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An open letter to @AOC from a small donor and long time Twitter mutual. Though you might have me on mute and never see this. I would have me on mute if I weren't me. But I digress. I felt like someone should write a thread like this one, so I am doing so.
I write today with admiration, concern & hope for your wellness. I wouldn't wish overnight fame on anyone, let alone one of our own from the moral left community. You've walked the tightrope well. I applaud all you've accomplished so far in one term while cable news insults you.
My timeline is full of our left community yelling at you today, and while I think some of that comes with the job you've just been reelected to do, accountability and all of that, I also like you and know you already take unfair punches from your own party & the red cult too.
Please know the incoming left punches are different. Many of our community feel defeated, hopeless & it is easier to believe you will fold into the Dem party that betrayed them than stand by their side long-term. Your meteoric fame gets confused with power by many, even our own.
They are lashing out. Not to say their ideas and concerns aren't valid. They come from a place of empathy & passion. But unfortunately the @'ing towards you has not been kindly worded or empathetic. Unfortunately fear & anger lash out at those in power. We hurt the ones we love.
I believe you're holding your moral center quite well, and admire seeing that bartending Bernie organizer from the Bronx we came to love on social media fight for our causes on the big stage. I admire your strength and thick skin. I'm hopeful you can maintain that from the left.
You see, to many of us, Speaker Pelosi is the biggest threat to progress on Capitol Hill, because she stands in the way of the issues most of us agree on. Her gatekeeping to power has kept the marginalized down. She is more symbol than person at this point.
Unfortunately that same symbolism over individualism is infecting your fight on the public sphere as well. You symbolize a catch-all for the progressive left for fascists, GOP, neo-liberals and the actual left alike. I'm sorry you have to carry that cross built of zeitgeist.
This pandemic has put everyone under mental, financial and medical strain. Many of us already struggling before it. You know this. You speak to these issues so very well. Many are at or past breaking point. Please don't take their rage personally. It's at the entire institution.
And so I write to beg your forgiveness of allies coming at you with anger, to consider their concerns even when buried in tweets of vitriol, and with great hope that your strong moral center will champion over temptation of party loyalty at the sake of progress.
You do you. Don't let me or anyone else influence you with a tweet. But please don't let the institutions of power, red cult baited attacks, or blue cult apathy, distract you from the issues of justice that you chose to fight for.
Please consider taking any attempt to dismantle neo-liberal power from within our party you deem possible, & hold head high when you don't think it the right fight for the moment & our community chimes in differently. The fight IS against the red cult, but also our blue one too.
With faith in you, admiration for you, concern for you and the deepest of respect,
MJS.
MJS.
