Kevin Williamson on Everyone’s Two Favorite American Socialist Politicians
[guest post by JVW]
I guess I’m supposed to have the adjective “Democratic” somewhere in the headline, but I can never remember exactly where it goes.
As usual, Kevin Williamson neatly encapsulates the relationship between our adorable but clueless niece and Su Grande Abuelo Blanco. Writing about recent campaign appearances, Mr. Williamson notes the inherent paradox:
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is precisely the sort of campaign surrogate you want, especially if you are Bernie Sanders: She is young, energetic, charismatic, popular (with the people she needs to be popular with, anyway), and, happily, currently ineligible to run for the presidency herself.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is precisely the sort of campaign surrogate you don’t want, especially if you are Bernie Sanders: She is callow, flippant, vain, shallow, and prone to making policy pronouncements that are even battier than your own, and she forgets to mention you at all in the course of making appearances that are in theory on your behalf.
As an example of those “policy pronouncements that are even battier,” he offers the following:
Senator Sanders is a politically and intellectually unserious man — which is nothing new to American presidential politics, of course. But he has been a radical left-wing Froot Loop long enough to know that there are practical limits to public Froot-Loopery. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has not been around long enough to appreciate that fact. Which is why, among Democrats who believe that American law-enforcement agencies are Enemies of the People and that our immigration and border-patrol authorities should be liquidated in order to facilitate the uncontrolled flow of people across open borders, she actually says that American law-enforcement agencies are Enemies of the People and that our immigration and border-patrol authorities should be liquidated in order to facilitate the uncontrolled flow of people across open borders.
Senator Sanders knows better than to say that. He also knows better than to believe it. In the long-ago days of . . . 2016, Senator Sanders riled up the gentlemen in Iowa’s union halls giving frankly nationalist anti-immigration speeches that could have been delivered by Donald Trump. “Open borders,” he insisted, were a billionaires’ scheme, a “Koch brothers proposal” to flood the United States with cheap Latin American labor and thereby undermine the power of the workers and their efforts to “take power.” Somebody has given him the intersectionality talk since then, and he no longer sounds quite so much like Pat Buchanan when he talks about immigration.
There’s more, including the usual Williamsonisms that will get under the skin of the most stalwart fans of President Trump, so do be sure to read it all. She’s going to make an awesome Secretary of the Treasury (or will it be State?) in President Sanders’ second term.
– JVW
I know we previously had Comrade Candidate as AOC’s “Great White Father,” but given their respective ages (78 vs. 30) it just makes more sense to me to place them two generations apart.
JVW (54fd0b) — 2/18/2020 @ 2:18 pmI found it curious that Williamson quotes Goldberg as if he was the Gold Standard of intellectuals. Y’see nationalization and socialism sometimes mean the same thing! Wow – insightful.
Anyway, I guess it to Williamson credit that he won’t be writing a “The Conservative Case for Bernie Sanders” in 2020.”
rcocean (1a839e) — 2/18/2020 @ 2:38 pmDuh Donald also shares his industrial policy with abuelo loco.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 2/18/2020 @ 2:40 pmI found it curious that Williamson quotes Goldberg as if he was the Gold Standard of intellectuals.
Well hell’s bells, rcocean, Steve Bannon isn’t producing his usual output any longer, so just to whom should Kevin Williamson turn for intellectual heft?
JVW (54fd0b) — 2/18/2020 @ 2:42 pmSecretary of Re-Education.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 2/18/2020 @ 3:49 pm#4 I dunno, but it shouldn’t be Jonah Goldberg. Goldberg advocated the USA invade Africa and colonize it, because America needed a “Higher Purpose”. And he wanted us to get rid of Primaries in order to “re-invigorate” the two parties.
Williamson can do better.
rcocean (1a839e) — 2/18/2020 @ 3:59 pmGoldberg thinks and he reads. Little wonder you hate him so.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 2/18/2020 @ 4:33 pmThere’s more, including the usual Williamsonisms that will get under the skin of the most stalwart fans of President Trump,
Only two mentions of Donald Trump in the article are (a) the Sanders once gave a speech that immigration could be restricted, that could have been given by Trump and (b) he is unsure whether moderate Democrats will go for the AOC movement or for Trump.
Hard to see what Trump finds would find objectionable about either of those.
The first, however, is pretty devastating to Sanders even on his own terms. Makes his leftie bona fides, umm, flexible.
Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 2/18/2020 @ 4:36 pmJust saw this:
Sanders Campaign Manager Slams MSNBC, Says Fox News Is ‘More Fair’
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/bernie-sanders-campaign-manager-slams-msnbc-says-fox-news-more-fair/
Wow, the left is on the verge of civil war.
Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 2/18/2020 @ 5:00 pmFrom previous Trump thread:
“ I’m voting straight ticket Democrat and I hope to take out a few rat b*stards down ticket if possible. I’m mobilizing my husband and my kids to vote as a block.”
Mobilizing your entire family to vote as you say. This the kind of hive mind that Bernie and AOC can get behind.
Here’s hoping that one or more of the clan can think for themselves and considers the implications.
harkin (b64479) — 2/18/2020 @ 5:40 pm_
“ Wow, the left is on the verge of civil war.”
Warren is complaining too. Just about the entire elite media/Hollywood cabal supported her but to enough voters she’s ringing false.
Politics – trending: #warrenmediablackout
BT
harkin (b64479) — 2/18/2020 @ 5:45 pm@back_ttys
·
That’s what happens when the media carries you on their backs and you deliver a third-place finish followed by a fourth-place finish.
_
Until very recently, a tribe of killer monkeys lived undetected in New York City’s sewers. To some extent it was not surprising that they had escaped notice for so long. They had extremely odd sleeping habits, hibernating for 364 days out of every year (365 in Leap Years) and emerging from their caverns in the sewers only on Christmas Day. Even so, one might have thought they could hardly help but cause talk, since they were ferocious, carnivorous, and extremely hungry, except that they only came out in Greenwich Village. You see, Yule Gibbons ate only fruits and nuts.
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2020 @ 6:27 pm@9. And the Right has been battling itself for three-plus years.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 2/18/2020 @ 6:31 pmHard to see what Trump finds would find objectionable about either of those.
Yeah, you’re right. I must have read something into the Williamson piece that wasn’t really there, unless it underwent a stealthy post-publication edit, which I doubt is the case. Thanks for setting me straight.
JVW (54fd0b) — 2/18/2020 @ 6:41 pmSanders Campaign Manager Slams MSNBC, Says Fox News Is ‘More Fair’
I’m going to spend exactly zero time feeling sorry for members of a party that actively tries to freeze Fox News out of coverage of their primary. It’s akin to Sanders joining the Democrats just to make his Presidential run then acting surprised when the DNC does everything in its power to place obstacles in front of him.
JVW (54fd0b) — 2/18/2020 @ 6:46 pmSky News
@SkyNews
Homophobic, sexist and racist patients could be barred from non-emergency care at NHS trusts, under new rules from April
__ _
CJ
@CjWilts
·
Very difficult policy to police. This will be based on what, perception? I think that there will be plenty of court action over this, does the NHS have the money to waste. Old people sometimes use wrong or un-P.C. terminology, will they be barred?
__ _
Marc Evan Aupiais 🇮🇪&🇿🇦
@SACNSNew
·
Probably the goal. The elderly are most in need of care and use it most. This will allow them to be denied the treatment they have been taxed for their entire lives, so as to further ration care.
__ _
Mindy Robinson 🇺🇸
@iheartmindy
·
Considering the Left thinks everyone right of center is a “Nazi” I’m guessing their plan is to just let everyone that disagrees with them to die.
__ _
Guy Faux
@Faux_Guy_
·
“Before we can admit you to the trauma unit we need to check your Twitter feed.”
__ _
RangerSyl
harkin (b64479) — 2/18/2020 @ 8:57 pm@RangerSyl
·
State provided healthcare only for those whose thoughts are approved by the state. What a great idea.
_
Well! That’s the last straw! I’m crossing off NHS as my health care provider right now!
nk (1d9030) — 2/18/2020 @ 9:15 pm@16 Harkin, did you bother to read the actual change or just get outraged at the hot takes?
The details boil down to not having to treat someone for non-emergency care if they’re calling you racist/sexist/homophobic slurs.
You tell me, do you think i nurse should have to take the blood pressure of someone that’s calling them a slur?
Time123 (66d88c) — 2/19/2020 @ 4:38 amGrievance tourism when we run out of home-grown chimeras.
nk (1d9030) — 2/19/2020 @ 5:28 amhttps://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/michael-bloomberg-bernie-sanders-battle-could-determine-the-democrats-future/
Good piece by Goldberg about how Bloomers and Bernie would take the Deemocrats in two very different directions if they are nominated.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 2/19/2020 @ 7:34 am“ The details boil down to not having to treat someone for non-emergency care if they’re calling you racist/sexist/homophobic slurs.
You tell me, do you think i nurse should have to take the blood pressure of someone that’s calling them a slur?”
Considering they are prosecuting people in the UK over tweets they call phobic, while allowing ethnic gangs to run rape squads for decades, I don’t want those same idiots deciding who gets medical care and who doesn’t.
harkin (b64479) — 2/19/2020 @ 8:37 amI don’t want those same idiots deciding who gets medical care and who doesn’t.
Then you’ve come to the right place. America broke away from Great Britain in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
nk (1d9030) — 2/19/2020 @ 10:06 am“ Then you’ve come to the right place. America broke away from Great Britain in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Pari”
Good thing nobody here is advocating govt. takeover of health care.
harkin (b64479) — 2/19/2020 @ 11:37 amBlack guy wearing pro-2A shirt attacked by white guy at Sanders rally.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mrctv/status/1229952743973904384
2020 gonna be off the hook.
harkin (b64479) — 2/19/2020 @ 11:39 am_
AOC will be democrat nominee for president in 2024 and thanks to demographics most likely president. In predominately latinx schools, school rooms have picture of AOC on wall not trump. Every month 200,000 more minorities turn voting age. Here in az 100 mexican kids turn 18 every day add dreamers and its 140 a day. Civics classes are getting the 17/18 year old latinxs to register to vote as part of civic classes. Look what happened to arizona in 2018 election.
asset (bba081) — 2/19/2020 @ 1:12 pm