In her most recent press powered self-promotion, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launched headlines that included her name, in the L.A. Times, New Republic, Newsweek, Business Insider, MSNBC News, Fast Company, the New York Post, The Hill, HuffPost, Buzz Feed, The Daily News and many others. All of this press credulously reported how sage AOC was in seeking commentary from people who supposedly cast ballots for both Trump and her.
Among the answers that AOC selected and constantly recited when interviewed, several stand out. Such as, I voted that way because “I feel like Trump and you both are real” and because “It’s real simple. . . Trump and you care about the working class” and a variety of responses related to the Middle East, including “Because of Gaza” and “I know ppl that did this and it was bc of Gaza” and “I voted Trump and Dems because he reached out to Muslims.” Presumably referring to Muslims who entered the country after Trump’s third ban on entry from seven (later six) majority Muslim countries, during his first term. None of this press promotion of AOC actually examined the traits or issues cited by the people reported to be Trump/AOC voters.[1] Such as how “real” Trump and AOC are.
Both are real and persistent liars, including about matters as basic as who they are and from whence they came. Like Trump who falsely claimed Swedish ancestry, AOC invented a “working class” upbringing by a mother who “cleaned houses” when in fact she was raised in emphatically upper-middle class Yorktown Heights by her architect father and housewife mother.
Trump’s devotion to the working class was exemplified in his buddy dialog with Elon Musk, where they chortle over firing striking workers. AOC’s signal achievement for the working class was torpedoing Amazon’s contract with NYS and NYC officials to build facilities in her district that would have employed 25,000 workers with an average annual salary of $150,000. See HL 67 “Pat Won’t be Moving to Long Island City” 2/20/2019.
Rashida Tlaib
The Muslim/Arab/Gaza vote for both Trump and AOC is her gift to Squad sister Rashida Tlaib, who in days to come will face the music for helping to defeat Kamala Harris in Michigan while failing to defeat Elissa Slotkin in her successful bid for the Senate. The Squad’s drag on the Dem’s national ticket was “real” and really illogical and self-defeating. Along the way the Squad lost two members in primaries, Jamal Bowman and Carrie Bush. The other seven Squad members will be returning to Congress, as six ran in safe D20+ districts and the seventh, Summer Lee, like Tlaib in Michigan, helped bring down Harris in Pennsylvania.
And for what? To elect Donald Trump, the author of multiple Muslim bans and appointer of Mike Huckabee, who denies the very existence of “Palestinians.” To elect a man who would sell any nation down the river (Muslim, Jewish, Christian or secular) including his own when it serves his own interests.
Mike Huckabee
A fundamental premise of this Press/AOC paroxysm is that AOC was foremost among a handful of Dems that did a lot better than Harris where both were on the ballot. Hardly. Harris won AOC’s district 65-33, while AOC won it by 68-30, and neither polled as well as Biden had in 2020. In districts like AOC’s, Republicans like Abe Lincoln would have had a hard time. In such districts pissed off voters can safely cast a protest vote for a Trump, a Cornel West or an RFK, Jr. Far more impressive and of “real” significance are Dems like Jacky Rosen in Nevada and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and of course Elissa Slotkin, who overcame the Trump/Tlaib ticket that helped deliver Michigan for the former President. Future success for the Democratic party is with people like these women not AOC and her Squad, who by the way all voted against Biden’s infrastructure legislation, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs for real working class Americans.
[1] Business Insider issued a correction admitting that the so-called Trump/AOC voters had not been verified as having actually voted.
As per usual, thanks for this Lloyd. I had thought that AOC was drifting toward the center as indicated by her strong support for Harris/Walz despite her serious reservations regarding Biden’s inaction on Gaza. I now see that she in effect reinforced Trump’s switcheroo as his campaign promulgated contradictory messaging to the Muslim and Jewish communities in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
I agree with you on Amazon’s contributions to the national economy despite its bad press. I hope Bezos retains ownership of the Washington Post to protect the journalistic integrity of its reportage if not the autonomy of its candidate endorsements. Bezos needs to keep himself in the running with Musk as they suck up to Trump to get those government contracts.