Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old representing the Bronx, is the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress. Also known as AOC, she’s been in office for about three seconds, and already she’s a “star.”
Based on what? She has no experience doing anything, except bartending and putting her foot in her mouth.
This socialist newbie wants to raise the top income-tax rate to 70 percent; that’s what she told Anderson Cooper during a recent broadcast of “60 Minutes.” Accordingly, Maxine Waters, Democratic Trump-hater and Louis Farrakhan-hugger from California, rewarded AOC with a seat on the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which oversees banks and Wall Street.
AOC doesn’t even understand basic civics or geography or history or economics, as her repeated gaffes signify. In fact, when Anderson Cooper confronted her about this, she responded thusly:
“If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees. I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”
Yeah, facts are for silly, judgmental people.
Promoting someone who has not proven herself, someone who hasn’t earned it, is unfair to everyone, including AOC, and especially the American people.
She will fail miserably. Her ascension is inflated and artificial, but not unprecedented.
Days after becoming president in 2009, Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. Most thinking people wondered why. After all, Obama hadn’t earned it, and he went on to initiate and/or inflate conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The ex-secretary of the Nobel committee that awarded Obama the prize, Geir Lundestad, expressed regret in his memoir, “Secretary of Peace”:
“No Nobel Peace Prize ever elicited more attention than the 2009 prize to Barack Obama. Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake. In that sense, the committee didn’t achieve what it had hoped for.”
Duh! President Obama hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve the prize. His leading-from-behind foreign policy was a disaster, and America lost clout around the world because of it. Like AOC’s artificial, inflated ascension, the basis of awarding that prize was emotional and political — not merit, not results.
This lack-of-accountability phenomenon now pervades our culture at all levels.
On a recent trip to my local library, I saw a worrisome notice on its website: no more fines for late books. An accompanying video justified the change in policy, around universally since the advent of libraries: Parents just can’t keep track of all the books their kids borrow; many of these books come back late, and parents often can’t afford the fines. So, we’re canceling the fines!
That was a pivotal moment for me.
As I left the library, I stopped to express my dismay to the librarian: “I just read about your new no-fines policy. How will children learn responsibility and accountability if they’re not penalized for late returns?” I asked. Stonefaced and shocked at my apparent impertinence, he replied in a very soft voice, “We don’t want children to fear checking out books.” I continued: “So, kids can return books one month late, one year late, without penalty?” He nodded in the affirmative. Adding to my incredulity: “This is nuts. They should fear penalties. Penalties and fear make people observe rules. That’s why I never returned a book late.” His rejoinder: “That’s what my father says, too.”
As I exited the library, I shook my head and, believe it or not, though about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her artificial, inflated rise to power.
My trip to the library reinforced the roots and depth of our entitlement culture. AOC is the latest high-profile representative of it. And, the progressive media can’t get enough of her. But her newly found fame is a house of cards: based on nothing but her audacious rhetoric and vulnerable to quick collapse.
Children are watching AOC — and getting the impression that life is easy, requiring no hard work, no dues-paying, no sacrifice, no disappointments, and no pain. Well, to be fair, they’re also learning this at the library.
Now, imagine being a CEO who has to recruit, train, manage, promote, retain, and sell to a whole generation of AOCs. It’s the new reality.
Marc Rudov is a branding advisor to CEOs, speaker, media commentator, and author of "Brand Is Destiny: The Ultimate Bottom Line" and "Be Unique or Be Ignored: The CEO’s Guide to Branding." Find him at MarcRudov.com. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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