AOC vs Vance?

AOC is being trotted out by the Obama Bros as a potential presidential candidate. 

I know many liberals who think that this idea is kooky, because they believe Obama was a fairly moderate president. I’ve even heard him compared to Mitt Romney, if you can believe that. 

They fundamentally misread Obama because they don’t understand the whole concept of the Long March Through the Institutions, but Obama sure did. His goal was to move the Overton Window and undermine America from within, and thus to, as he said, “fundamentally transform” the country. 

He did, mostly by moving the Overton Window and by hijacking the administrative state, filling it with bureaucrats who would weaken our institutions from within. You can date the sharp rise in identity politics and increased racial tensions to Obama’s presidency, as well as the transformation of the public school system into revolutionary indoctrination camps. 

Obama was the first “university president.” He viewed things through the lens of Narrative building, or what David Axelrod called “permission structures” that would lure people into ideological positions and actions that they never would have conceived of holding just a few years ago. 

Obama is the most obviously “political” of our ex-presidents, remaining deeply embedded in Washington’s political structure after his presidency, which is unprecedented in modern history. His people ran the Op that hampered Trump’s first term, and were the masterminds behind the Biden administration, which was filled with Obama people. 

Axelrod: There are a lot of people who would like you to run for president in 2028. And there are others who would like you to run for the senate.

AOC: In this op-ed that Bezos paid for in The Washington Post, there was a veiled threat—it was the elite saying if you want this… pic.twitter.com/ZjyuXPVu1G

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 8, 2026

Axelrod: There are a lot of people who would like you to run for president in 2028. And there are others who would like you to run for the senate. 

AOC: In this op-ed that Bezos paid for in The Washington Post, there was a veiled threat—it was the elite saying if you want this job, you just stepped out of line.  What’s funny about that is they assume my ambition is positional. They assume my ambition is a title or a seat. My ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, elected officials come and go, single payer healthcare is forever.

Hence the embrace of AOC, who they see as the most viable far-left candidate out there. She is charismatic, radical, and, almost as important, not very bright or connected to the establishment in a way that would allow her to staff an administration. The Obama people likely believe they can pick most of the staff if she wins. 

Vance says AOC is the ‘LEADING DEMOCRAT’ for 2028 pic.twitter.com/9j7PYN9s6s

— RT (@RT_com) June 30, 2026

Vance obviously sees this, and both he and the Bolsheviks understand that this is their “moment,” which is why DSA-aligned candidates are suddenly winning primaries. They are making their move. They have the organization, the backing of big money radicals like Soros and Singham, and the NGOs are mobilizing to drive out the voters. 

I’m unsure whether AOC will actually jump into the race, since she has the clearest path to an easy victory in the Senate race for Chuck Schumer’s seat. He is already a dead man walking, and even he likely knows that. He is getting creamed in the primary elections, where every DSA-aligned candidate he tries to defeat destroys his hand-picked candidates. He can’t even raise money for them as the Senate Minority Leader, signaling his impotence. 

Running for the presidency is a big roll of the dice. She certainly might do it, but it is not a done deal. 

Reporter: JD Vance just said in an interview that he thinks you are going to be the leading Democratic candidate for president in 2028. What’s your response to that?

AOC: pic.twitter.com/s5qodMBiN1

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2026

It’s also unclear whether AOC can sustain momentum when facing the harsh scrutiny presidential candidates face. Everybody expected Kamala Harris to have the inside track in 2019, but she crashed and burned when she was exposed to a wider range of questions than she had faced in California, where she was nurtured by the establishment. She barely won the Attorney General election in California and couldn’t even make it to the first primary in 2020. 

AOC, however, was chosen because she has “It,” the charisma that propelled Obama to the top. She was literally recruited by far-left groups, who put out a casting call. Her brother nominated her, and she was chosen from a group of 10,000 potential candidates for her demeanor. 

 

That’s not some conspiracy theory cooked up by her right-wing opponents. Justice Democrats brag about it, as they should. It was a brilliant move, especially since they avoided the pitfalls of backing a candidate whose main goal was self-advancement, like Newsom, who oozes oiliness. 

Vance, I think, is right that the “grassroots” of the Democratic Party are not eager to pick an “electable” moderate, and are unlikely to gravitate to even secret radicals like Abigail Spanberger. They are winning this year with unabashedly far-left candidates and are betting they can do so in 2027 and 2028. After all, the auditions are already starting, and AOC is a more national figure than almost every “moderate” Democrat out there. 

pic.twitter.com/KFbfSU1W1Y

— American Warrior for Christ (@johnrackham82) July 1, 2026

Only Buttigieg and Newsom are in the same category of national figures, and Buttigieg has a ceiling due to his white bread demeanor and lack of appeal to black voters. 

Of course, AOC does face a few problems: she is hardly “presidential” in a way that people outside the radical left feel is necessary, and has zero presence on the world stage. She completely blew it at the Munich Security Conference, and while Americans think they don’t care much about foreign policy, they actually do. 

President Trump reacts to the EMBARRASSING answer AOC gave at the Munich security conference.

She was asked if the United States would intervene if China attacked Taiwan.

Instead of giving a short, direct answer, she gave a word salad that would make Kamala proud.

I did… pic.twitter.com/JkbTIVVshH

— Just Jen ℞ 🫡🇺🇸 (@JustJenRX) February 23, 2026

Then there is another barrier that the Obama people and the DSA-types don’t understand at all: they think they represent working people because they view everything through the lens of class warfare, but the reality is that the Bolsheviks repel working class people who are much more socially conservative and actually are proud to be Americans. 

Americans, outside the universities, are not revolutionaries. Working class people do, with some good reasons, worry about the corporate class who stack the deck for themselves, but are not hostile to capitalism. They want a capitalism that doesn’t stack the deck by importing low-wage workers, rigs the system against small businesses, and a government that doesn’t hate them, as the administrative state so obviously does. 

That’s why the Bush Republicans were pushed out. And while AOC is anti-corporate, her solution is pro-government. Which is worse. 

It’s far too early to know whether AOC can seize the leadership of the Democratic Party with the help of the Obama Bros like Axelrod (who is, recall, also the genius behind the radicals running for office through his protege Morris Katz, who recruited Graham Platner and Zohran Mamdani.

Ironically, the perfect candidate for the Bosheviks is ineligible to run for president—Zohran Mamdani. He far outshines AOC because he is smarter and more charismatic. 

Vance’s instinct is right—the Democratic primary electorate is far more radical than the establishment’s favorite choices. 2028 will be the ultimate test of wills between the Organized Crime Democrats and the Bolsheviks. In more local elections the Bolsheviks have the edge. We will have to see whether they can translate that into national success. 

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