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Two (More Like 1 1/2, Really) Cheers for Ocasio-Cortez
America has found her new favorite socialist, and as a consequence, American conservatives have found their new most-relished bête noire. I refer of course to Miss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the incoming New York congresswoman and self-professed “Democratic Socialist.”
Now on paper, conservatives’ disdain for AOC is perfectly unobjectionable. Not only are the freshman representative’s ideas, if taken seriously, a daunting threat to American liberty but she seems to have shunned the Acela train in favor of hopping all the way to DC from Brooklyn on one foot, the other embedded fixedly in her mouth as her public comments have suggested an ignorance of everything from basic economics to high-school civics and the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And yet… while I hate everything she claims to stand for, I can’t help but wince when I read conservatives on Twitter and elsewhere gleefully laying into Ocasio-Cortez. I can’t say that I’m rooting for her because I’m not, but I do sympathize for reasons I can’t entirely pin down. If you’d like you can stop reading here and assume that I’m a bitter Never Trumper, automatically endeared to any of the post-2016 conservative movement’s chosen objects of hate. (If I am, it’s because the previous choices have been so perplexing to me. Hillary Clinton, really? I’ve never seen a less inspired or more incompetent politician in my life. I’m supposed to go all Flight 93 over someone who couldn’t hijack a plane if she were Michael Palin with a fake gun?) Assuming that there’s more to it however, what follows, working from the most ephemeral to the more substantive, is a complete inventory of possible rationals for an anti-anti-Cortezismo.
I suppose it’s theoretically possible that there’s some kind of latent millennial solidarity at work here. Certainly, there’s more than a whiff of the self-reverential boomerism that infects so much right-leaning commentary at play in conservatives’ attacks on AOC. In essence though I think this is just another instance of the fixation on style over substance that causes so many criticisms of Trump to get stranded on the rocks.
I find little to like about the president but in retrospect I’ve come to be grateful for the unfiltered style which has revealed the man’s psyche sufficently for me to develop an informed opinion. The scripted-platitude generators that used to pass for politicians in the US often came with nasty surprises once we actually got to know them; we shouldn’t mourn their loss. Ocasio-Cortez is no different. Her breezy let-it-all-hang-out twentysomething style and social media accessibility are positive goods in that they shine a light on the real defects in her thinking.
Secondly, it has to be noted that too many conservatives have crossed the line from attacking AOC’s policies to attacking her clothing and physical appearance. This not only violates all kinds of important civic norms but it’s also bad politics and gives credibility to feminist narratives about conservative misogyny. If you’re going to strategically anathemetize someone, at least try to make yourselves look better in comparison. For the sake of bipartisanship, I’ll say that I find Ocazio-Cortez to be both stylish and attractive. (Since I’m a male of the roughly the same age and demographic category I’m sure you could chalk my reserve up to biology or misplaced gallantry and stop reading here as well.)
And then there’s Bernie. It seems unavoidable that for the immediate future the Democratic Party is going to be dominated by a powerful left wing. That being the case, it’s all our interest that the torch of leadership be passed as quickly as possible away from the far left’s current guru, a man who honeymooned in the Soviet Union providing him with a history of genuine affinity with a hostile foreign power, which just happened to be the most thoroughly blood-soaked regime in all of human history. Cortez may be an unbearable naif and culpably ignorant of the misery which her ideology has inflicted over the last century, but culpable ignorance trumps culpable knowledge. “Real socialism has never been tried” is an idiot’s evasion but it beats the hell out of “I’ve seen the future and it works!”
And frankly, along these lines I’ve found conservatives’ attitudes toward the extreme left in recent years to be troubling. While figures like Sanders and Corbyn (who spied for Czechoslovakia) may be ceremonially invoked to indicate the evil’s of the great “them,” conservatives seem functionally content to play both sides against the middle and fixate upon the near enemy, whether May, Clinton, Cameron, etc. — a strategy which was a hallmark of late Roman Emperors. How many times did Trump express pity over poor Bernie’s treatment by the DNC during the presidential debates? Wake up people, there are actual reds in the world who we should be far more concerned over than dilettante socialists and career grifters.
Most significantly though, I think most AOC critics seem to forget that she’s been elected to the House of Representatives.
There are no cookie-cutter offices in our system and each has its own institutional character. The age requirement for the lower house is set five years lower than the Senate for good cause. One reason we have a House of Representatives is to give those who are young and stupid, but politically talented, a crash course in legislation before they can cause too much real damage, and maybe smooth off some of their ideological rough edges. Complaining over a freshman congresswoman’s lack of experience misses the point.
The house serves as both a pressure valve and a barometer. If batty economic utopianism is part of what’s going on in the mind of the great democracy sufficiently to get someone like AOC elected, we should know about it. More than that, we should give those tendencies a voice in the system, thus coopting them. This is how we avoid actually revolutionary tremors from shaking the superstructure (this is only my penultimate metaphor). After that, it’s up to the components of our mixed government system that are charged with constraining the popular will to take appropriate action. The lower chamber is meant to be, among other things, a democratic petting zoo full of demagogues and holy rollers, where one can observe all the variety of funky-smelling political animals up close. William F. Buckley, after all, endorsed radical socialist Allard Lowenstein on similar grounds.
I wouldn’t endorse AOC nor vote for her or anyone like her. But in a round about way I’m glad that she is where she is. The founders left us a great system and it’s usually working to repair itself even when it seems to be broken. In this case, the best way to let that system work would be to ignore Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, take away some of the media incentive for her to continue playing her present character, and check in sometime in the next decade to see what she’s become. Despite myself, I’m interested to find out.
Published in General
I believe Ocasio-Cortez is truly ignorant of history and economics, and has only a passing familiarity with current global events (i.e. the cable news headlines).
… it has to be noted that too many conservatives have crossed the line from attacking AOC’s policies to attacking her clothing and physical appearance.
I totally agree – remarks about clothing and physical appearance are petty and irrelevant. If that’s all you got – you got nothin’.
If batty economic utopianism is part of what’s going on in the mind of the great democracy sufficiently to get someone like AOC elected, we should know about it.
Agree here, too. Better to be in the spotlight than underground.
… best way to let that system work would be to ignore Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, take away some of the media insentive for her to continue playing her present character and check in sometime in the next decade to see what she’s become.
I would not go so far as to ignore. Perhaps ‘not respond’ would be a better strategy. We need to stay alert, and in ten years way too much can change.
I think ridicule is a useful form of boundaries policing, and the left side of the overton window has been flapping the breeze for awhile now.
Her fashion choices are part of the substantive criticism of the underlying ideology, and why Venezuela is Venezuela because AOC is going to do whatever urban slang thing for high end fashion whilst complaining about her inability to afford a DC apartment. So yes, it should be criticized for the same reasons we would criticize Maduro for eating at “Salt Bae’s” steakhouse. (there are legitimate arguments that while legitimate, the criticism itself may be…. imprudent)
Ultimately, nothing matters anymore as the left has opened the Pandora’s box of raw power politics, ended our hot streak on the peaceful transfer of power, destroyed the rule of law as a concept, turned the independent judiciary into a nihilistic will-to-power trump card, unleashed a sad retread of the weimar republic’s party based street armies with widespread political violence and terrorism, and laid waste to the legitimacy of our remaining mediating institutions; None of that is going to play out well.
So ultimately, who cares if a dumb 20 something says dumb things, and people point and laugh at the ridiculous farce?
But I agree, with the macro idea that honest politicians is a refreshing change of pace, even if they are threatening to nuke iowa.
She is a product of a generation (or two) who failed to pass down any kind of values to the next generation.
They were too busy rebelling against their parents’ moral ethics.
AOC, like many in my generation, have an over-inflated sense of civic worth and intelligence that is completely and utterly unjustified in all but a few. She (and they) should be mocked for their cluelessness and they should find some humility and actually, you know, educate themselves.
However, she is also a curse that the previous generations put on themselves in their failure to pass down any knowledge to Millenials.
She won a seat in a district dominated by young minorities who identify with social democracy against an ancient, pozzed, white dude.
Her R “competition” was anything but.
She IS a laughingstock. She absolutely is that. But the fact that she won should also be taken very seriously. The GOP is entirely UNserious.
Her breezy let-it-all-hang-out twenty something style and social media accessibility are positive goods in that they shine a light on the real defects in her thinking.
Some sage somewhere noted that when fools open their mouths to opine, it is best to just sit back and let them prove how foolish they are.
One part of my brain thinks it’s foolish for conservative media to give Ocasio-Cortez so much free publicity, since the more conservatives dislike her the more progressives will think she’s doing her job.
But then the other part of my brain reminds me that the Hillary campaign had a strategy of not attacking Donald Trump during the Republican primaries because they wanted him to win the nomination.
So now I’m not sure about the best strategy when it comes to folk like Ocasio-Cortez.
I am sexist enough to feel sorry for the poor dumb girl. And chivalrous enough to want to limit the ridicule; it is somehow beneath good people to make fun of AOC.
Mrs. iWe has no such scruples.
I actually like this chick.
First of all, she’s only one of 435 members of the House (I only count voting reps), so even being in the majority party, she alone can’t cause too much damage. She does however continue to provide much needed entertainment due to her lack of knowledge and experience, and she serves as a poster child for what’s wrong with people who think the way she does.
I have hope she will eventually see the light, and come over to our side, but only when she is better informed and able to clearly and intelligently articulate a position. I stand ready to advise her, and to provide her much needed guidance and instruction . . .
For fun, I considered changing my avatar and becoming an AOC parody account but I thought better of it. I wish I could claim chivalry, however, the real reason I didn’t do it is because I realized I could never be as funny as the real AOC.
Anyway, I don’t think she is any worse than the other Leftists in Congress, just more honest about her ignorance.
Best post of the day, and the day isn’t even over yet.
Can I sum up this long OP as: the GOP should not be distracted by AOC as she is an easy target and instead, focus on policy, legislation, and promoting good solutions to public concerns?
Maduro is a dictator in all the ways that count. Whatever your policies you earn certain courtesies as a reward for bothering to get elected, and for presumably agreeing to accept an adverse result. That being the case if you’re intent on criticizing someone’s “look” the last set of elections has set up some legitimate targets for you but Ocasio-Cortez isn’t one of them.
@Gaius Great post. One thing that interests me about AOC, Bernie and my self-professsed socialist friends: What’s their definition of “socialism”? They make vacuous statements like “Roads are a socialist program, and you like roads, don’t you?” Or, the famous “Scandinavia is socialist, and they’re happy” pap.
Socialism is government ownership of the means of production. That’s how Webster’s defines it. That’s how Marx and Engels defined it. If that’s what American “Democratic Socialists” want, they should come out and say it directly, and stop messing around. I think if we asked people whether they’d like all private businsss to be prohibited, we might get some interesting answers.
Force proponents of “socialism” to define the term, especially if they’re running for office.
But Mr. G, your summation omits all of the self-flagellating, virtue signaling, and simultaneous denial of/rationalization of anti-Trumpism that makes the Original Post so excruciating to read.
Politics is a team sport. Trump is implementing conservative policies more effectively than any president since Reagan, and on many issues more effectively than Reagan, e.g. reducing the administrative state. Just about the only Trump policy that conservatives can legitimately oppose is his tariff-first trade policy, but that increasingly looks to be a means to a free trade end. Free trade superhero Larry Kudlow remains at Trump’s elbow, after all.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – like the anti-Semitic, anti-American, racist, convicted fraud, and inciter to riot Al Sharpton -is a full-fledged Democrat. The Democrat Party has done nothing to distance itself from the dangerous policies of socialism and identity politics that AOC and Sharpton promote. For that they deserve shaming, not sympathy.
I don’t feel sorry for the virus-laden mosquitos and ticks that I kill.
Oh man . . . I am this close to opening a second Ricochet account and following up on your idea. However, you have dibs . . .
This could be a reflection of my own bubble, but I see far more Facebook posts about AOC from my right-of-center-friends than my left-of-center friends.
We could always get rid of the unconstitutional – in – spirit cap on House members to help dilute her power even more.
The same tendency in 2016 for some folk to attack Hillary with petty, catty, aesthetic critiques also annoyed me. I never understood the antipathy towards pantsuits, or the urge to call an elderly woman “ugly”.
On the other hand, however, at the end of the day she lost. I cannot magically wave away the possibility that the petty catty critiques helped to make that happen.
I do not know their definition, but I do know that every epithet thrown out by a leftist is a projection of personal likes or dislikes. Examples: someone who scowls at capitalists is a greedy person who never gives charity, someone who calls everyone a racist stays away from blacks and Hispanics, someone who accuses others of being homophobes is scared of gay people, etc., etc., etc.
What interests me about this young lady is not that she’s the hipster Sarah Palin, it’s that she spouts off what she does after bragging that she graduated fourth in her class with a degree in economics from Boston College. How far have standards been compromised for hot latinas? or does she represent today’s student work ethic? I hope my son is getting a better education at Chapel Hill.
I worked with a white male business school graduate who’d never heard of John Maynard Keynes.
You don’t go to college to learn; you go to punch your ticket to get past the human resources tollgate.
And if you can stomach that and see your way through it, you can probably stomach whatever job you are expected to do and see it through. So a college education is of some use.
In short, they aren’t actually Socialists. They’re yet another group of Progressive Totalitarians who are certain that the world would be better if the dumb people beneath them would just cede all power to them. Undefined Socialism lets them control the economy and is enough of a fairy tale to get the uneducated to sign-on.
The 20th Century provides an excellent example of how it always turns out.
No, no, all yours. Go for it. I don’t even know what I would do with that . . . except maybe:
I think when she does photoshoots in which she looks Very Serious About The World while wearing expensive clothing, criticism is fair – if the point is how Socialists of every ilk talk an egalitarian game and reserve for themselves the trappings of the ruling power they seek to replace.
Color me cynical, but I believe the ONLY reason she got elected was noted by #Petty Boozswha: she’s a hot Latina. Same idea for the tutu-wearing Code Pink activist in AZ. If either of these X-Chromosome-enhanced lovelies had – to quote “The Commitments” – bandy legs and a hump, they wouldn’t have even made it onto the ballots in their states. That’s just the way it is.
That reminds me of the old Mothers of Invention *(Frank Zappa) song lyric clearly applicable to Hillary:
Sounds like fair game to me. Have at it.
What I’m tired of are video stills of her that are clearly chosen to be unflattering, usually accompanied with a meme.
We all get annoyed when the Left purposefully chooses images of conservatives designed to make them look nefarious, stupid, or ugly. Geese, ganders, and all that.
Hillary spent thousands of dollars on outfits that looked like they’ve been bought off the rack at Dear Leader’s Glorious People’s Department Store No. 5 in Pyongyang. That’s a comment on her judgement–don’t the mirrors in Brooklyn work? It’s also a comment on the yes-people she surrounded herself with and the apparently blind who voted for her. This is a reworking of the old fairy tale The Empresses’ New Pantsuit.
AOC has the opposite problem. Of course she looks fabulous. She’s swanning around in outfits costing more than most people spend on clothing in a year. (Including those monsters who buy socks in bulk.) Meanwhile, she’s complaining about how much an apartment costs in Washington DC. This shows she does a poor job handling her own finances; why should she be in charge of mine?
On the latest Remnant podcast, Jonah Goldberg spoke with congressman Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin. Gallagher mentioned that he slept on a cot in his office for most of his first term, and has just moved up to sharing a condo with several other senators and representatives. Somehow, I don’t see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doing either of those things.