AOC for President 2028!

Mr. Moneybags in politics
Image: Google Gemini

What is more democratic: letting people choose their leaders or forcing people to obey corporate executives? Would a "Democratic Party" candidate that has close ties to corporate power appeal to voters as an alternative to a supposed billionaire?

In Naomi Klein's book, No Is Not Enough, she posits that one reason Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election was because she has too many ties to corporate interests and old school power structures. Put another way, Clinton wasn't progressive enough.

Klein is an author, journalist, filmmaker, and activist focusing on ecofeminism, organized labor, and corporate power^[1]. I've been reading No Is Not Enough to help me understand how we got into our current political crisis and how we might extricate ourselves.

The Progressive Guard: Sanders and Warren

Klein contrasts Clinton's campaign with that of Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont and self-described progressive Democrat. While Klein doesn't agree with all of Sanders' positions, he endorsed him in his bid for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2016. Sanders called the billionaire class and excessive corporate power key sources of problems for the American people.

Sanders is 83 years old. If he were 20 years younger, I might support him in a bid for the White House in 2028. But since he's effectively aged out of the running, who might be inherit his mantle?

Elizabeth Warren comes to mind. A senator from Massachusetts, she has run for president before. Vying for the Democratic Party's nomination in 2020, she lost out to Joe Biden who went on to win the general election. Warren generally supports progressive policies, such as breaking up monopolies, a higher minimum wage, employee representation on corporate boards of directors, and universal healthcare insurance. According to her Wikipedia page, Warren is widely considered to be a progressive.

One of Warren's greatest contributions in my mind is her 2007 proposal to create the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, an agency intended to protect consumers against predatory practices of financial institutions. Warren recognized that financial institutions often held borrowers over a barrel and would often exceed their power under the terms of loan agreements. Borrowers would have no recourse against such abuses, would lose the homes and their credit ratings, and be forced into poverty.

At 75, Warren is five years younger than Sanders. That probably doesn't disqualify her, but she doesn't seem to have as much energy as Bernie Sanders.

AOC: A New Voice for Economic Reform

The progressive Democrat who really captures my attention is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, more commonly known as "AOC." Presently age 35, she barely qualifies to run for president. Representing New York's 14th district in the House of Representatives, she is a strong voice for economic reform. While she rejects state socialism (state ownership of the means of production), she does advocate worker control in companies citing worker cooperatives as a viable model.

Over the past few weeks, Sanders and AOC have been conducting their Fighting Oligarchy Tour, traveling to Republican strongholds to hold rallies and town hall meetings to "have real discussions across America on how we move forward to take on the Oligarchs [sic] and corporate interests[...]"^[2]

AOC would undoubtedly face an onslaught of criticism of her positions as socialist and, therefore, fundamentally undemocratic and anti-capitalist. While expanding worker power in corporations is more democratic, it would certainly reduce shareholder power, it being shared with workers. The full force of the billionaire class and corporate super powers would come to bear to blow her candidacy out of the water. 

With such prospects for failure, why would I even consider supporting her? Because she is there to serve the people. She clearly promises to never accept campaign contributions from corporations or their lobbyists. She clearly holds democratic values: government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I wonder about that myself. But billionaires and capitalists have too much power today. If we can't even start the conversation about how to democratize corporate power and reign in the billionaire class, what hope do we have of restoring America's democracy?

That conversation is not for sale and doesn't have to happen in mainstream or social media. We can take it to the people in our town halls, on our town squares, and in our streets. 

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Notes:

1. Wikipedia, Naomi Klein

2. Bernie, Fighting Oligarchy Tour