“How do you solve a problem like Alexandria?” could be the Democrat establishment’s new song — and deep lament. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the folderol-disgorging faux-Bronx-girl firebrand of a congresswoman, again threw a monkey wrench into her party’s messaging. This time it was after President Trump’s border-security speech Tuesday night. She appeared on MSNBC to weigh in on the matter, after Senator Chuck Schumer’s and Representative Nancy Pelosi’s response, which, mind you, was not exactly a tough act to follow.
As American Thinker’s Monica Showalter reported Wednesday, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is making herself an even bigger headache to her fellow Democrats, giving a wild third response to President Trump’s speech, which pretty well eclipses the Democrats’ carefully crafted messaging.”
“This shows just what a mess the Democrats are these days,” Showalter continues, “and how she’s happy to be their problem.”
Of course, the Democrats couldn’t even agree on a single responder, which evidences their dysfunction, opines Showalter. Instead, “They had a pair of them, hoping to hog more camera time, perhaps, but it came at a cost of a unified message,” she writes.
“The result, as they stared out at the TV cameras together, all botoxed and heavily made up, was ‘American Gothic,’ except maybe with oily game show hosts instead of farmers,” she continues. “The image was so strong (and not in a good way) that it was hard to pay attention to whatever their words were.”
So enter “buck private-ranked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” as Showalter characterizes her, “weighing in for a third Democratic response, the voice of the radical left, and her messaging was way out in left field compared to the other two.”
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After all, “Pelosi and Schumer, whatever the weakness of their message, did try to come off as mainstream and compassionate so as to win voters over,” Showalter further states. “They didn’t call Americans rats for not liking illegal alien crime; they didn’t promise illegals more goodies or argue much for the lawbreakers’ interests over those of American citizens. They were actually trying to persuade by making Trump look like the unreasonable one.”
In contrast, Ocasio-Cortez played the bull in the china shop, doing precisely what Schumer and Pelosi didn’t, impugning her fellow Americans as “deplorables,” in so many words (video below).
Of course, far, far fewer people watched Ocasio-Cortez’s MSNBC appearance than saw stiff Schumer and petrified Pelosi. But this doesn’t change the big picture, which is that “Cortez is now proving a problem for them [establishment Democrats],” as Showalter puts it.
She isn’t the first to say so, either. Back in July already, The Hill wrote of Ocasio-Cortez that “a number of House Democrats are up in arms over her no-holds-barred approach” and that she “appears set on using her newfound star power to attack Democrats from the left flank, threatening to divide the party.”
“‘She’s carrying on and she ain’t gonna make friends that way,’” The Hill quotes Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) as saying. “Asked if Ocasio-Cortez is, indeed, making enemies of fellow Democrats, Pascrell didn’t hesitate,” The Hill later related. “‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No doubt about it.’”
The Hill also cited Representative Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), who warned that her agenda will be stifled despite her celebrity if she alienates people.
“‘Meteors fizz out,’ Hastings said. ‘What she will learn in this institution is that it’s glacial to begin with, and therefore no matter how far you rise, that’s just how far you will ultimately get your comeuppance,’” The Hill also informs. “He added: ‘You come up here and you’re going to be buddy-buddy with all the folks or you’re going to make them do certain things? Ain’t happening, OK?’”
Shortly after the election, The Atlantic observed that Ocasio-Cortez “came into Washington like a wrecking ball.” Most recently, comedienne-cum-commentator (using the term loosely) Whoopi Goldberg castigated the congresswoman for diminishing paid-their-dues Democrats, saying that Ocasio-Cortez should stop “pooping on people and what they’ve done” (video below. Relevant portion begins at 2:26).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1W5Z-NRBf4
So Ocasio-Cortez has made many establishment enemies. It’s so bad that radio giant Michael Savage theorized on his program last Friday that the Democrat powers-that-be are going to eliminate the upstart. “I know how power works,” stated Savage, and within a year they’re going to “set her up” (he didn’t offer any details).
While this certainly is a possibility, I doubt it’s even a modest probability. But here’s the issue with Ocasio-Cortez: No one, not even she herself, I believe, expected her to win. Hers is a Being There (1979) story; she’s like the film’s “Chance” character, a simpleton propelled to prominence via a conspiracy of events. She didn’t win her Bronx congressional-seat Democrat primary with party support; she upset the longtime incumbent, Joe Crowley, because he took her lightly, she played the ethnicity card, it’s an anti-establishment time, and she needed only 16,000 votes to win on a 13-percent turnout.
So since she didn’t need the establishment to prevail, she no doubt doesn’t feel beholden to it. But she still can be bitten by it.
It’s not that her closet-socialist Democrat brethren don’t often share her passions. But when she barges into Congress with her uppity attitude, 70-percent-bracket tax proposal, celebrity status, and “Green New Deal,” it turns the wheeler-dealers green with envy. Additionally, no one, least of all leftist egomaniacs, appreciates threats to his power attended by disrespect. Pelosi & Co. certainly will welcome new blood, but they demand deference to the pecking order.
The Democrat establishment also has an eye on the 2020 White House, and they don’t want to visibly tack so far left that they’re left on the fringe.
So will Ocasio-Cortez be Pelosied? After all, this is a House speaker who can “cut your head off and you won’t even know you’re bleeding,” as Pelosi’s daughter put it recently. I think that as long as Ocasio-Cortez commands a large following, the Democrat establishment will have to tolerate her.
Whatever the case, she’s truly dangerous not just to the Democrats but to the country. For she’s a true believer — in all the wrong things.
Image: screenshot from YouTube video of Ocasio-Cortez interview on MSNBC
