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Opinion: Smash the GOP to take out corporate Democrats, says Potsdam man

Posted 7/6/18

To the Editor: The political machine of WallStreet that continuously churns out corrupt Democrats and Republicans met its match. Enter NY-14 and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. With just $300,000 of small …

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Opinion: Smash the GOP to take out corporate Democrats, says Potsdam man

Posted

To the Editor:

The political machine of WallStreet that continuously churns out corrupt Democrats and Republicans met its match. Enter NY-14 and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

With just $300,000 of small dollar donations she took down a monster incumbent in Joe Crowley. Mr.Crowley who many pegged to be the next house speaker had raked in huge cash flows (1.3 Million) from Google to Facebook to Humana to Citigroup, etc. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t just win, she smoked him. Better yet, she pulled off an enormous upset, against establishment power and big money. She countered a system that feeds an endless cycle of politicians who seek financial gain from office. Corporations “purchase” politicians for favors who then re-welcome those politicians in the private world with a high paying corporate or lobbying gig. Joe Crowley will find a job there soon.

What did she run on and how did she do it?

Specifically, she ran a platform on Medicare for all, abolishing ICE, green energy, federal jobs guarantee, universal daycare and pre-K, ending the failed war on drugs, paid family & sick leave, criminal justice reform. She won by having a powerful enough message to receive huge phone banking from volunteers all over the country and huge door-to-door interaction. She targeted voters who were disengaged in politics and re-energized them with her aggressive platform.

One might ask: “how are we going to pay for all of this?”

The answer is this: “tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations with the rest covered the very same way the $1.5 trillion tax cut passed by Republicans in December was paid for. (It was not paid for). Another way of looking at it is this: Congress just passed a 716 Billion dollar defense budget and nobody batted an eye. They could literally pass a 10 trillion dollar defense bill and nobody in the media would question it because the “deficit” is a lying scam.

I hope voters in NY-21 and Tedra Cobb are paying close attention to NY-14. We need fierce advocacy for the poor and working class Americans.

With some huge progressive wins we see a new guard that wants to transform politics, as an old guard stubbornly clings to its methods that shut out the people. As much as there is reason for pessimism, there are also signs that a new generation and era of politics is coming. We just have to get out all the old corrupt rich white men first (and a corporate owned, machine politician name Elise Stefanik)

Scott Shulte

Potsdam