Category Archives: Politics

The next AOC?

This interview makes me nervous. It looks like elite liberals already have their hooks in Chris Smalls. He talks about about everything he’s done, and everything he’s doing. He talks about the “success” the organizing he’s done is having. He’s talking up letters he’s gotten from (worse than useless) senators like Bernie or Warren. He’s already done an interview with 60 Minutes.

I mean, what’s he supposed to do? He’s going to need money. But the liberals aren’t throwing money at him and buying him off that way. It doesn’t work like that. They’re flattering him and encouraging to see himself as an agent of change. He may end up in politics someday. But he’s young and can’t have any well-developed theory of social change.

He has no way to see how he’s being used. And plenty of reasons not to. He could end up being the next AOC. And if he realizes what’s happening (which my guess is he won’t), he’ll be unemployed and poor again.

Chris Smalls isn’t a bad guy, though he may ultimately become one. He’s a pawn in a game he doesn’t understand. The question is, how long will it take before Jimmy Dore understands it? My guess is a few years, or as soon as Smalls announces he’s running for Congress.

AOC is already running for president.

AOC is doing damage control. I expect a huge chunk of the left to fall for it.

In addition to what I’ve already said, remember, Jimmy Dore gave her her first big exposure to a national audience. She said she’d come back if she won. Instead, she refused to return his emails, and lauds the odious Pelosi as “Mama Bear.”

For years, H.R. 676 was the “gold standard” single-payer Medicare for All bill. Pelosi turned H.R. 676 into the “I love NATO” act, and AOC voted for it.

The oleaginous Hillary-sycophant Neera Tanden is now praising AOC as someone who exhibits “leadership.”

Everything about her screams Obama 2.0,1 except female and Latina. But so many people need something, or someone, to believe in, and they have gravitated to her.

Those who can not remember history… Or, fool me once…

AOC runs over left, backs up, runs over them again. Left still loves her.

Jimmy Dore has a new piece on AOC which is of course very good.  But her selling out could be seen far earlier.

Pelosi was re-elected speaker on January 3, 2019 — with AOC’s vote.  In that same month the Justice Democrats, who sponsored AOC’s successful primary challenge in New York’s 14th congressional district against incumbent Joe Crowley, published a video with AOC where says (at the 5:00 mark) the following:

If you’re a one-term Congress member, so what?  You can make ten years’ worth of change in one term if you’re not afraid.

But apparently AOC was afraid not to vote for Pelosi for speaker.  Had she voted no, that might have sent a message that she meant business.  But she never did.  At the time, virtually the entire left was unanimous in defending AOC, saying she had no choice but to vote yes — despite the fact that fifteen other Democrats managed not to vote yes on Pelosi.  And to this day, other than Dore, virtually the entire left still defends AOC. 

Anyone who’s a recovering alcoholic knows the first step is to admit you have a problem.  The left needs to start seeing the world the way it is — not the way they want it to be. 

China prohibits PPE exports, Trump considers suing.

Per the New York Post:

Leading US manufacturers of medical safety gear told the White House that China prohibited them from exporting their products from the country as the coronavirus pandemic mounted — even as Beijing was trying to “corner the world market” in personal protective equipment, The Post has learned.

The Chinese government should prohibit manufacturers from exporting medical safety gear out of China.  That’s the responsible thing to do. 

And if China is trying to “corner the market” for PPE, that just makes them smart.  It’s the kind of thing the United States would have done in the days before we became a banana republic.

Meanwhile, the Post also reports that

Now, the Trump administration is weighing legal action against China over its alleged actions, a lawyer for President Trump said Sunday.

This is ridiculous.  Trump doesn’t need to sue China.  He just needs to repatriate the manufacturing.  Problem solved.

You’re welcome.

No security for U.S. workers is likely to be forthcoming.

Saagar Enjeti said today 1 that, “People need certainty from their government that the check will come.” 

While Saagar does excellent work and I’m a big fan, he doesn’t understand that certainly is the last thing the ruling class ever wants its underlings to have.  Here’s Alan Greenspan explaining it:

For more than a year now, Mr. Greenspan has been gradually building his case that downsizing and job insecurity have altered the normal workings of the American economy, and yesterday he spelled out this view more pointedly and in more detail than before. Other factors have contributed to “the softness in compensation growth” despite a low unemployment rate, he said, but “I would be surprised if they were nearly as important as job insecurity.”

Greenspan is saying quite bluntly that insecure workers are easier to control and exploit.  The big people don’t ever want workers to be anything but insecure.

During World War II, while the Allies were willing to put women to work in the factories while the men went off to fight, Hitler refused to do likewise — this despite the fact that the shortage of workers was hampering the German war effort.  Hitler understood that once he took women out of the homes and put them into workplaces, it would be hard to get them out again — as the United States found out with the women’s movement of the 60s, due in no small part to women’s refusal to re-adhere to traditional norms after the experiences of the War.2 

Similarly, if the ruling class were to give workers any certainty during this crisis, workers would come to expect it.  Indeed, they would demand it once the crisis passes, because they would know it had been possible all along. 

This is the last thing the ruling class wants, and so they can be expected to resist this until the threat of open revolt is so great as to drown them all in terror.