Saturday, January 12, 2019

Twitter star!

Politico: "Exasperated Democrats try to rein in Ocasio-Cortez."  They must be secretly threatened by a strong woman, or something.  It can't possibly be her insane statements and positions.




17 comments:

Robert Fisk said...

Hmm. Why would the Democrats want to rein in (in the Monitor's words) a "young, female, Latino, socialist, attractive, Bronx liberal who merrily mocks GOP attacks"?

It would seem that they're the ones who are afraid of her, not conservatives.

Monitor: B-B-But no, it is the conservatives who are afraid of her! Deep, neuropsychological, "fear center"-type fear.

Me: Huh? All we see is a cartoonish lefty who sounds like a joke when talking, which causes us to laugh.

Monitor: But you're obsessed! Almost every day there's new conservative ridicule of her. Deep, fear-centered ridicule!

Me: But she tells a new joke almost every day. What are we supposed to do?

Anonymous said...

She who laughs last laughs best.

And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to laugh at Robert and her other critics:
To quote Alan Moore: “None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.”

Mark Harris on "fear centers":
The GOP understands AOC better than her own colleagues do. Republicans loathe her because they know that the more she talks about her "crazy" ideas, the more they become normal ideas. It's what their party has done for 30 years.

Robert Fisk said...

To quote Alan Moore: “None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.”

There could not possibly be a more appropriate quote to represent Occluded-Context's response to Democrats trying to rein her in.

Roger Bournival said...

So our side laughs at and mocks this utter fool's constant socialist nonsense, but the real problem is our reaction to it. Got it!

Anonymous said...

Rick Perlstein:

"[Ocasio-Cortez] reminds me of when people [used to ask] ‘Why are the Democrats where they are? Why don’t they take the fights to the enemy? Why don’t they pivot off troll-y comments from the Republicans, instead of playing the game on their terms? Why aren’t they offering clear, bold, long-term, super-jumbo policy solutions that people can remember instead of triangulating everything the Republicans suggest?’

And, suddenly, someone emerges who seems to be listening to all this, who is probably part of those conversations. And, suddenly, she has the power to actually act in a way that the Party hasn’t—a party that, almost forty years later, is still traumatized by the success of Ronald Reagan. It’s a profoundly generational phenomenon, and, clearly, it’s scary.

.....On the “60 Minutes” interview, Anderson Cooper throws a question to her that for just about any traditional, old-generation Democrat is a stumper: "Oh, the other side says you’re radical." And she had this ready-made answer in the hopper, which was to deploy these very powerful symbols from the American civic religion, and I’m going to quote: “Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like social security. . . . If that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”

Now, immediately, when I heard her say that, I heard a very famous quote from J.F.K., who was asked if he was a liberal in the same kind of accusatory tone, and he said, “If by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties—someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a liberal, then I’m proud to say that I’m a liberal.”

I see her Reagan-like brilliance when she comes up with a phrase, like I heard her do in an interview on the shutdown, which she immediately took to a much higher level. She said the people at the border trying to get in “are acting more American than any person who seeks to keep them out will ever be.” The kids who died in custody—she mentioned that it was Christmastime, which was just so Reagan, to use this resonant emotional symbol. She says that the people trying to keep them out are “anti-American.” This is the American civil religion. This is playing the game in a way that a pre-traumatized generation of Democrats was able to play the game.

.…..When she went on “60 Minutes” and was challenged about her mistake, she owned it. And she said, "Oh, and, by the way, the important underlying issue is the morality." There was no politician who was more robust in empirical errors than Ronald Reagan."

Anonymous said...

Rick Perlstein, continued:

"In 1978, when Gingrich won his congressional seat after his third time trying, Congressman Thomas Mann had this off-the-record briefing session in which they explained to new members how the House worked. Mann tells this story that this young congressman was basically talking back to them and lecturing them about how Congress should work. And he explained to them this plan he had, all the way back in January of 1979, of how the Republicans could become the majority party and take back the House. And no one was saying that in 1979. People were talking about this statistic that only 21% of people identified themselves as Republicans. And, all the way through 1979, you see Newt Gingrich showing up in stories as a spokesman for the Republican Party, as the voice that people in the media are seeking out.

And, to go back to another Republican example, in 1966, Richard Nixon was starting his comeback that obviously culminated in him winning the Presidency in 1968. His entire strategy, Pat Buchanan explains, was built around getting mentioned in the same sentence as Lyndon Johnson. Getting Lyndon Johnson to notice him, to mention him, to criticize him. So, in the same sense, Newt Gingrich is suddenly finding himself being quoted more in the newspaper than Bob Michel, the House Republican leader, because he has sort of the audacity to talk about his party as agenda-setting.

….As an opening bid for breaking through these logjams, I think that a bid of strategic boldness is a tonic for a party. …That’s where A.O.C.’s ability to teach other Democrats who aren’t going to be Puerto Ricans from the Bronx—they might be ranchers from Montana—to speak in terms of the American civil religion is so brilliant. To talk about people who oppose immigration as betraying Reaganism, right? Or the American way?"

Eric said...

What a dumb analysis, like squeezing 20 lbs of BS into a 10 lb bag.

"Why aren’t they offering clear..." This is where I should have stopped reading. AOC's policy solutions are clear as mud and powered by unicorns.

Anonymous said...

Ronald Reagan got elected in 1980 when he pledged to simultaneously cut taxes, increase defense spending and increase revenues while balancing the budget. He made fun of Democrats and promised to nebulously "make America great again" (actual slogan). Mud and unicorns.

Eric said...

There was another guy who said raising the national debt by $4 trillion was "unpatriotic" and that I'd get $2500 back in health care savings.

I'd probably have it by now if we didn't waste $21 trillion in Defense.

Anonymous said...

These are all really great examples for why Ocasio-Cortez is doomed to political irrelevance.

Anonymous said...

She can always fall back on her economics degree, the one she used while bartending.

Anonymous said...

Did she make a movie as a monkey's sidekick?

Anonymous said...

Better tell YOUR bartender to make the next one a double.


https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/425422-a-majority-of-americans-support-raising-the-top-tax-rate-to-70

Poll: A majority of Americans support raising the top tax rate to 70 percent

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and her Republican critics have both called her proposal to dramatically increase America's highest tax rate "radical" but a new poll released Tuesday indicates that a majority of Americans agrees with the idea.

In the latest The Hill-HarrisX survey, which was conducted Jan. 12 and 13 after the newly elected congresswoman called for the U.S. to raise its highest tax rate to 70 percent, found that a sizable majority of registered voters, 59 percent, supports the idea.

Ocasio-Cortez has not introduced any legislation to enact the concept but the survey shows a broad cross-section of Americans supports it, at least presently.

Women support the idea by a 62-38 percent margin. A majority of men back it as well, 55 percent to 45 percent. The proposal is popular in all regions of the country with a majority of Southerners backing it by a 57 to 43 percent margin. Rural voters back it as well, 56 percent to 44 percent.

Increasing the highest tax bracket to 70 percent garners a surprising amount of support among Republican voters. In the Hill-HarrisX poll, 45 percent of GOP voters say they favor it while 55 percent are opposed to it.

Independent voters who were contacted backed the tax idea by a 60 to 40 percent margin while Democratic ones favored it, 71 percent to 29 percent.

The proposal has been met with both criticism and acceptance within the Democratic party. Republicans and conservative commentators have been universally critical, some incorrectly implying that the congresswoman wants to tax all income of the richest Americans at 70 percent.

Eric said...

Stop the presses, boys! Americans want "somebody else" to pay taxes!

The top 3% of taxpayers already pay >50% of ALL federal taxes but, hey, let's hit 'em just one more time. For the children.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-americans-pay-most-income-taxes-but-enough-to-be-fair/

Anonymous said...

Aww, and it really felt like the Trump tax cut was going to be the new normal, forever and ever, amen.

Eric said...

It is the new normal. What country are you living in?

Anonymous said...

Here's a hint: it's one where majority rules.

No worries, though; surely those polls will turn around as the roaring success of the stock buyback bonanza trickles down.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-14/trump-tax-cut-turns-out-both-better-and-worse

https://www.salon.com/2019/01/17/gop-tax-cut-to-cost-600-billion-more-thanks-to-trumps-shutdown-china-trade-war/

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/425818-generation-z-may-be-most-liberal-demographic-yet