Coincidentally, I was reminded of this episode when rewatching the 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a political innocent, Jefferson Smith, nominated to fill a casual vacancy on the Senate by his corrupt state governor.
One scene that reminded me of the scandal about a dance video was the scene when Senator-designate Smith is about to be sworn in by the Vice President. The movie is very careful not to identify which party senators belong to, but conservative senators from the party opposed to Jefferson Smith’s raise a point in the Senate about some newspaper photos of Smith in various comical poses. This false outrage for partisan purposes seemed to me to be awfully similar to the false outrage about Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.
Just scan 3 posts up. She doesn’t dance well enough to please Shodan (no doubt a master toe-tapper himself), therefore she’s exactly the same as Jesse Ventura and Donald Trump. (As of print date, no word on his opinions on second-rate actors running for governor of California and then parlaying that into 2 presidential terms).
But seriously… she’s young, magnetic, and liberal, so conservatives desperately need to portray her as stupid. This is really hard to pull off when you’re carrying water for Trump, the dumbest politician in history, so instead we get “hurr de durr dancing is frivolous or something.”
This is not hard to find. Quite literally this was brought to public attention via conservative ridicule on Twitter, and if you look up in this very thread you can see Shodan harrumphing about it. I wonder if you’d be denying the conservative criticism had it not backfired so hilariously.
I’m not sure but I think you may have misunderstood Shodan’s tone here. However, I did notice that **Shodan **didn’t mention an actor as President in his list of people-with-frivolous-backgrounds-elected-to-public-office.
I’m not “denying” it, but trying to put it in perspective for the hair-on-fire crowd. You’re talking about some minuscule fraction of conservatives here. If that entertains you, carry on, but you’re deluding yourself if you think it’s a widespread concern among conservatives.
Yes, ‘widespread’ and ‘minuscule’ are weasel words that give you plenty of scope to walk those goalposts back into safe territory. I give you one example, you point out that’s definitely not as many as two examples. I have no interest in that game.
Literally the only reason we’re talking about this video is because a conservative Twitter user named @AnonymousQ1776 thought he was delivering a searing burn. When he realized it was blowing up in his face, he deleted the tweet in an attempt at damage control, much like what you’re doing now.
To address allegations of nutpicking, professional conservative commentary tends to tut-tut her dancing, then pivot to weirdness. Melissa Mackenzie of the American Spectator: [INDENT] RE: @AOC and her dancing.
She looks to me like she’s having fun dancing at an elite school.
She does not look like she’s oppressed.
That’s the secret about Obama, AOC, Bernie, Warren and the rest who talk in terms of “the privileged” / “the oppressed”: They’re all privileged. [/INDENT] So to the modern conservative, this dance video is yet another example of liberal elitism. The butthurt is strong among this class of far right but still US mainstream commentators and this is yet another example of their desparate straw grasping.
Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit is another conservative slow to get the memo that conservative butthurt about the AOC vid is suppose to be a media creation. It’s a familiar pattern, as Bob Sampson notes: “People on the the right ignoring the rest of the people on the right is pretty much how they keep themselves mad at everyone else for treating them unfairly.” https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1082132161430515712
Jim Hoft is the proud possessor of a White House press pass.
This is basically it. Somehow she’s a threat to them, and somehow they think this is the epic response. Seems like a weird mental space to me, but who am I to say.
According to your linked article - A video showing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing on a rooftop while in college was posted to social media in a now-deleted tweet by a user called AnonymousQ, who labelled the newly fledged politician a “commie know-it-all” and “clueless nitwit”.
One person posted a video, and it appears that some people have jumped to the conclusion/chose to spread a rumor, that this one individual must be speaking for many/most/all conservatives. I’m shocked. At least this young-girls-dancing video attracted the attention of a stalwart pillar of society such as Russell “I’m a drunk and will throw phones at hotel employees” Crowe.
I am. It’s a thing. And if an Anon loon tweets something, it amounts to very little in and of itself.
The problem is that the AOC dancing story was briefly picked up by Gateway Pundit, the Daily Caller, and the American Spectator (available at a fine library near you), before it collapsed under the weight of its own ridiculousness. And it formed a pattern with previous RW articles whining about things that AOC mentioned on her own campaign website.
Now you could argue that these are fringe publications that have a habit of promoting batshit ideas like Obama birtherism, or conspiracy theories regarding Robert Mueller. Serious conservatives recognize that these publications are nuts, and those who are decent say so loudly and repeatedly. You could call it ideological self-policing.
The problem comes when you try to point to a conservative publication that is unashamedly anti-conspiracy and pro-science. I’m sure they exist, but they are thin on the ground. Ending this post on a more hopeful note, there is a vast ideological space encompassing Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman which is reality-based and non-hysteric: this guy (re)brands it as neoliberalism.
At least this young-girls-dancing video attracted the attention of a stalwart pillar of society such as Russell “I’m a drunk and will throw phones at hotel employees” Crowe.