Shortly after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old democratic socialist, pulled off a surprise left-flank victory over incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley in a New York congressional primary last week, pictures of her childhood home began appearing on social media. The grainy image of the small blue cottage was evidently swiped from Google Street View and uploaded to Twitter by conservative television host John Cardillo. The tidy little home, Cardillo tweeted, was in fact “the Yorktown Heights (very nice area) home @Ocasio2018 grew up in before going off to Ivy League Brown University,” he clarified: “A far cry from the Bronx hood upbringing she’s selling.” Got her, in other words: a champagne socialist, after all.
Cardillo was wrong. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx, though her family moved to Yorktown Heights years later in an effort to place her in better public schools. And she went to Boston University, not Brown University, and not Ivy League. But the failure of one set of accusations along these lines usually just leads to another, and it forms an ugly paradox that applies only to the left: If you care about material equality and you aren’t destitute, you’re a hypocrite; if you care about material equality and you are destitute, you’re never going to have a real shot at political engagement to begin with.
As more left-flank challengers face off with center-left incumbents and more democratic socialists begin looking toward public office, beware: You will all be called champagne socialists or yacht communists, the ritzier and more radical counterparts of limousine liberals. It doesn’t matter how comparatively humble your background is, or how relatively modest your means in the context of the political class at-large — it’ll always be news if Bernie Sanders wears a $700 coat or buys a house by a lake, because his political position on inequality is so obviously moral that the only way to impeach it is to make him seem dishonest about it. The same goes, and will continue to go, for every other candidate who attempts to advance material equality. This stance is hard to supply a persuasive democratic alternative to, so critics instead claim that its standard-bearers don’t really mean it.
Even when one’s status or story is presented unfairly, the argument usually isn’t worth having. One might as well not give them an opening, or another thing to mock: It’s not going to be enough anyway, so underexposure — a decisive turn away from the bare-it-all, narrative-based style of self-presentation typical of the left — is understandable. And why should it matter? Lives are infinitely complicated and nuanced, and if yours brought you to a good political agenda you’re ready to work hard for, then that’s good enough.
Owen Davis
So there’s dishonesty and there’s bad faith and there are things better left unsaid — and underneath all of that is the neglected fact that there really aren’t many poor people in politics, not simply because politics is a good way to get filthy rich in the most emphatically filthy way but also because it’s a hard racket to break into if you’re not a little canny in the ways of the well-to-do. Only about 2 percent of members of Congress come from working-class professions, a fair index of class background, and only about 3 percent of state-level legislators come from the same.
White-collar upbringings impart by osmosis what it takes to get along in politics, and not just monetarily. Consider the case of Robert Gray, a long-haul trucker who, in 2015, won Mississippi’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. Gray barely had time to give any interviews after his surprising win; he had sweet potatoes to transport to a potato chip plant in Pennsylvania. And when he did speak to the media, he didn’t talk like a politician, or even a politician-who-doesn’t-sound-like-a-politician. As a semi-pitying New York Times article noted at the time: “Mr. Gray acknowledged that he had a lot to learn about glad-handing. He spends most of his time behind a wheel, he said. Truckers do not make great communicators.” Gray sounded like a working-class person because that’s what he was; it’s only the white-collar world, collegiate life and its professional aftermath that prepare one for the kind of slick self-promotion and brand packaging that translate into skill with donors and voters.
Josiah Ward
This isn’t inherent. Anyone can learn it — you just have to be given the opportunity, and only the relatively well-to-do generally are. But use that opportunity to advance politics that would more widely distribute the means to self-advocate, and recriminations are sure to follow. This is class conflict, plain and simple.
Conservatives will continue to skewer as hypocritical anyone who takes exception to the unfair, anti-egalitarian system outlined above by fighting for equality even if they come from inequality’s better side. They will do this to the detriment of everyone on its worse side, and for that reason should be ignored.
Didn't Obama tell some uni grads to "ignore" anyone questioning the liberal establishment?
What's with liberals refusal to tackle head-on real world problems and statistical data with makes clear what the problems are?
How do you tell your fellow liberals to IGNORE THEM, as if this will solve anything?
Aaron Rodriguez
>i believe in magical endless amounts of money >everyone should have everything >the poor shouldnt exist >no one has to try anymore >robots will do all the work for us!
the absolute state of lefties
Robert Torres
>it’ll always be news if Bernie Sanders wears a $700 coat or buys a house by a lake, he has something like 3 cottages by lakes, about 3 million each
and fuck, whats more communist then a rich master class ruling over a poor starving peasant class with no middle class to be seen? thats pure commie, thats hardcore and legit.
Robert Adams
tl;dr
Carson Miller
She is going to get everyone fair wage jobs letting in a bunch of low wage immigrants into the US and outsource manufacturing to China? That exact system has created the greatest income/wealth inequality in history. Time to admit Trumpism is eroding income inequality.
just look into her eyes, how fucking retarded would you have to be to vote for someone with wild frantic pure insanity and meleveolence beaming out of her fucking eyes.
Elijah Allen
Any time you encounter that kind of blatant and obvious corruption, the cognitive dissonant liberal commie will immediately say "dats not reel gommunism tho!".
You can't win with them because they are literally mentally retarded. You want to know who the INTELLIGENT liberal commies are? They are extremely few, and guess what? They're the ones that are benefiting from the corruption, like Sanders.
>her family moved to Yorktown Heights years later >years later Like when she was 5. Not like when she was 15.
Anthony Miller
seriously though, does the entire left have some form of collective hivemind asspergeres not to see this?
ive never seen crazier eyes. the evilest most insane people in human history, the most brutal and depraved, all have crazy eyes. people without autism will know exactly what im talking about. its in the eyes. and shes got the craziest fucking eyes i have ever seen on any human being.
a woman with eyes like that has eaten some babies i can tell you that much with confidence
baby eater for real look into those fucking eyes and tell me in all honesty you would feel safe going out for the night with this woman at home babysitting your children.
its the babysitter test. imagine you have kids. and now look into a politicians eyes and ask yourself if youd feel comfortable with that person watching your kids. if the answer is no, then dont vote for that person.
Lincoln Brooks
>her family moved to Yorktown Heights years later in an effort to place her in better public schools so she's a racist as well. sad!
Jaxon Diaz
crrraaaaaaazzzy over the raaaainbow she is ccrrrraaaazzzy bars in the window
pink floyd lyrics that came to mind looking at this
Gabriel Young
So, One guy nobody cares about shows us that this manipulable beaner patsy was more priviledged than she tries to show. And you come to Jow Forums posting a diatribe on feelings, ignoring the facts.
Tell me why OP, tell me why I should support the same flavor of politics being brought over from failed countries nobody wants to live in?
Landon Martinez
wow it sounds like it must be really frustrating having your position and experiences dismissed because you're seriously privileged I really couldn't begin to imagine how hard that must be for the left >just ignore it now there's a strategy I'll take notes from
Christopher Jones
Are there any baby-eaters in the theater tonight? Get 'em up against the wall!
Jonathan Reed
>seriously *spuriously fuckin autocorrect never toiletpost lads
Christian Thompson
Joe Crowley was a literal open borders fag (F- from NumbersUSA) so this is poetic justice.
Easton James
>The grainy image of the small blue cottage was evidently swiped from Google Street View
that's insane that they have the power to do that. if you still don't believe in a deep state, you're a moron.
Juan Rogers
I don't care about her eyes.
What matters is her platform. She wants to abolish immigration and customs enforcement, grant instant US citizenship to anyone who bothers to show up in the United States, then grant every United States citizen free health insurance, free university education, free housing and guaranteed employment.
That last one's a real monster, by the way. The progressive "thinkers" are making the rounds with a program that cost approximately $2 trillion per year to pay anybody $15 an hour + benefits to do essentially nothing, with the theory that it will force the likes of Walmart and McDonald's to raise wages because otherwise everybody will just quit and go to the free government job.
>The progressive "thinkers" are making the rounds with a program that cost approximately $2 trillion per year to pay anybody $15 an hour + benefits to do essentially nothing, with the theory that it will force the likes of Walmart and McDonald's to raise wages because otherwise everybody will just quit and go to the free government job. Why are they always so deranged? It's like they start out with 2 or 3 things that sound reasonable and then plop out this kind of utter nonsense.
I'm all for a WPA-style infrastructure blitz, but that's just retarded thinking with a pointless objective.
Julian Carter
Putting contradictory things in the same sentence is suspicious, true believers don't manage that, I'm going with kikeling until proven otherwise.
Jackson Cook
You're out of luck.
Elizabeth Bruenig is a proud shabbos goy, she's even been Tablet Magazine's dedicated "non-Jewish guest"
>guaranteed employment reminds me of hillars plan to create mandatory unpaid work camps for millenials. she announced that plan and the crowd cheered. like she straight up says shes going to throw millenials in unpaid work camps and the crowd cheers. fucking mental
but yeah, the policies and the crazy eyes go hand in hand. you cant have those policies without those eyes basically
Jaxson Gomez
Yea, no one wants to live in Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Iceland, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Ireland? Cause of course, there's no nations, which have ever practised a form of democratic socialism and seen success!
Wyatt Reed
social democracy isn’t socialism.
Nicholas Howard
Commies will always promise a gibtopia. Ignore them.
Kayden Flores
which is what she's practising
Camden Reed
>accidentally makes a post arguing in favor of genetic superiority The real question is how is social democracy faring in, say, the minority-majority neighborhoods of the UK, France and Sweden right now?
Luis Williams
Sick deflection.
Kayden King
All Marxists belong in a landfill.
Evan Taylor
Second, correlation = causation.
Jayden Robinson
How does social democracy work out in vibrant and diverse nations such as Brazil, Mexico and South Africa?
Gabriel Garcia
>guaranteed employment. I flipped the fuck out when I saw that part of her platform. I mean what does that even mean? How do you "guarantee" employment? Where the fuck do these people think employment comes from? That's a rhetorical question, I know they're retarded.
Why don't you guarantee steak and blowjobs, or no more rainy days when you had planned to go to the beach by legislative fiat while you're at it too you dumb communist cunt.
Julian Murphy
Blatant promotion of voting along tribal and racial lines. Stoked whites are waking up and doing this more.
>How do you "guarantee" employment? >Where the fuck do these people think employment comes from? I mentioned that in a previous post, a new federal program that would cost an estimated $2 trillion per year. Although Sanders himself describes it as "increasing the government's involvement in the American economy to a level not seen since World War II"
How does capitalism work out in such racially homogeneous nations like Belarus, Russia and Serbia?
Eli Price
What kind of asinine non-sequitor is that? I'm asking you for success stories of multicultural countries implementing social democracy and you're not providing them.
Jace Cox
>russia >racially homogeneous Top Wew
Brayden Gray
>Guarantee every American a job >Niggers still show up late or not at all
Elijah White
If I run down the list of nations again, you'll just say "no that doesn't count because minorities have a slightly worst quality of life XD" and disregard all other social factors, which may have caused it within their respective nations. I'm not advocating for social democracy in Brazil, nor South Africa, nor whatever third world nation you'd wish to cherry pick.
Isaac Campbell
They're going hire people to dig holes and hire other people to fill them in.
Adrian Brown
> ethnic Russians make up 81% of the total population. Russia doesn't have minorities because they killed them all :(
Juan Martinez
Like I said, rhetorical question.
>pay anybody $15 an hour + benefits to do essentially nothing, with the theory that it will force the likes of Walmart and McDonald's to raise wages because otherwise everybody will just quit and go to the free government job. Or they could just spend the same amount of money to send a personalized singing telegram to every every small business in America telling them to go fuck themselves.
I bet it would be equally as effective economically, if not less actively harmful to the economy.
Xavier Reyes
And i forgot the best of all >Your paycheck gets cut to pay for Tyrone's hours he didn't work, "cuh he deserf hiz check too!"
Cooper Ramirez
>I'm not advocating for social democracy in Brazil, nor South Africa, nor whatever third world nation you'd wish to cherry pick. So why are you advocating for your poison here you communist rat?
Christopher Rodriguez
HAHA TL;DR
Julian Price
>If I run down the list of nations again, you'll just say "no that doesn't count because minorities have a slightly worst quality of life XD" and disregard all other social factors My argument is actually that social democracy ceases to function when shitskins realize they can just vote themselves money from productive people, and you do not provide a counterargument because there isn't one.
David Mitchell
As long as we get to put these retarded socialists into the holes before they get filled up.
Connor Lopez
Because it's literally what functioning nations do, socialize some things and let the market do other things. Really that simple.
James Green
This "lady" is the best ad for the Republicans :DDD
>"anti-establishment and radical" >both establishment media and the dnc loves her
really makes you think
Matthew Robinson
>even more lefty politician beats out lefty politician >in white minority district >not even actual election yet >making the rounds on late night shows >record low turnout for primary voters >look out drumpfies >fake as fuck accent whenever she gets a chance to say Puerto Rico >grew up on the mean streets of fucking Westchester >lmao its not an estate stoopid drumpfies >sure as fuck aint section 8 housing >unironically free shit lmao >added fuck borders and shit >eating Barney Sandals alive for being too right wing Nobody cares about some pandering hispanic politician winning an election by promising hispanics free shit. The bigger story here is that a fucking socialist from Westchester is destroying the democratic party and the obvious jew media is trying their damndest to make this into some "grass roots" bullshit like they do with every new blood lefty. Hopefully you found all the answers you needed in this post so we can stop having these shill threads every fucking hour.
Parker Gomez
Your asking me to prove your own argument for you, I've listed many nations with minority populations, which have of course seen success with it. You can't just cherry-pick third world nations and point to it and say "SEE THIS IS WHY IT DOESN'T WORK!"
Jeremiah Powell
>I don't understand reason, math, logic or economics.
We know. Now go bad to leddit, where all your fellow dumb dumbs can circle jerk you into thinking your point isn't paradoxical.
William Powell
Are we even speaking the same language? What the fuck is wrong with you? They're third world nations because of their "minority majority" populations. The previously successful countries with increasing minority populations are increasing in dysfunction RIGHT NOW. Diversity and socialism do not mix because the shitskins do not see you as their countrymen and their brothers, they see you as their ATM machine.
Parker Collins
Your asshole is that fucking simple. What "functioning nations" exactly? The whole world is on the brink of fucking collapse thanks to idiotic social Democrat policies. Literally the only thing your kind have done is sold off our prosperity so that parasites can breed unchecked.
Nathan Davis
bullshit, shes advocating far out extemist authoritarian communist policies. calling a shovel a rake, its still shovel. she can call herself whatever she wants. her policies speak louder then her phoney fake moderate label. shes an extremist and she wants the government to micromanage every aspect of human life because shes also a control freak with scary evil fucking eyes
John Walker
>Arguing with the eternal leaf
Jace Cruz
Can anyone say VENEZUELA?
Jose Taylor
>If you care about material equality and you aren’t destitute, you’re a hypocrite
It always has amazed me how rich Democrats grow in their long, long, careers of dedicated public service.
Real head scratcher.
Jason Hughes
its almost like theyre full of shit just telling people what they wanrt to hear and then profiting off of it. but nooo that cant be true, politicians are honest, everyone says so.
