What Does the “Far Left” Want? What Can’t It Do?
Chris Roberts, American Renaissance, May 2, 2022
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Credit Image: © Michael Brochstein / ZUMA Press Wire)
On Friday, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent off a series of tweets that proved popular:
“The extreme left is taking over” WHERE. In Texas, Republicans passed a law allowing rapists to sue their victims for getting an abortion.
Can anyone name a “far left” policy that extreme implemented anywhere? We can’t even get our party to import cheaper RXs from Canada. foh
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 29, 2022
Billionaires be like “the extreme far left is taking over” when the “extreme far left” in the US is “medicine shouldn’t bankrupt you,” “wages should cover rent,” & “maybe it’s bad that Wall St companies profit off mass surveillance, manufactured housing crises, and caging people”
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 29, 2022
Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and skews it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel took him to dinner and made him feel special
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 29, 2022
This is a common refrain on the Left: “If the (far) Left is so powerful, why isn’t America socialist?” The question ignores race. The reason America isn’t socialist, despite a very powerful Left, is because the Left cares more about race than economics. Miss Ocasio-Cortez asks people to name specific far-left policies, but the effects of leftism are often felt by an absence of policies. The reason crime, especially violent crime, is soaring in most cities, is because leftists have demonized law and order, and made police less willing to do their jobs, lest they become the next Darren Wilson. The reason the riots in 2020 lasted so long is because leftist district attorneys refused to prosecute rioters. The reason illegal immigrants pour into the country is because the Left believes any form of border security is unethical. These serious problems are caused, not by what the far-left does, but by what it prevents.
What the far-left lacks in political power, it makes up for in cultural power. It is because of the far-left that many schoolchildren are taught to think America is evil, racist, and irredeemable. The far-left made Marxist and anti-white arguments common on campus. The far-left’s influence explains why major newspapers don’t report brutal black-on-white crime. In the cultural atmosphere built by the far-left, people wail because a trans person couldn’t use his/her preferred bathroom, but show little sympathy for millions of impoverished, drug-addled whites in Appalachia. These things aren’t the consequence of leftist policies; they are the consequence of leftist power. Moreover, that power often makes policy solutions impossible.
Miss Ocasio-Cortez tweeted an “economic wish list” of sorts, parts of which are desirable. But the reason America doesn’t have those things is not because the Left doesn’t have power. Over the last 60 years, the Left has got what it wants many times: “civil rights,” mass non-white immigration, abortion rights, affirmative action, gay marriage, legal miscegenation, and legal protections for women, the disabled, homosexuals, non-whites, etc. The Left brought about these things and not economic goodies because the Left cares more about social and racial matters than economic ones.
A very revealing statement the New York Representative makes is, “We can’t even get our party to import cheaper RXs [prescriptions] from Canada.” Indeed. Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama all, at times, had Democrat majorities in both the Senate and the House. Even still, Americans can’t buy cheaper medicine from our northern neighbor. However, all three Presidents made sure anti-white discrimination stayed legal and mass immigration continued. Why? Presumably because they cared more about mass immigration and “affirmative action” than about helping Americans (of all races) buy cheaper prescriptions.
The economic Left Miss Ocasio-Cortez describes doesn’t really exist. Even Senator Bernie Sanders, who is more concerned about economics than most Democrats, once said, “When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or you get dragged out of a car.” I’m white and I’ve been poor and lived in ghettoes. And when you’re white in a ghetto, you’re often hassled when you walk down the street . . . by non-whites.
The popular leftist website, Huffington Post, has sections for five “communities:” Queer Voices, Asian Voices, Black Voices, Latino Voices, and Women. There are no Poor Voices, Union Voices, Middle-Class Voices, Working-Class Voices, or Minimum-Wage Voices. That’s a statement of priorities. The Huffington Post isn’t “far-left” on economics; it’s very far-left on race:
Miss Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet about Elon Musk and Twitter, is also revealing: “Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and skews it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel took him to dinner and made him feel special.” I agree that billionaires have too much power, but I cannot believe that a lessening of censorship on Twitter will lead to an “explosion of hate crimes.” Moreover, ownership of social media has almost no economic impact. Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter will not make the poor poorer or the rich richer. If Hillary Clinton buys Instagram, the poor would still be poor.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems to care more about being woke than helping the poor. She and her lefty pals are not going to pass “Medicare for All” or lower my rent. But they call for more censorship, more immigrants, fewer police, and more set-asides for nonwhites. Since that is what the far-left really cares about, that is what Americans get.
