Ocasio-Cortez's Ignorance and Gaffes Are Weakening The Left
Democratic Socialist Ocasio-Cortez Should Be Criticized For Her Ignorance. She has made gaffe after gaffe and yet when the right calls her out they get accused of being obsessed. Who cares what clothes she wears, who cares what she eats. Republicans should talk about her gaffes and errors. If youre on the left this should alarm you as one of the most famous advocates for left wing positions and for the democrats in congress has no idea what she is talking about.For whatever reason the democrats don't want to call her out even when she calls for "primarying" her fellow democrats
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The right is being accused of being obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and I think some of the criticism is a bit fair, especially when you see that guy who made criticism about Cortez's clothes, and both the right and the left said, what?
That's not real criticism.
But!
There is a reason why Cortez continues to be highlighted by the right.
She was paraded around by the Democrats.
She's called the new face of the Democratic Party, and she is a gaffe queen.
Mistake after mistake, she has been fact-checked by PolitiFact and by the Washington Post.
She has been called out by mainstream journalists.
I think the real issue here is that Cortez can say whatever she wants, and the Democrats don't call her out.
When she went on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, she made some ridiculous claim about the American economy, 200 million workers living on less than $20,000 or $30,000 a year, and Trevor Noah said nothing, a ridiculously false claim.
So why is it that conservatives keep talking about her?
Well, when you call her the face of the Democratic Party, and then parade her around the nation endorsing other Democrats before she gets elected, and she keeps saying things that are just not true, yes, people are going to talk about this young woman the Democrats keep propping up.
But now, we have Cortez coming into office and actually challenging Democrats.
Thus, The Atlantic has written an article saying that Cortez is confounding House Democrats.
Cortez is rife with gaffes.
There is certainly a reason to criticize her, and that's what we're going to look at today.
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Let's start by looking at criticism from Slate, why the right is so obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a guide to Republicans' flimsy, self-refuting hatred of the incoming congresswoman.
They highlight this tweet by Eddie Scarry.
He said, Hillstaffer sent me this pic of Ocasio-Cortez they took just now.
I'll tell you something, that jacket and coat don't look like a girl who struggles.
And they posted a photo of Cortez just wearing normal clothes and walking down a hallway.
Yes.
I think this does show that some people are taking it a bit too far in their desperate attempt to criticize Ocasio-Cortez.
But now think about this.
Think about how the left talks about Donald Trump.
Everything he says, the clothes he wears, how he looks when he golfs, the food he eats.
This is not very different.
Now, admittedly, Donald Trump is the president, so I think you're going to get a ton of people coming at him.
But I would argue that when Democrats say Ocasio-Cortez is the new face of the Democratic Party, then she is also going to receive similar criticism.
I have no problem criticizing the left when they say nonsense about Trump, and I will absolutely call out people when they say nonsense about Cortez.
But the issue here is that there is a real reason to talk about Ocasio-Cortez.
Let's take a look at what she's doing in Congress now that she's on her way there.
The Atlantic ran this story.
House Democrats don't know what to make of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Staffers and aides to party leadership say they love her enthusiasm, but they're worried her approach will threaten caucus unity.
And in fact, the actual tag for this article is, Ocasio-Cortez confounds House Democrats.
They say just on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez announced that she will be working with progressive activists to bring primary challenges against some of the more conservative Democrats in Congress, her own soon-to-be colleagues.
This was after she joined a protest in the office of Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and after she'd spent a week doggedly documenting congressional orientation on Instagram for her followers and clapping back at her many critics on Twitter.
When you look at mainstream reporting, When you look at how Cortez actually protested Nancy Pelosi, how she is actually saying she wants to get people to run against House Democrats, I think it's fair to say that the media will highlight some of the things she's doing and why they're alarming, but it's the Democrats who don't want to call her out necessarily.
A lot of progressive Democrats are ignoring the things she says.
Let's take a look at this example from the National Review.
Ocasio-Cortez is still wrong, an update.
Once again, we are faced with hard evidence that Ocasio-Cortez does not know very much.
Ignorance is difficult to hide when one is running for Congress, especially when one spends a good deal of time being displayed on television as the new face of the left.
When Trevor Noah asked Ocasio-Cortez whether implementing a $15 minimum wage would stifle economic growth, Ocasio-Cortez responded, that data from Seattle show that isn't true, that 200 million Americans, 40% of the country, make less than $20,000 per year.
They say, Ocasio-Cortez is seriously innumerate.
The population of the United States is around 328 million.
The working age population is smaller.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts it at around 255 million in 2017.
There is no number related to U.S.
population of which 200 million could be 40%.
It is not 40% of anything.
Meanwhile, the median household income in 2016 was $57,230, and not even in a subdivided demographic group does Ocasio-Cortez's assertion make any sense.
And to clarify, this is median income, not average, okay?
Median income.
Why didn't Trevor Noah call her out?
Why didn't he say, well, hold on, I think your numbers are wrong?
It's entirely possible Trevor Noah didn't know.
What I think is happening is that, yes, a lot of conservatives critique Ocasio-Cortez for nonsense things.
Sometimes they go a little far.
She has a slip-up, she misspeaks, and everyone goes after her, just like the left goes after Trump or how they went after Sarah Palin.
And then you get people on the left saying the right has no actual criticism of Ocasio-Cortez.
But we can look at the Washington Post.
We can look at PolitiFact.
The Washington Post ran this story August 10th, fact-checking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's media blitz.
In the story, they actually rate several statements made by her as false.
Here's one.
Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs.
False.
ICE is required to fill 34,000 beds with detainees every single night and that number has only been increasing since 2009.
2009. False. She said, they, the National Democrats, were campaigning most when we
had more of an American middle class. This upper middle class is probably more
moderate, but that upper middle class does not exist in America anymore.
False.
In a Koch Brothers funded study, it shows that Medicare for All is actually much more, is actually much cheaper than the current system that we pay for right now.
False.
The reason the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act is because they ruled that each of these monthly payments that everyday Americans make is a tax.
How about PolitiFact, where she said, just last year we gave the military a $700 billion budget increase they didn't ask for.
That was false.
She has one statement listed as mostly true, but then we have the unemployment is low because of two jobs.
That's pants on fire.
And then the ICE statement, which was fact-checked by Washington Post as well.
False.
Democrats aren't going to criticize their own, even when she's threatening to primary them.
Even when the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and PolitiFact will all say, here are some things that you should know about Cortez.
When the Washington Post and PolitiFact are willing to correct her, when the Atlantic is saying she's confusing, she's confounding House Democrats, the real issue isn't that Republicans are obsessed with her, though I will admit, yes, as I stated, some of them are.
It's that Democrats won't call her out.
They're parading around an inexperienced young person who doesn't know what she's talking about as the new face of the left.
And that is a huge target, okay?
You are giving an opportunity to Republicans to say, this is why Democrats don't know what they're talking about.
Because you have mainstream media calling her out.
People, on the left, you need to talk about this.
It's all about the low-hanging fruit, right?
Ocasio-Cortez is low-hanging fruit, and the people who criticize her clothing are low-hanging fruit to the left.
But will anyone actually address her ideas?
Yes, it appears like they will, but then the left wants to ignore it because there are serious problems with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's ideas and her opinions.
They need to be criticized.
We had this story earlier this month from the Daily Caller.
Ocasio-Cortez on paying for expensive Medicare for All plan.
You just pay for it.
They say, during an interview with Jorge Ramos last Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez said she is puzzled that people keep asking her how the country can afford socialized medicine.
People often say, like, how are you going to pay for it?
And I find the question so puzzling because, how do you pay for something that's more affordable, Ocasio-Cortez said.
How do you pay for cheaper rent, she said.
You just pay for it.
You're paying more now.
The issue of Medicare for All, the issue of socialized medicine, is that it would completely overhaul a massive portion of our economy.
It would put a lot of people out of work, Or it could just disrupt the entire medical industry.
It's not so easy.
I talk to a lot of people on the left who say, just do it, just implement it.
And they don't realize that there's a massive portion of our economy tied to how the system works.
Now don't get me wrong.
There are arguments being made about for-profit healthcare, where someone's intention is to make as much money off you as possible, and I believe that does present a conflict of interest.
Because if you go to somebody and say, you're gonna die, I'll tell you what, give me all of the money you have and you won't, they have no choice but to do it.
So there is a bit of a problem there, which is why I lean left on some of these issues.
But I'm not so daft to assume you can simply just snap your fingers and all of a sudden you have wonderful, free healthcare.
Now obviously, a lot of people call it free healthcare.
They argue for it.
It's not.
It's gonna be paid for the same as anything else.
There are arguments to be made that it could be cheaper.
But Ocasio-Cortez doesn't have those ideas.
She said in an interview, you just pay for it because it's cheaper.
But that's not how it works.
So you can be idealistic.
But you have to realize, people in Congress, they have tried to figure out how to make healthcare better.
It's not like they're doing nothing.
It's just very, very difficult.
People in the media and people on the left criticize Donald Trump for eating a well-done steak with ketchup.
Yes.
When you're a high-profile politician, you will be called out for utter nonsense.
And I think it shouldn't be done.
I think it's silly.
When people started making fun of Donald Trump for his steak with ketchup, I said, who cares?
Who cares what he likes to do?
Who cares what kind of food he eats?
Talk about his ideas.
And the same can be said for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I don't care what she's wearing.
I do care about misleading statements.
I do care about her being hyperbolic.
But more importantly, I care about her ideas not making sense.
Look, by all means, there is a path towards socialized medicine, there is a path towards college for all, and that requires a massive overhaul of our system.
It needs to be worked out and cannot be done overnight.
So it's really easy to go to people and say, yes we can do this, yes we should do this.
But should and could are two different things.
Do I think we should provide healthcare to all people?
100%.
Do I think we can?
I just don't know.
And that's why I'm more moderate as I lean left.
I want to do it.
I think we should invest time and energy into figuring out how we can do it.
But maybe we can't, I'm not entirely sure.
I certainly think people in Washington are trying to do it.
But when Cortez says things like, just pay for it, that doesn't make sense.
And that's why she should be criticized.
And last, I'm gonna say it for the fourth time, if she's the new face of the left, then her gaffes need to be criticized, and that's why people are obsessed with her.
It's not a conspiracy.
It's not a false obsession.
It's the same as any other politician that you keep parading around.
The more you put her on TV, the more you talk about how she's so great, the more people are going to look for holes.
But more importantly, as a Democrat, she is the easiest target.
As a Democrat who is now actively targeting her own party members, she is an easy target.
She is making news, she is newsworthy, and she should be talked about.
It's not an obsession, necessarily, when she keeps doing these things.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
Because now, rather paradoxically, in a video talking about how people are obsessed with Cortez, I'm literally making a video about Cortez, which I recognize!
So let me know what you think.
Do you think her ideas make sense?
Do you think she doesn't make sense?
Do you think she is good for the Democrats, bad for the Democrats?
We'll keep the conversation going.
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