When a member of Congress uses a foreign stage to lecture an American Cabinet official on our own history, the least we should expect is that she has the basics right. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not clear that bar.
In taking a swing at Secretary of State Marco Rubio over his comments on the Spanish roots of the American West, Ocasio-Cortez handed conservatives a clear example of what happens when ideology outruns knowledge. Rubio’s point in Munich was straightforward. He noted that much of what we romanticize as cowboy culture, horses, ranching, and even rodeos came from Spain and the Spanish colonial world in the early 1500s, long before there was a United States. That is not a controversial talking point. It is basic history.
AOC claims American Cowboy Culture was spawned in Africa and Mexico even though Mexico had no horses until the Spanish arrived and. Africa . . .well . . https://t.co/yZBAUcvaRU
— wyntre (@Wyntre999) February 16, 2026
Ocasio-Cortez tried to turn that into a racial indictment. She suggested that “Mexicans and descendants of African enslaved peoples would like to have a word” with Rubio for supposedly erasing their role in the cowboy story. But in rushing to score that line, she tripped over a simple fact. The Mexican vaquero tradition she wants to highlight is itself a product of Spanish influence in New Spain, where indigenous and later African laborers learned horsemanship, cattle work, and gear from Spanish ranching culture. The roots Rubio described, and the contributions she invoked, are not in conflict. They are connected.
Good heavens! The Spanish Vaqueros, fine horsemen, came to Mexico taught the natives and the American cowboy to ride. They were buckaroos, derived from Vaqueros. But then, AOC also claims Elon is uneducated and not very bright. Just got lucky.
— Kathleen Bittner Roth (@BittnerRoth) February 16, 2026
American cowboy culture is a fusion of Spanish, Mexican, Black, Native, and Anglo experience on the frontier. A serious discussion can acknowledge that complexity without pretending the Spanish piece is some fringe theory. Our language still gives it away. Words like rodeo, lasso, and ranch come from Spanish. Practices like cattle branding, saddle design, and many forms of roping come through the vaquero pipeline that began with Spanish colonization. You can argue about what we choose to celebrate, but it takes work to deny where the trail started.
Her ignorant sneering about the lineage of cowboys when the spanish literally reintroduced horses and cattle and the tradition to the Americas is really quite something
— FilmLadd (@FilmLadd) February 16, 2026
This is not an obscure academic quibble. It is widely reflected in popular culture. The Lipizzaner stallions, famously evacuated and preserved during World War II, were celebrated for their baroque Spanish riding tradition rooted in classical European horsemanship. Their story was even referenced in the submarine film “Crimson Tide,” where Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman’s characters trade barbs over the horses as a shorthand for cultural knowledge and history. That kind of reference only works because audiences already understand that serious horsemanship has deep, traceable origins, many of them European and Spanish.
AOC's word salad in Germany reminds us she was an actress that answered a classified ad to play a politician when she had no experience in anything other than being a two bit bartender.
— All You Need is Love 🎯 (@poetWOAgun) February 17, 2026
She has no political/Gov't knowledge, she memorizes and recites scripts written by others.… pic.twitter.com/AMA3TTZnTE
AOC Decimated by Economist in Munich, Exposing the Folly of Dem Positions As They Jockey for 2028
Rubio’s broader argument was about civilizational confidence. If we cannot state plain facts about how our own culture developed without being accused of erasure, we are in trouble. Ocasio-Cortez’s response did not correct him. It confirmed his point. She took a well-documented historical link and tried to turn it into a gotcha moment, only to prove that the loudest voices in our discourse are often the least grounded in the record.
Conservatives should not be shy about this. We can acknowledge the multiracial reality of the American West while insisting on factual history over TikTok history. Teaching students that Spanish, Mexican, Black, and Native cowboys all shaped the frontier does not require us to pretend the Spanish seed never existed. It requires us to tell the full story honestly.
In Munich, Rubio did that. His critic did not. That contrast, more than any social media clip, tells you who is actually comfortable with the truth about the West and who needs the facts to bend to the narrative of the moment.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy RedState’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join RedState VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member