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SNL Presents Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
In Season 38, 2012, the Weekend Update with Seth Meyers featured AOC:
They laughed at her in 2012. In 2019 they voted for her. Liberalism is a mental disease.
Published in General
Do you have a post explaining this pre-2015 thing? Or could you write one?
Sure.
Around 2015-2016 is when Donald Trump came along. That’s when a large percentage of self described conservatives threw their conservatism out the window and replaced it with Trump-ism.
Conversely, one could have this perspective ….
“Around 2015-2016 is when Donald Trump came along. That’s when a large percentage of self described conservatives threw their conservatism out the window and replaced it with anti-Trump-ism.”
One could have that perspective. Its just not grounded in reality.
It’s fine. Times change. Maybe conservatism is this other thing now that has no relation to Buckley or Goldwater or Reagan or the 60 years prior to 2015. And it’s fine. We’ve learned a lot about people and who actually believed in what they were saying, and who would sell out.
But whatever the new post-2015 conservatism is, it means it has almost no common ground with libertarianism now.
Buckley, Goldwater and Reagan would have more political vision common cause with Donald Trump than say Mitt Romney.
Your perspective is the one that is not grounded in reality, methinks.
Speaking of “sell-outs” (your term) … don’t look now but your libertarian card has been revoked.
I’m not sure that’s true. See, because Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan actually, you know, had positions and believed in things and understood economics. That doesn’t apply to Donald Trump. The only issue Donald Trump has been consistent about for the last 25 years is protectionism. Even the illegal immigration stuff is mostly just for the benefit of the marks.
Oh no. That is very upsetting to me. Because I really care what you think about me as a libertarian.
Oh no. That is very upsetting to me. Because I really care what you think about me as a conservative.
I’m curious. Would you put Mitt Romney in the category of pre-2015 conservatives you can get along with?
SNL was golden for a few years in the 1990s when it featured Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Eddy Murphy, Harry Shearer and some others. It was consistently funny for those few years but since? Wildly inconsistent and forgettable.
P.S. – I’m virtue signalling that it’s OK to think SNL used to be funny but that it hasn’t been consistently funny for many years. So I’m signalling others that it’s OK to like my comments and follow me on Twitter & Facebook OK, only kidding about Twitter and Facebook, I was suffused with virtue-signalling and got carried away. Not that there’s anything wrong with Twitter or Facebook (of course there is, but I’m not sure whether saying so would be virtue-signalling or vice-signalling. I need a chart to keep up.)
What issues do you base this on, Columbo? They were for NATO, for forward engagement against America’s enemies and sincere commitments to allies, for free trade, for efforts against unions, for serious efforts to enforce immigration laws (bar Goldwater). They revered the Constitution, valued character (again, Goldwater is more of an exception), etc. etc. They pretty consistently line up with Romney on issues where Romney disagrees with Trump.
That said, on the issues where libertarians have traditionally agreed with Reagan and Buckley, Trump seems pretty decent. This becomes all the more apparent when you recall that Fred voted for Roger Stone’s candidate, Gary Johnson, in 2012. Reagan hiked the incarceration rate, Romney kept it about even in Massachusetts (as one of the lowest in the country), Johnson hiked it by about 2/3, cut rehabilitation spending, and generally did all he could to create the current massive property crime levels in Albuquerque, currently the worst in the country. So Fred’s standards about what an acceptable candidate would do are pretty gentle. Trump has passed criminal justice reform that isn’t all that great, but he’s the most impressive of the figures Fred mentions on the issue from a decriminalisation perspective.
Romney and Reagan have pretty great records on deregulation, and Buckley and Goldwater advocated for it, but Trump also did pretty well. We don’t have figures yet, but it seems likely that Trump, Reagan, and Romney will all do similarly well at moderately improving their regulatory/ labor market freedom scores. And, again, for Fred, a candidate who drove his state into the ground through excessive government control of markets is acceptably libertarian (note New Mexico’s decline into 49/50 place for labor market freedom in 1999).
Trump’s judges have by and large been originalists, as have libertarians generally been, and as with Romney and Reagan they’ve included both libertarians and social conservatives (and liberals, which Trump appears to have nominated fewer of). Johnson tended to nominate more progressive judges, thanks to his preference for interviewing judges with trick questions and going with his gut on whether they saw their job as solving problems with common sense solutions or following the letter of the law, and preferring the former.
Trump’s policies don’t involve new trillion dollar federal civilian programs, but that’s irrelevant to Fred’s support, given that Fred likes candidates who do do that, repeatedly. Trump isn’t a consistent isolationist on Defense policy, but he’s less prone to intervention than Johnson was (although also less prone to sabotaging it).
I think it’s obvious that deregulation, gentler treatment for drug offenders, isolationist tendencies, random abuses of government workers, school choice, tax cuts with reduced subsidies for higher state taxes, repeals of parts of Obamacare, right to try laws for new drugs, support for gun rights and religious liberty, and any host of other things would seem obviously relevant to the interests of contemporary libertarianism.
This doesn’t mean that libertarians can’t oppose the President, or Republicans in general; we each have our own set of priorities. Obama did plenty of things that conservatives liked, but that didn’t have to mean that the overall package was one that many conservatives were fond of. But if you’re blanketly denying that there are any policies you see appeal in, while cheerfully and enthusiastically backing a candidate who promoted overt nationalisation of huge chunks of the economy, you should probably reflect on how your emotions are coloring your analysis before you return to the fray.
Is Mitt Romney really your lodestone for conservatism?
I wasn’t a big Romney fan, but at least he understood the value of trade.
No, and that’s the point. Republicans spent most of Obama’s first term opposing Obamacare, only to nominate Mitt “Romneycare” Romney as the opposition candidate for 2012. Didn’t most of these “pre-2015 conservatives” vote for him? Didn’t they vote for John McCain? Didn’t they defend George W Bushism, and all of its big-government projects?
While it’s obvious Trump isn’t a conservative, I’d have to forget an awful lot of recent history, in order to believe he’s any more a deviation from conservative Republican principles than the last few candidates/presidents.
Is it obvious? Not by many of his choices I’d say. Drew Klavan said Trump might be taking Genghis Kahn’s approach. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the attack or riding away (while killing the enemy), it only matters if you win in the end. The trade stuff is all a process. As is the wall/shutdown. What may appear to be a loss for Trump today is definitely making Democrats look bad.
I’d say Trump is conservative by unconventional means. He’s not a status quo guy like recent (R) candidates and presidents. He takes advice like “you can’t say that!” and “you can’t do that!” as a challenge.
After being so wrong in 2016, I stopped making assumptions/predictions. Some people went the other way and became more sure of themselves. Whatever.
This prompts me to write again (“return to the fray” as it were?). This is illustrative of the point. As VDH has written (unemotionally), President Trump “could usher in the most conservative presidency”. Romney was a terrible candidate for the GOP in 2012 if they were truly opposed to 0bamacare. It is as much about the intangibles, visuals and optics of a candidate and their message. Ronald Reagan was authentically himself. Donald Trump, like him or not, is authentically himself. Mitt Romney is a portrait, a crafted political image and an inauthentic candidate. Especially as it related to ending the government take-over of the health care system under 0bama.
I wrote about this at a different forum back in 2011/2012. Mitt Romney was the extremely willing co-architect of the Massachusetts version of 0bamacare. Here is the very memorable picture of its signing … horrible optics as Mitt is surrounded by the democrats and very chummy with them:
I prefer the angle and perspective of this version. Focus on Ted “the Swimmer” Kennedy. His look/thoughts seem like … “I can’t believe he is this stupid. He just got played in every way, signing off on my legislation. And he’s overjoyed”. And look at Mitt. He is overjoyed. Naturally. And seeks the approval of these democrats. Neither Romney nor the GOP had any intentions of repealing 0bamacare. Very un-Reagan like.
During the election, Romney tried to distance himself in every way possible from Romneycare. It didn’t work because, like Mitt, it wasn’t authentic. The true Mitt had revealingly commissioned a portrait of himself in 2009 …
The portrait depicts the governor seated at the front edge of his desk wearing his trademark business suit. Beside him is a small framed photo of his wife, Ann, and ……. “a copy of the health care law reform law he called his greatest achievement”.
Authentic and real beats plastic and framed.
He’s a major deviation in a lot of ways.
Mitt Romney would have never sent the army to the Mexican border as a political stunt a month before the midterms. Mitt Romney wouldn’t have paid off a pornstar to keep their affair quiet a month before the election. Mitt Romney wouldn’t have installed his daughter and son-in-law in top positions in the White House. Mitt Romney released his tax returns. Mitt Romney understood that you had to at least pretend you cared about the truth.
Conservatives used to have regard for tradition and norms and propriety and honesty and integrity and decency, not to mention limited government. That’s all out the window now.
One of Romney’s worst offenses was how apologetic he was about his wealth. You never heard a Kennedy grovel over their ill-gotten gains! He totally accepted the Left’s premises. Disgusting.
Oh, look at you virtue-signalling.
These mostly seem like relatively non-ideological flaws to me. While younger Trump was braggier, the President isn’t saying that one ought to bang porn stars and his defenders minimize it and talk about it in terms of acceptable flaws rather than claiming this is a model for life.
This is like Johnson’s corruption and self dealing, not like his wrecking of school choice.
Goldwater wasn’t super big on all of that, but the others were. Do you think Johnson was an honest person? On the assumption that you don’t, do you think that it is possible for libertarianism to remain a viable and useful paradigm and movement while having a flawed figurehead, but that it is not possible for conservatism to do so?
Do you recognize that some of Trump’s moves have been in the direction of limited government? Right at the end there you slipped in some substance with the character stuff and it seems worth checking if you mean it.
You’re being silly. Obviously, one could draw up a much longer list of Trump’s bad points. That doesn’t make Romney, et al, any more conservative.
And I’m tired of hearing the tax return mantra. Romney should have kept his returns to himself. So should every other politician. I don’t care about that, Trump or no Trump. Neither should you.
Aside from some of the individual mandate issues, the problems with Obamacare weren’t present in Massachusetts. Even with the mandate, there weren’t constitutional issues, religious liberty issues, etc.; it affected very, very few people. There’s a reason that the framed copy is a pamphlet, whereas Obamacare is a stack of telephone directories.
Because Romney worked with the Democrats in his 85% blue legislature, he was able to achieve conservative policy gains (religious liberty, school choice, some large spending cuts, etc.) and blocking environmentalist movements and other leftist efforts at their height.
Of course it’s more satisfying to have your leaders decry their opposition as human filth than to get along with them, there’s a trade off with policy. Bush’s ability to get Democrats to vote for the Surge instead of for precipitous withdrawal turned what would have been a catastrophic defeat and massacre into a victory for the US and was one of the most consequential achievements of modern times. More on topic, Bush was able to get wall built because he got Democrats in Congress to vote for it. Trump couldn’t restrain himself from fighting long enough to accept one of the Republican efforts to give him funds. Trump is on the path to doing less institutionally than any President to increase border security since Ford. In part, that’s because when he gives Democrats moments of thinking they’re getting something great (eg, Feinstein on guns), he goes back to insults instead of deal making.
I was reminded this morning that I’d been in error on this stuff. When Trump took office, one of the few things I was confident of was that he’d do at least as much as Obama had to increase immigration enforcement.
There’s lots of good stuff, particularly dry technical things in deregulation where he can install experts and then leave them alone without Congressional, Media, or active Presidential involvement. Judges, too. But being really bad at generating a sense of unified purpose with the opposition is not a virtue that one should feel good about seeking.
SNL’s comedy is sexist towards female politicians and prejudiced against conservatives and Republicans. That is point 1. Point 2 is that while I am no fan of Cortez’s politics or her social media over sharing, her policy preferences are no different from those of the majority of Democrats. Her views are not extreme among Democrats. So far as I can tell, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between her views and Warren’s, Harris’s, Sanders’s, Biden’s etc. The only reason that she is being lampooned on SNL is because she is green and an easy target. SNL can’t lampoon the progressive left very much: it makes up the bulk of the show’s viewers.
That’s simply not true.
I know that’s the conservative narrative, but it doesn’t match reality. She is considered an extremist in Democratic circles and there are a lot of Democrats who don’t appreciate that AOC is out front and representing them.
Maybe that’s true for the rank and file Democrats, but Justin is absolutely right when comparing Cortez to the Democrats running for President, like Bernie, Spotacus, Pocahontas, Harris, Gillum, O’rourke etc… I’ll bet you cannot give an example of a major policy difference between Google Eyes Cortez and those frontrunners I mentioned.
Is SNL lampooning her? The clip in the OP was not about her. It’s actually a few years old, from back before she was a public figure.
AOC believes she’s an extremist in that “normative” lefty Democrats in her party are way too conservative for her. She’s one of the “Justice” Democrats.
Yep. As noted in the OP, this was SNL in 2012. And the actress is “spot on” AOC. But it wasn’t lampooning her.
Just a 2012 version of her (though they didn’t know it then). They laughed at her in 2012. In 2018, they elected her to the U.S. Congress.
In a word … Sad.
In a word: Democrats.