Summary of The Squad by Ryan Grim: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution E-Book

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• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

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This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.
Summary of The Squad by Ryan Grim: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution
 
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The Squad is a must-read book about the progressive movement in Congress, focusing on A.O.C., Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar. The book tells the story of the group's rise, efforts to set an ambitious agenda, and their struggle to find footing within the Democratic party. The Squad, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, laid down a marker for an aggressive left-wing agenda. As they grow in office, they face the question of whether they are still radical organizers capable of leading a political revolution.

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Summary of The Squad by Ryan Grim: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution

The Squad is a book detailing the rise of the progressive Congress movement, including A.O.C., Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar, and their struggle to establish an ambitious left-wing agenda.BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

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Summary of The Squad

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Summary of Ryan Grim’s book

AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution

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Summary of The Squad by Ryan Grim: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution

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This is an unofficial summary & analysis of Ryan Grim’s “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution” designed to enrich your reading experience.

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The contents of the summary are not intended to replace the original book. It is meant as a supplement to enhance the reader's understanding. The contents within can neither be stored electronically, transferred, nor kept in a database. Neither part nor full can the document be copied, scanned, faxed, or retained without the approval from the publisher or creator.

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ENDING RACISM

In April 2015, Bernie Sanders announced his improbable run for the presidency amid a set of interlocking crises that had not been seen since the Great Depression. The country was facing issues such as longer working hours and lower wages, with people struggling to afford education and healthcare while the top one percent generated 99% of all new income. These themes were rooted in the left-wing zeitgeist that had emerged from the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011.

Sanders faced hesitancy in raising money, but eventually raised $1.5 million through BernieSanders.com, a no-frills C-SPAN affair that netted the campaign $1.5 million in the first 24 hours. As the campaign continued, enthusiastic crowds followed him everywhere, turning "People for Bernie" into a phrase conjured up by Occupy organizer Winnie Wong.

By the fall of 2015, Hillary Clinton's campaign staff were growing concerned about the momentum behind Sanders, as his crowd sizes were exploding and his poll numbers were rising. The campaign debated whether to come out publicly in favor of restoring Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law that barred big commercial banks from gambling with their depositors' money. Some on the Clinton campaign raised policy objections, while others argued that the move would backfire due to its inauthentic pandering.

The Clinton campaign decided to go on offense with cultural and social issues, so they decided to strengthen the Volcker Rule, a milder reform than reinstating Glass-Steagall.

In early 2016, Hillary Clinton emerged victorious in the Iowa caucuses, while Sanders had climbed into a tie in the statewide polls. In New Hampshire, Sanders' campaign team tried to weaponize his enthusiastic young supporters against him, aiming to win over voters influenced by cultural issues. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and communications director Brian Fallon accused Sanders of using "demeaning and insulting language" and warned against letting the mentality or crudeness seep into their own words and criticisms.

Sanders himself was encouraging these supporters, stating that he is skilled and deft politician. This was the first entry into the official record of the term "Bernie Bros." Tom Perez, the head of the Department of Labor at the time, proposed that the Bernie Bro insight could be used in the party's internal culture war.

Sanders's strength was that he had passionate young people who were passionate enough to volunteer and contribute to the campaign. The goal was to turn those people into a liability by flagging the Bernie Bros as obnoxious, privileged young white men. Sanders's support among young people cut across race and gender, but it wasn't hard to find young, white, obnoxious men who backed him, elevate them publicly, and then condemn them and the Sanders campaign together.

Clinton took her first serious shot at fending off Sanders's charge that she was the candidate of the moneyed elite and that the support her campaign had from big-money donors and speaking fees might have some corrupting influence. Sanders refused to call Clinton personally corrupt but pointed out that drug companies could raise prices at will because they had bought power in Washington.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign faced significant challenges as she emphasized the issues of racism and sexism in her platform. She argued that breaking up big banks would not end racism, discrimination against the LGBT community, or make people feel more welcoming to immigrants. Sanders could have countered this with the "race-class narrative," which focuses on material concerns without incorporating a critique of systemic racism. However, Clinton's single-minded focus on economic security and the battle against the one percent was seen as a luxury rather than addressing the intersecting forms of oppression faced by marginalized communities.

The Nevada caucuses were tight, and allegations of bigotry from Bernie supporters were spread widely. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called the head of the Culinary Workers Union to endorse Clinton and ordered casinos to give their employees time off to caucus. This led to a 5-point caucus victory for Clinton. Sanders' momentum was blunted, but the narrative had been set: Bernie's movement was beset by racism and misogyny, and good progressives must support Clinton.

Sanders was defeated in South Carolina, further highlighting the white Bernie Bro narrative. The campaign took months to bleed out, with each day driving a wedge deeper between the party's increasingly bitter factions. The Clinton campaign, through a super PAC called Correct the Record, admitted to spending at least a million dollars to get into bitter fights with Sanders supporters online, either through bots or paid accounts. For-profit scam artists based in eastern Europe also joined Sanders or Clinton Facebook groups and posted fake news, which became digital media director Hector Sigala's job.

The Clinton campaign used identity politics to detonate the Sanders campaign, which set off a chain reaction that would blow the lid off the Democratic coalition in the years to come. However, the conditions were not perfect for this success, as the 2008 financial crisis hit Millennials especially hard. In a nation founded by a radical sect of Puritans and engulfed by multiple Great Awakenings and lesser moral panics, real social progress was being made thanks to the early petering out of the Obama administration.

Barack Obama, in part due to the prior machinations of his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, was the first president in fifty years to be working with a Democratic majority more conservative than the White House. Emanuel recruited conservative candidates to challenge incumbent Republicans, and the timing couldn't have been worse. Democrats took the House and Senate that cycle, but not long after they were sworn in, cracks began showing in the bubble economy. Small-time subprime lenders, who had pumped out fraudulent loans disproportionately to Black homeowners, began going under. Big lenders followed, and Bear Stearns, a Wall Street giant, collapsed. Obama, though, was surging, having caught and eclipsed Hillary Clinton.

At home, things were going poorly, with her father battling cancer and her brother living with their mother in a rapidly plummeting house. The Obama administration deliberately encouraged foreclosures, with White House economic adviser Larry Summers and Treasury secretary Tim Geithner arguing that the rubble of the American Dream would "foam the runway" for insolvent banks, allowing them to lose money slowly rather than go bust all at once.

Once in office, conservative Democrats Emanuel had recruited in 2006 as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee routinely bucked the Obama administration, leading to a turn toward austerity heading into the midterms. The Affordable Care Act was kept low, driving up the cost of premiums and deductibles and delayed implementation for several years.

The 2010 midterm wipeout by the Tea Party reshaped the political landscape for Democrats and progressives. With Republicans in charge of the House, Obama's legislative window was closed, and he would spend several years locked in negotiations over how to scale back social spending. The only way to spend money was through congressional legislation, which meant that federal efforts to improve the economic well-being of the public were effectively off the table. However, progress could still be made on the social and cultural front. Climate activists converted their energy to campus protests urging divestment from fossil fuels and into direct protests against projects, most important the Keystone XL Pipeline.

After graduating from Boston University, Ocasio-Cortez moved into her Bronx co-op apartment and started bartending and waitressing at the Coffee Shop and its sister location, Flats Fix. She launched Brook Avenue Press, which published educational materials for local schools and children's books that portrayed the Bronx in a positive light. In 2012, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand invited Ocasio-Cortez to a press conference where she and others stood behind Gillibrand and other politicians as they unveiled a tax break for people who started new businesses.

The crushing of Occupy Wall Street and the disappointment of the Obama administration's economic agenda left Ocasio-Cortez's generation believing the real forum to make progress was elsewhere—in fighting back against sexism, systemic racism, and homophobia. Congress itself pointed the political way forward by repealing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in 2010, allowing gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to serve openly in the military. The culture was changing on other fronts, too.

In November 2020, Jamaal Bowman visited a district in New York City, home to extreme poverty and economic segregation. He grew up in a neighborhood where political music and hip-hop were used to communicate the world's happenings. Bowman recalled being beaten by police at the age of eleven and never considering filing a complaint. He found expression in music, listening to KRS-One's song "Illegal Business" and the theme of the crack trade.

Bowman became an educator in 1999 and watched as a new generation of youngsters became politicized after Trayvon Martin's death. This new movement was deliberately leaderless, with algorithms and the instantaneous nature of platforms sending the energy spiraling in unpredictable ways. One example was Justine Sacco's tweet in 2013, which lampooned white privilege and caused a global trending war. Sacco was fired after deleting her social media accounts.

In March 2014, another joke sparked a new trending war when the Washington Redskins created the "Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation." Stephen Colbert parodied the announcement, and a young activist took offense, urging her followers to trend the hashtag "CancelColbert." The term cancel had kicked around as slang in young Black communities since the 1960s.