🔰Is AOC the future of democratic party_ _ Cenk Uygur and Lex Fridman

Let me ask you about another impressive speech, AOC. Is it possible that she's the future of the party, future president? So AOC, in my opinion, lost her way. And so... In which way? So it's tough talking about these things because people take it so personally, right? And that's why you'll see very few politicians on our shows, because we give super tough interviews and the word's out in the street, right? Like don't go to Young Turks, they'll ask you super hard questions, right? So the only couple do it, like Ro Khanna does it, he's brave, we'll get into shouting matches sometimes in the middle of bills and stuff, but at least he's there to defend his position. I respect him for that. Tim Ryan, a little bit more of a conservative Democrat when he was in the House, he would take on any debate, et cetera. So there's a couple of good guys that do it, but generally they don't. So this relates to AOC because when AOC is running, we do 34 videos on her. We get her millions of views. We founded Just Democrats and now launched it on the show. Our audience, Ryan Grimm documents it in one of his books, our audience raises $2.5 million for those progressive candidates overall. And at that point, AOC and all those Rashida Tlaib, et cetera, they're all dying to come on a Young Turks. Makes sense. I would too, of course, it's not because it's the Young Turks, any media outlet and most media outlets, almost all the media outlets reject them. We cover AOC more than all the other press combined, right? And she wins for a number of reasons. That's one of the reasons, but there's many others and she did a terrific job herself. She then takes Shoykot and Corbyn, who were the, Shoykot was a head of Just Democrats and Corbyn was communications director for Just Democrats. Then Shoykot made one of the most brilliant political decisions in arguably in American history. He said, he called me and he said, Cenk, I'm going to go from head of Just Democrats to running AOC's campaign. And I'm like, well, the other candidates are going to get pissed and you're staking the entire enterprise on one candidate. I'm like, Shoykot, I'm not in it. I'm doing the media arm. You're, you're in the, in the trenches. You're the guy making the decisions. So I'm going to trust whatever you say. You sure? And he said, yeah, I'm sure. So him and Corbyn go over to AOC's campaign, AOC then wins that miraculous win. Then she hired Shoykot to be her chief of staff. And she hires Corbyn to be her communications director. Within six months, they're gone. And once they're gone, AOC then goes on an establishment path. Okay. Because why were they gone? Oh, they insulted one of her colleagues. Yeah. That colleague who's a total corporatist and was selling out one of our policy proposals. If you don't call out your own side, you're never going to get anything done. But if you call out your own side, you become persona non grata and it is super uncomfortable. And we couldn't get them to do things that were uncomfortable. Now, she's going to find that outrageous and she's going to be very offended by that. And she's going to point to a bunch of things she did that were uncomfortable. And to be fair to her, she does, she has, she's until that speech, she was pretty good on Palestine when we desperately needed it. She was pretty good on a bunch of issues. Cori Bush did that campaign on evictions, et cetera, on the capital status. That was great. AOC's original sit-in in Pelosi's office. That point, we're all still on the same team. It's a spectacular success. Me, Corbyn, and Shortcut are saying, do it again, do it again. Like, now don't abuse it. Like, don't be a clown and do it every other day. But like when it matters, you need to be able to challenge Pelosi, right? And in my opinion, she just got to a point where she got exhausted being uncomfortable. It's like, it's really hard. The media hates you and they keep pounding away and calling you a radical and you're destroying the democratic party. You're destroying unity. So whereas if you go along, all of a sudden you're a queen and now all of a sudden the mainstream media is saying, oh, AOC, she could be the progress. I mean, there's some degree to which you want to sometimes bide your time and just like rest a bit. And I think from my perspective, maybe you can educate me. She seems like a legit, progressive, legit, even populist, charismatic, young, like a lot of time to develop the game of politics, how to play it well enough to avoid the bullshit. I guess she doesn't take corporate PAC money. That's right. No, she's still true on that. So as far as I, just looking over the next few elections, like who's going to be running, who's going to be, who's going to be a real player. To me, it seems like an obvious person that's going to be in the race. So while I fight for the ideal, I'm very practical. So for example, she wins and then one cycle later, after 2020, there's these guys who want to quote, unquote, force the vote. And it was, uh, on the speakership of Nancy Pelosi and they wanted to use it to get Medicare for all. I'm like, guys, forcing a vote is a terrific idea on the speakership. Okay. Who's your alternative? Oh, we don't have an alternative or any giant red flag. Okay. Um, what's the issue you're looking to have them vote on Medicare for all? Oh, you don't know politics. So I love Medicare for all. We have to get Medicare for all. But if you, if that's the first one you put up without gaining any leverage, you're going to get slaughtered, put up something easy, force a vote on $15 minimum wage, or pick another one. That's easy. Paid family leave. These are all polling. Great. Because if you force a vote on that, you could actually win. And if you win, you gain leverage and then you do the next one and the next one, and then you do Medicare for all not bullshit gradualism that the corporate Democrats do, but actually strategically, practically building up power and leverage and using it at the right times. So if I thought that's what AOC was doing, I would love it, right? So I don't need her to force a vote on Medicare for all. I don't need her to go on some wild tangents that don't make any sense and is only going to diminish your power. But when they eviscerated all the progressive proposals and build back better, how did that happen? Mansion and cinema used every ounce of leverage. They had, they said, I'm just not going to vote for it. I don't care. Okay. Uh, you know, the status quo is perfect for my donors, so I don't need you. I vote no. Okay. Now take out everything I want. And Biden did right. Progressives had to push back and say, here is two to three proposals, right? Not everything, not everything. Two to three proposals. They all pull over 70%. They're all no brainers and they're all things that Joe Biden promised. We want those in the bill. Otherwise we're voting. You know, at that point, the media, what would have happened is the media would have exploded and they would have said AOC and the rest are the scum of the earth. They're ruining the democratic party. We're not going to get the bill. They're the worst. You have to withstand that. If you cannot withstand a nuclear blast for mainstream media, you're not the person because that's, you have to run that obstacle course to get to change. If they had stood their ground, they definitely would have won on one to two of those issues. Instead, they went with a strategy that was called, it was literally called trust Biden.