The Dangers of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

If you haven�t witnessed the destruction that Sacha Baron Cohen has been sowing over the past few weeks then I encourage you to take a seat, grab some popcorn, and watch all of the action unfold. Cohen has been rampaging the Republican party and their lawmakers with his show Who is America? on Showtime. The show has duped people like former Vice President Dick Cheney and South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson into supporting the arming of toddlers, among other wacky things. Most recently, he forced a lawmaker from Georgia to resign after tricking him into yelling racial slurs and exposing himself on the show. Jason Spencer (the lawmaker) resigned on Wednesday following enormous bipartisan pressure to get out. He had already lost his reelection primary but was planning to finish out the last few months of his term. That won�t be happening anymore.  

Georgia state representative Jason Spencer making a mistake.

I would feel sorry for the guy except for the fact that he deserves this. It�s one thing to be taken out of context or tricked into saying something harmless. For example, a dog lover could be tricked into saying, �Get those dogs out of here!� when told that the hot dogs in front of him or her would give them a salmonella infection. While they were tricked into saying something that can be interpreted as anti-dog, they didn�t actually direct the comment towards dogs. Even without being tricked, the power of audio and video editing can alter a person�s true statements and make it seem like they are saying a lot of things they didn�t actually say.

But the power of editing cannot make somebody yell the �N� word or expose themselves to the camera. That is a bit beyond the technology�s ability. The only thing that Spencer exposed (besides himself) is that he is unfit for office and because of Cohen�s work, he is now out of office. I am sure that any other lawmakers that were duped by Cohen are probably pretty nervous right now because there are still a bunch of episodes left this season.

This week�s main story is about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Congressional Candidate who defeated incumbent Joe Crowley in New York, and why Democrats shouldn�t be so fast to embrace her with open arms. Let�s put things in perspective: Ocasio-Cortez unseated Crowley, one of the most powerful and respected Democrats in Congress. That was a major accomplishment and is worth recognition. But consider the district she ran in and the voter turnout in that district. She ran in a place made up of the Bronx and Queens, some of the most liberal places in the country, and won against an incumbent who didn�t have much in common with his constituency.

The turnout in this election was 13%; a historical low meaning that the majority of the district and the majority of Democrats stayed home. Ocasio-Cortez only turned out roughly 17,000 people to win her primary, a pretty small number considering the district contains over 200,000 registered Democrats. She was able to energize a small minority in order to unseat her less exciting opponent. She ran a good campaign and accomplished an extraordinary task, but in no way does she represent a shift in the entire party.

That is why it would be unwise for Democratic candidates who see her success to immediately jump on the bandwagon of being ultra-liberal. A Democrat in Wyoming running on a platform that matches a Democrat running in Los Angeles will have no chance in a general election. When Tom Perez, the Chairman of the DNC, says that she, �Represents the future of our party,� he is not thinking about sustainability or the future of the Democratic party. If the Democratic party makes a hard turn left they are going to lose a lot of passengers. That does not bode well for the future.

A lot of articles portraying Ocasio-Cortez as the future of the party (specifically this article from The Guardian) also portrayed the Democratic establishment in Congress as an outdated group of career politicians terrified of Ocasio-Cortez and the threat she presents to them. Is the Democratic establishment uneasy about Ocasio-Cortez? Yes. Is it for the reason that this article states? No.

Their fear is not that selfish. Their fear is about the party as a whole and the dangers of becoming too radical at a time when you are in the minority and trying to become the majority. Doug Jones is not worried about a person like Ocasio-Cortez running against him in a future primary because they wouldn�t be electable in Alabama. The state almost elected the ultra-conservative Roy Moore to the Senate. Doug Jones is worried about the impact of Ocasio-Cortez�s rhetoric on the Democratic Party and their chances to retake the majority and implement their agenda in 2019.

            The person writing that article did not understand that. That�s all for this week.