August 19, 2020

Calm Down. AOC’s Bernie Endorsement Was Purely Symbolic and She Fully Supports Biden.

But the misunderstanding, fueled by the media’s lack of context, is already getting weaponized.

In the 60 seconds Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) spoke at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, she stuck to a largely familiar script calling for systemic change in American politics. Even for the incredibly popular and charismatic first-term congresswoman, the appearance wasn’t exactly headline-making stuff.

Until it was. Within moments of her remarks, outrage exploded on social media, with comments like, “Did she really just do this? WTF.” Another tweet chided, “Bad, bad move. She just lost me as a follower and supporter.” At issue was Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of Bernie Sanders, a purely symbolic move that honors convention rules stating that candidates who meet a threshold of delegates receive a formal “nomination” during the DNC. It most certainly was not, as some on Twitter and several news outlets charged, a rogue move to slight the official nominee, Joe Biden. Ocasio-Cortez clarified as much on Twitter.

Ocasio-Cortez was right to call out the egregious mischaracterization; it sparked confusion on the left, as well as an entire conservative news cycle relishing supposed discord among Democrats. The swift and unwarranted suspicion underscores how little faith some have in Ocasio-Cortez despite vowing for months that she’d back Biden if he became the party’s nominee. For her commitment to party unity to get derailed by news outlets who failed to do some pretty basic homework, well, that’s just maddening. That is, of course, if you’re Fox News:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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