‘Oligarchy Or Democracy’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says America Stands At A Political ‘Crossroads’

Forbes Breaking News

At a "Fight Oligarchy" event in Folsom on Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) discussed her commitment to protecting democracy.

Transcript

00:00But Folsom, this is why Donald Trump is not an aberration.

00:11He is the logical, inevitable conclusion of an American political system dominated by corporate and dark money.

00:20And if we are to defeat him, we must defeat the system that created him.

00:27Money in politics is the hand of oligarchy.

00:33America, we are at a crossroads.

00:37We can either have extreme wealth inequality with the toxic division and corruption that it requires to survive.

00:47Or we can have a fair economy for working people along with the democracy and freedoms that uphold it.

00:56Oligarchy or democracy.

01:02But we cannot have both.

01:06I grew up in a working class family.

01:09My mom cleaned houses.

01:11And my dad worked on a small business.

01:14And my parents worked themselves to the bone so that my brother and I could just have a shot.

01:22The American dream.

01:24And for a moment there, it looked like we were going to make it.

01:28We had a home.

01:30Bills were getting a little less stressful to pay.

01:33And I was doing well in public school.

01:36And what may have looked like a modest life to others was a dream come true for us.

01:44But suddenly, when I was a teenager, my dad was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

01:53And after a long fight, we lost him.

01:56My dad actually passed away in September of 2008.

02:01Just as the economy crashed in the Great Recession and millions of jobs across the country vanished.

02:09It felt like the little world of our family fell apart just as the larger world was falling apart too.

02:18And overnight, my mom was left alone to figure out how to provide and put two kids through school.

02:26Keep our house, pay off our medical bills, all on a house cleaner salary.

02:32And that is how I became a waitress.

02:35To help pay the bills.

02:37Because at that time, just as it is now, it was millions of working families who paid the price,

02:46while billionaires and thieves who defrauded our financial system got off richer than ever before.

02:53And not a single one of them went to jail.

03:00And now that is the story that Republicans mock, not mine, but all of ours,

03:07when they say that a waitress or a working person is unqualified to serve in Congress.

03:14But the fact is, Folsom, many of us are far more qualified to know what real life is,

03:22real life is really like than any of them ever will.

03:29And I tell this story not because it is special, but because of how common and normal it is.

03:37And how normal this barbarism is of how so many people are allowed to live today.

03:44And while the details may differ, so many of us knows what it feels like for life to be one bad day,

03:53one bad piece of news, or one major setback from feeling like it's all going to fall apart.

04:00We don't have to live like this anymore, Folsom.

04:07We can make a new world, Folsom, a better country where we fight for the dignity of all people.

04:15And it looks like living wages, California.

04:19It looks like stable housing.

04:22It looks like guaranteed health care.

04:25And respect for all our differences, no matter who we are or where we come from.

04:32Oligarchy or democracy.

04:37And we are here today because we choose democracy.

04:42We choose freedom.

04:45And that means we must choose to out-organize the oligarchy.

04:51We must do away with the power of big money.

04:55And that is why, even as a waitress with a long shot campaign,

05:01I decided I would never take money from lobbyists or corporations.

05:06And it's why I never will.

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