Dumb Is As Dumb Does - Ignorance As A Virtue In The True Belief Of Social Reform

'AOC (Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez)' is the reason why directions are put on shampoo bottles', said Louisiana Senator describing the young Congresswoman from New York, a woman without an original thought in her head, a quacking political poseur with ambitions of influence but with the intellectual power of a dim lightbulb. 

 

However, this empty-headedness has never been a drawback for her. Her constituents, nearly seventy percent Latino and black, did not vote her into office because of any particular intellectual acuity or political insight but because she is Puerto Rican.  When asked why he voted for her, Jose Miranda looked dumbfounded and perplexed.  He had no clue, no idea whatsoever, and in stumbling, broken English said, 'She good for La Raza'. 

AOC knew that she needn't worry about policy, political philosophy, economics, or finance. It was enough that she promised her constituency bread and circus, free housing, full employment, and money in the bank. Not one of her followers, more familiar with arroz con pollo than interest rates, needed to know anything more than the woman's grab bag of goodies. 

'Long live La Raza', she shouted to a welcoming crowd, and banged on about the valorous Puerto Rican heroes of the past, the indigenous brilliance of the island's people and how they deserved everything that their white neighbors across the river in Manhattan had.  'Somos un pueblo', she said, waving her arm over the Bronx slum she represented and then pointed to the spires of Manhattan across the way, 'and you shall have what everyone has'. 

It was a stock speech, hammering the injustice, the indifference, the callousness of white, capitalist America and promising justice, wealth, and unimaginable prosperity, and the crowd loved it, cheering and hugging each other as if it were a San Juan wedding.  Not one item of any substance, not a single reference to legislative likelihood, not an iota of real possibility; but her constituents, aware of little more than burritos, construction work and restaurant kitchens, roared at the wonders that would come their way. 

To be fair, this profound level of ignorance in both the politician and the governed is not new or unusual.  Alexander Hamilton understood this perfectly when he argued for a legislative body made up of highly educated, successful men to act as a buffer between federal authority and the mob.  Hamilton never trusted majority rule, and in his Federalist papers spelled out his concern over Jefferson's populism.  If given any leeway, the majority would always act in the most venal ignorance and the new republic would end up a chaotic mess of rabid, foolish policies serving no one, let alone the interests of the new, emerging nation. 

 

Shakespeare was equally eloquent about the ignorance of the common people, caricaturing it in Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Henry VI among other works.  Politicians who need to start running again the moment they assume office, rely on nostrums, empty promises, and airy idealism to get re-elected. 

This political emptiness has become the ethos, the working title of the American progressive movement. A neo-Socialist, reformist, ultra-populist affair has based its appeal on race, gender, and ethnicity and the cult of 'identity'.  America is a racist, misogynist, elitist, white privileged country which needs to be dismantled and rebuilt by people of color into the New Jerusalem.  

The central premise of the movement is opposition - in such a malign, oppressive country, only revolution matters.  What comes after the expulsion of the white race, the dismantling of Wall Street, the decommissioning of the police, and the opening wide of the doors to the Treasury is moot.  There is an anointed, sanctified character to progressivism, and its truth will be known.

For the four years of the Biden presidency, this canon was the policy of the land.  Nothing of substance, no understanding of the complexities of economics and finance, not a scintilla of appreciation of logical premise, of cause and effect, of risk and reward.  It was a cornucopia of promises, giveaways, feelgood notions of diversity and inclusivity, nothing more. 

This, of course, is the way forward in an electorate which swallows this bunk whole.  Why complicate matters with exegesis or explanation? And the Democratic Party was very good at peddling snake oil. 

Now, the American voter, as simple, credulous, and gullible as he is, has limits; and when progressives went off the rails with promises of a new transgender world, a radical reconfiguration of sexuality and a new version of sexual reality, voters revolted.  The bullshit of the Left was one thing, but the patronizing assumption of righteousness galled, and the whole lot was turned out of office. 

Americans with any sense knew the end was coming when progressives went baroque - child sexual transformations, cross-dressing transgenders reading to kindergarteners, the hysterical lionization of the black man, the defunding of the police, the snide dismissal of religion - and millions turned to Donald Trump as a return to reality. 

 

His conservative message was simple - a talent-based society of equal opportunity, a limited government, a liberated private sector, a muscular foreign policy, energy independence, limited, controlled immigration, and a return to faith and moral centrality. 

However, the routing of the Democratic Party and the likes of AOC and her Congressional claques did nothing to shut them up.  In fact the howling became louder, and the anti-Trump screeching from this little brown ankle-biter from the Bronx was insufferable.  Strange as it may seem, she considered herself the leader of the pack, the one who would lead them back to power; but the more she ranted and howled, the more ridiculous she seemed, a bitchy little harridan who simply wouldn't go away. 

The more Trump succeeded in every aspect of domestic and foreign affairs - the closing of the borders, the destruction of Iran's nuclear capacity, the wooing of foreign investment, the significant moves towards energy independence, and the excision of any and all woke programs - the more AOC and her shills wailed and vibrated with self-righteous anger.  But the more wild and wooly they became, the more Americans turned against her and the whole progressive charade.  Game over, go away. 

'Back to rice and beans', her constituents lamented. No chardonnay, foie gras, and summers on the Vineyard. 

 

It took time for them to realize that the free ride was over and they had to man up to get up; but survival is a human trait, and soon enough the new zeitgeist filtered down to the barrio, and AOC was seen as nothing more than a political poseur.  Her constituents weren't proud of their Puerto Rican heritage.  They fled the island for Christ's sake, and wondered why all the flapdoodle about ethnic identity.  They were simply Americans who wanted a piece of the pie and this identity nonsense was an obstruction not a facilitation. 

However, for the time being AOC is all they've got, so let history play itself out. Maybe Donald Trump isn't as bad as she says.