        I do think there’s some over-reading here, and it’s not so different to what we saw with Mark Sanford, who may have just lost his primary because he barely ran a campaign.

        Also, this seems as good a place as any to point out that it was really slightly annoying to see three “true progressives” running in my Congressional district against the establishment pick who beat them easily, when one of them could have taken a run at Bob Menendez and actually could have won.

        I’m still mad that that crooked piece of shit is going to be reelected in November.Report

        • pillsy in reply to pillsy says:

          And to be clear, Menendez is the real problem, and the way the national and state Dem establishment covered him for is a disgrace. It’s just frustrating that the Leftward anti-establishment types passed up an opportunity to win some real power for themselves and take out perhaps the worst element of the Dem establishment in the Senate.

          It’s a YOU HAD ONE JOB kind of thing.Report

      • dragonfrog in reply to Saul Degraw says:

        Where you are correct is that the right-wing guys are overstating their case by calling everything socialism and refusing to budge even an inch.

        Partly that may be because the Overton window in the US stretches waaaay out on the right, but not far enough left that most people have any kind of serious appreciation of what socialism and communism are, how they differ in practice, how this reflects itself in the differences between modern Sweden and 70’s East Germany, etc.Report

        • Saul Degraw in reply to dragonfrog says:

          It isn’t new though, it is decades old. Maybe centuries. There is a contingent of Boomers still fighting the Cold War.Report

          • Dave Regio in reply to Saul Degraw says:

            Saul Degraw: It isn’t new though, it is decades old. Maybe centuries. There is a contingent of Boomers still fighting the Cold War.

            It could also be that your positions aren’t as strong as you think they are, and who better to debate that with than me?

            I’m game…Report

    • Pinky in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      You can argue that it doesn’t matter to the voters (which I think is an overstatement), but you can’t argue that it doesn’t matter.Report

      • George Turner in reply to Pinky says:

        In retrospect, it should’ve mattered a lot more to Venezuelans. Third-way socialism is paved with good intentions but invariably ends up in the same place, with the army guarding the last remaining toilet paper factory and charging people for water delivery.Report

        • Pinky in reply to George Turner says:

          It’s like that old line, you may not be interested in economic systems, but economic systems are interested in you. And I assume that economic systems matter to Chip, so I’m not sure why he said that.Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Pinky says:

            Well of course economic policy matters, but economic systems much less so.

            Aside from North Korea, there really aren’t any purely “socialist” countries in the world, and there really aren’t any purely “capitalist” ones either.
            Instead, virtually all nations have some form of mixed economies,where there is a mix of public and private ownership of the factors of production.

            And moreover, the mix isn’t determinative. That is, how much is public and how much is private doesn’t correlate with the final outcome.Report

  4. Slade the Leveller says:

    Good for her. I’d like to think this would serve as a wake up call to the Dem party leadership, which needs to stop putting its thumb on the scale in primaries.Report

  5. Kolohe says:

    I agree that this victory is a bit less than some are saying (i.e. those that are saying the left revolution is now at hand, both from the side ginning up fears of it and the side that would embrace it)

    Donna Edwards is a cautionary tale for how much a “too moderate incumbent slayer” can be forgotten a few cycles later.Report

  6. Marchmaine says:

    I think its great… hope she campaigns on her big ideas and fleshes them out.

    Abolition of ICE
    Universal Medicare
    Federal jobs guarantee
    Free college tuition

    I will say that I think the Federal Jobs Guarantee is probably a horribad idea, but not from the perspective of communism v. socialism v. capitalism… but because it is morally fraught and I think fundamentally likely to produce adverse effects no matter the intentions. Don’t do it.Report

    • InMD in reply to Marchmaine says:

      Federal Jobs Guarantee is probably a horribad idea

      I know its anathema but whenever I hear this proposed all I can think is ‘if this makes policy sense what’s wrong with just giving people money?’Report

  7. Saul Degraw says:

    The oddest thing about the result is right-wing tweets and their otter incoherence.Report