We shouldn’t play along with her.
The game is, if you’re a Left Wing politician and you’re really bad at your job, and the news cycle is turning against you (as things certainly are in America’s murder capital Chicago), distract your enemies and energize your base by saying something radical and maybe even a little crazy that has nothing to do with policy. And then the Media will engage in its favorite game… a game called “Republicans pounce.” And forever after, the story will be that Republicans pounced on something you said, rather than all the myriad ways you suck at your job.
AOC is a master of this viciously cynical technique… which is good because by all accounts, she isn’t very good at her actual job. And she does have a job, y’know… that job is to propose legislation, negotiate admendments to legislation (either her own or that proposed by others), and to vote on legislation as it comes to the floor of the House.
But she’s not interested in any of that. Like too many people of her generation, that sounds too much like hard work. There’s a reason so many people her age want to be YouTubers or Social Media influencers… it’s easy. Most of the time you don’t even have to get out of bed, or even put on pants. All you need is the ability to act like a complete asshole without feeling any shame about it.
And AOC is master.
Her ability to command a news cycle just by Tweeting is almost unparalleled. And that’s why her party loves her. She doesn’t waste her time toiling in relative obscurity drafting and twisting arms to pass critical legislation… that crap’s for suckers. She just goes out and says controversial things on Twitter and Presto Slammo!!! Three days of saturation media coverage of her Tweet, during which no one is taking the time to point out how bad she is at her job, or how little she seems to know about History, Economics, Government or anything, really (If AOC told me the sun was going to rise in the monring, I’d ask for a second opinion). And while we’re all screaming about how dumb she is, the rest of her Party (Pelosi et al) are sneaking around in the shadows, doing all manner of terrible things in their ongoing effort to fundamentally transform the Nation.
But why? What’s the prize? what’s in it for AOC and Lightfoot and others like them? What makes them want to play this game?
Again… they do it because it’s easy. Certainly it’s easier than the alternative… which is to govern well and then run for re-election on a record of success. See, when politicans like AOC or Lori Lightfoot run for office, they know they’re not running against Republicans, not really. Republicans in Chicago, and in districts like AOC’s in New York, are as common as Abortions clinics in the Vatican. The next time Lori mounts a campaign, any threat to her job security is likely to arise from her Left flank, and so she has to prove that she can rile up her Leftist base. The Right will lose their minds trying to “expose” the evidence of Lightfoot’s newly-discovered “racism” and her Leftist base will dutifully rally to her defense, becoming loyal supplicants in the process and guaranteeing her another term or higher office if she wants it, as their shrieking voices drown out all her would-be challengers.
(this is true of GOP politicians as well, of course, but the difference is they don’t have the Palace Guard Press and Big Democrat Tech running interference for them)
This is the game Lori Lightfoot was begging us to play when she “announced” that she would no longer allow white reporters to interview her. It’s a little pathetic, really. She’s got nothing like AOC’s talent for this game, but in this hyperpartisan media environment in which we live, it doesn’t take much. The dogs in the fighting circle are starving and even a tiny piece of gristle can quickly set them to tearing each other apart.
And that’s the real tragedy of all this. Lori (or AOC for that matter) can’t play this game without those of us on the Right. Without us, the hero has no foil and the game cannot be played. And too often we are only too happy to oblige. I knew the second I heard the Mayor’s ridiculous proclamation that it would lead every single broadcast on Los Angeles’ three Conservative talk radio stations and, of course, Hannity and Glenn and Gorka and Sexton and Prager and Elder did not disappoint me. They were on it like white on rice, like leather on rock stars, playing their well-rehearsed parts in this farce with gusto.
It’s a win-win for everyone involved really… well except for you and me. Hannity and Company get a nice fat ratings boost and Mayor Lightfoot gets to tell her Base the exciting story about how she battled the Right Wing Trolls under the bridge and emerged victorious.
And in the meantime another news cycle passes into history, and still the residents of Chicago can tell the time by counting the seconds between bodies as they float down the Chicago River. But at least Lori Lightfoot’s racism is being “exposed” by the courageous heroes of Conservative talk radio, amirite?
WORTH NOTING: I wanted to include a link in this essay to one of the articles that showed how bad AOC is at doing her actual job. I knew I’d read the story multiple times, but couldn’t find any links on Google. Switched to BING.com and got a dozen links on my very first search. AOC’s inability to do her job is, apprently, just one more story that’s damaging to Democrats that Google has decided to censor. Adjust your default search engine accordingly.