They’re afraid of things like this, which I mentioned earlier in the thread:
Psychological projection much?
How is she an immigrant? She was born in the Bronx, and so was her father. Even if she were born in Puerto Rico, she would be a naturally born U.S. citizen, which is the actual status of her mother.
It would be hard to find a more succinct summary of the current massive imbalance in the levels of rationality and just plain common sense between liberals and conservatives these days. Namely, conservatives are getting freaked out about a politician being merely a young female nonwhite liberal of very mild socialistic tendencies, to the same level that liberals would get freaked out about a politician being an actual white-supremacist hate group member who openly advocates oppressive gender discrimination and supports a rabidly intolerant and anti-science religious agenda.
Thanks, Velocity, for making the point so clearly.
[quote=“bobot, post:21, topic:832513”]
They’re afraid of things like this, which I mentioned earlier in the thread:
[/QUOTE]You are appealing to her strength as an orator with your examples? I don’t know what went into her preparation. Do you think there was ever much fear on the left of Trey Gowdy? Several years ago hundreds of clips of Trey Gowdy started making the rounds of him taking this, that, and the other person to task. I’m sure many who relished these philippics felt Gowdy was a man who should be feared, as they salivated at the thought of him someday being US Attorney General or even higher. I never got much sense from the other side that fear was playing out, whether the reaction was to fire back or give his theatrics an eyeroll. I think you think she should be feared.
There might be a small fraction of AOC’s capabilities and points raised that they honestly find formidable. I’m just not seeing it on the whole, for the time being.
In fairness, an item that was discussed a lot by the right wing earlier this year slipped my mind and it’s possible this reporting could be motivated by… some sort of emotion. Ocasio-Cortez, chief of staff illegally moved $885G in campaign contributions 'off the books,' FEC complaint alleges | Fox News
Well said. If velocity’s view of the GOP is even remotely valid, they are so much more pathetic than I thought. And my thoughts about them…weren’t great.
THAT’S the GOP “villain”? And Republicans wonder why people call them batshit crazy.
Right. To win any national election both parties need the support of middle of the road voters who are not highly idealistic about causes, either on the left or the right. If the right can say, “Here is what you get if you vote for Democrats: you get socialism, no airplane travel, and bans on cows. Instead of listening to you who have busted your hump, paid taxes and put up with regulations for the last 30 years, the Dems listen to a bubblehead millennial whose only qualification was that she is pretty and was a bartender last year.”
Now, whether any or none of that is true, the narrative is what is important, and that narrative sells very poorly to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania voters.
We are talking about people stupid enough to vote for Donald J Trump. Of course she’s an immigrant. She’s from an island somewhere that is full of brown people.
It’s not an obsession. It’s a strategy. You hook on to somebody who looks like a rising star and you commence a firehouse of nonsense, both to paint that person as the personification of the other side while pasting on so much shit that it damages ēs* viability as the “perfect” candidate.
They did it very successfully with Hillary Clinton. As soon as she appeared on the national stage on 1992, the bullshit started and it continued nonstop for a quarter century. So a highly competent person with less than average ethical problems was burdened with the unshakeable identity of being a problematic figure with a history of scandal, no matter that that scandal was manufactured bullshit.
That’s exactly what’s happening now to Ocasio Cortes. If it doesn’t cripple her early in her career and she survives to make it to the big leagues, she’ll bear the burden of being a “divisive” and “controversial” Andrew “problematic” candidate and even people on the left will say “how could you possibly nominate our weakest candidate?”
At the same time she will become a symbol of all that is bad about the left.
*I’m experimenting with non-gendered pronouns.
Not to mention her prowess with social media.
Good point, I didn’t think of this.
How the HELL does being born to parents who were born on U.S soil and are U.S. citizens FROM BIRTH make her an immigrant? Or make her parents immigrants?
People born in Puerto Rico are natural-born citizens just as much as someone born in Texas or Alaska. Surely you know better than this.
He’s talking about how it will look to those who watch Fox News.
I’m not getting that from the way he phrased it.
That doesn’t make sense. If she really is already a laughingstock, then they’d be wasting their time talking about her, not going after someone they actually find threatening. Sure, you might make the occasional joke about them, but you aren’t going to constantly bring them up.
You mention Sarah Palin. The reason why the left mocked her so much was specifically that we were afraid people wouldn’t see her a laughingstock. She was a genuine threat, running as the VP candidate.
It’s also why we’re constantly mocking Trump. We’re scared of having such a buffoon in charge. We want to push the narrative that he is ill equipped to do the job.
None of this means we don’t believe what we’re saying. We definitely believe that both are too stupid to run our country, and worthy of mockery. But, make no mistake. We were indeed threatened by Palin, and we are still threatened by Trump.
You don’t waste your time attacking people you aren’t threatened by.
That said, I do think AOC is a bit of a stand in, and it’s not her specifically that they are afraid of. They are afraid for what she stands for. They’re afraid since her ideas are actually popular, and worried they may actually be implemented. Thus they label her a laughingstock.
It’s exactly the strategy used in labeling people PC police or SJWs. It’s what they have done to feminists. The strategy is to take these things they are legitimately afraid of and make them seem ridiculous and mockworthy. That’s why there’s the dichotomy of mocking the “SJWs” as well as saying that they’re “taking over.”
She’s brown, so she’s obviously an immigrant. C’mon, we’re not talking in facts here. Given that one poster has compared her to a bible-thumping racist with a ton of money and a distinct lack of melanin, reality is not the issue. She’s a fever dream of the right.
Conservatives have strange “villains”
Excellent analysis.
The world is coming to an end in twelve years, so they are publicizing her now while they’ve got the chance.
Or else she’s young and pretty, far left, says outrageously stupid things and embarrasses the establishment liberals. What’s not to like?
Regards,
Shodan
This isn’t exactly on topic, but why do people keep repeating this weird idea that conservatism will age away? They’ve been saying it for decades and it hasn’t happened yet. People get more conservative as they age, and as Fox news demonstrates, you can turn a mildly conservative person into a drooling reactionary.
I was hearing this “conservatives will age away” stuff thirty years ago, and in 2016 Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.