Authored by José Niño via The Mises Institute,
After pulling off a major upset in the Democratic Primary for New York’s 14th congressional district, 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now being touted as the new face of the Democratic Party.
Ocasio’s victory has rejuvenated the Democratic Party and liberals naitionwide. For many on the Left, Ocasio’s recent victory is a breath of fresh air after putting up with Hilary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign in 2016.
Beyond the typical R vs. D analysis that continues to grab headlines, what is most troubling about Ocasio’s meteoric rise to political fame is her complete disregard for basic economics.
A brief look at her platform is enough to realize that the ideas of socialism are alive and well in American politics.
Her platform is centered on the following policy planks:
- Medicare for all
- Free public university
- Universal jobs guarantee
- Housing as a human right
The common denominator of all her proposals is the amount of faith placed in the State to conduct private affairs. Channeling the spirit of failed presidential candidate Bernie Sanders , Ocasio describes her program as democratic socialism .
White-Washing Socialism
Leftists have tried their best to re-brand and obfuscate socialism to make it palatable to the misinformed masses.
No matter how many times socialist experiments have failed—from the Soviet Union to present-day Venezuela—many naïve leftists continue their never-ending goose chase for a socialist experiment that works.
The casual mention of socialism in political discourse is troubling.
When countries like Venezuela are crumbling before our very eyes it is astounding that many elected officials continue to flirt with the idea of implementing socialism.
In the Left’s imagination, Scandinavia is the silver bullet to the capitalist model.
This tired trope ignores several crucial details about the Nordic countries’ prosperity:
1. They are among the freest economies in the world (which admittedly may not be saying much), according to various economic freedom indices. At worst, they are mixed economies.
2. As highlighted in works like Scandinavian Unexceptionalism, Nordic countries first became rich through capitalism well before the welfare state was established.
Facts notwithstanding, the political Left continues to doze off into economic lala land and relies on raw emotion to draw conclusions on political economy.
Democracy: The God that Failed?
Many naïve minds on the Left make the mistake of asserting that Ocasio’s democratic socialism is something novel and bringing about socialist policies by democratic means, instead of authoritarian takeovers as in the Soviet case, will somehow avoid the pitfalls of socialism. Frankly, such an assumption is wishful thinking.
Harebrained socialist policies such as price controls will have the same effect—shortages—regardless if they were approved by a voter referendum or implemented by dictatorial fiat.
Democracies are not magical political systems exempt from economic and political downturns.
In fact, democracies with very little institutional checks and balances can devolve into systems where property rights are put on the chopping block and mob rule becomes the order of the day.
As avid students of history know, some of the Founding Fathers were justified in their skepticism towardsdemocracy . The Athenian case of democracy, albeit limited by today’s standards, was a story of an innovative political system that eventually succumbed to tyranny after Athens engaged in numerous military adventures and grandiose spending programs—all which were approved by the rubber stamp of democracy.
For that reason, the Founders championed more of a republican model of governance with several democratic features, but ultimately buttressed with strong checks and balances and competitive federalism.
Just More of the Same
The 20th century has witnessed the Founding Father’s original vision wither away in favor of a managerial state that gets constant democratic seals of approval at all levels of government to justify overreach.
In fact, Ocasio’s rise to prominence is no hack of the system. It is the logical end result of multiple generations acclimating to expansive government expansion.
New York is a telltale example of this. A state that was once a paragon of American capitalism during the Gilded Age , New York has taken the path to massive government intervention in the last few decades.
High taxes, out-of- control spending, lavish union privileges, and strict zoning laws, have compelled countless New Yorkers to move to other states with more affordable housing markets and friendlier business climates.
The media brands Ocasio-Cortez as revolutionary, but her ideology is part of the same old tired Leftist agenda of state control but this time it comes with a prettier face.
Multiple decades of media and institutional desensitization has culminated in a scenario where socialism is discussed nonchalantly in public forums.
Ocasio will very likely go on to win her seat by a comfortable margin, but the real losers will be her constituents.
Socialism’s marketing may change, but its results always remain the same once implemented – economic collapse and misery.
Medicare for all, with plenty of shit and needles in the streets. That’s what they want.
Add millions of useless eaters who are allowed to immigrate and receive freebies with the growing wealth/income inequality and what do you expect? Seriously, what would you expect?
Btw, Venezuela is NOT crumbling before our very eyes. No sir, it is not. Do you see coverage of it on the TeeVee? No? Neither do your fellow Americans. NO, I am not saying they are not crumbling. In fact, I very much believe that it is happening. I ask, why and what hand does our government play in it?
I am not defending socialism. I am simply saying it is inevitable unless they take away Demonocracy. People cannot grow their own food…Every inch of the earth is owned or controlled and technology is winning which means Shit is going to be even more fucked up and bullshit going forward and forever until only the 10,000 Stucky asked about are left.
She also crapped on israel in an earlier speech but they’ll soon beat that out of her.
So they’re going to run on socialism, open borders, eliminating ice, raising taxes, perverts rights, white privilege and toxic masculinity? See why I’ve named them dummo’s?
Newbie senators who talk shit about Israel are picked up by Mossad agents and given a “rough ride” in the back of an unmarked van.
A horses head placed on their pillow also works.
If I were allowed to publicly ask Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a question, something which I would not be allowed, it would be a simple “What did the socialists in Venezuela do to their once prosperous country to ruin it when they took over, and what would you do differently to avoid it if you were in their place”?
It would be interesting to hear an avowed socialist either criticizing or supporting their fellow Venezuelan socialists in response (although the response would actually be the predictable leftist avoidance of a direct answer and a redirection of the focus to something else instead).
SUPERDOUCHE MILLENNIALS are gaining major political office and other assorted keys to the kingdom.
The end is near.
I’ve seen reports, one very good one by Lee Camp, that the Venezuela situation is nothing like what the MSM is telling us. The poor people’s lives have improved tremendously, and it’s of course the rich people who are making the claims that the country is collapsing under socialism.
And as far as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is concerned, many of her platform items are what a majority of people want, such as Medicare for all. What I’d like to see is a stop to socialism for the wealthy and corporations in this country!
Whenever I hear about what “the majority of people want”, I lock my gate, bar my doors, and grab my gun.
They want free shit or anything belonging to people who simply have more stuff than them.
what is not mentioned in the article is the identity politics that are involved–she is hispanic & the district has enough hispanics to get her elected–
the california democratic party just endorsed the runner up to dianne feinstein in the june primary for the general election in november because he is hispanic & the cali demo party is run by hispanics–
edit–she is already pissing off the party elders w/her bombast against them–
if i were a republican candidate anywhere in the country i would be running ads w/her,pelosi,waters,etc. looking over the demo candidates shoulder making sure he toed the party line–
The Democrats are working to make their Useless Breeder Demographics Triumphant over America. Affirmative Action Discrimination, Vote Fraud, Open Borders, and Main Stream Media Propaganda has given them political power but not the Common Sense of a pig; Socialist are always ultimately failures. The Communist failed in Spain in the 1930s and they will fail in the United States because America is not Venezuela, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Haiti, Congo, South Africa, etc, and never will be. FSA: run your loud mouths, beat your chests, sharpen your spears, beat your War Drums day and night; your Holocaust beckons.