Intellectual giant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the SXSW by storm on Saturday with her socialist rhetoric. Speaking at the annual South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX, she opened fire on everything from capitalism to FDR’s “racist” New Deal.

On President Reagan, AOC said:

One perfect example, I think a perfect example of how special interests and the powerful have pitted white working-class Americans against brown and black working-class Americans in order to just screw over all working-class Americans, is Reaganism in the ’80s when he started talking about welfare queens…So you think about this image of welfare queens and what he was really trying to talk about was … this like really resentful vision of essentially black women who were doing nothing, that were ‘sucks’ on our country.

And it’s this whole tragedy of the common type of thinking where it’s like because … this one specific group of people, that you are already kind of subconsciously primed to resent, you give them a different reason that’s not explicit racism but still rooted in a racist caricature. It gives people a logical reason, a ‘logical’ reason to say, ‘Oh yeah, no, toss out the whole social safety net.’

Reagan criticized the government programs which first, allowed “people of color” to slide into dependency on the government and then kept them there. It’s Democrats who have promoted these government programs and who continue to work so hard to enlarge them. They do so to maintain control over minority Americans. These programs of dependency do nothing but perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty. And the “grateful” recipients of all of this government generosity continue to vote for them. My colleague, Jeff Charles, wrote an especially good post describing this endless loop here.

He wrote, “The white progressive savior continues to pose as a friend of minorities, but in reality, they are using them as a useful political tool. It is why Joe Biden told a crowd of black Americans that Republicans wanted to “put y’all back in chains.” It’s why they argue that voter ID laws are racist because blacks can’t figure out how to obtain identification.”

The whole point of the Green New Deal is to bring all Americans into this “protective” tent. We will all slide into dependency on the government and remain there while the “enlightened” ones, the liberal elites, control us.

Next, she discussed capitalism, which according to AOC, is “not sustainable and cannot be redeemed.”

 We seek and prioritize profit and the accumulation of money above all else and we seek it at any human and environmental cost.

We have created artificial scarcity. And that is why we’ve been driven to work 80 hours a week when we are at our most productive at any point in American history and so, you know, we should be working the least amount we’ve ever worked if we were actually paid based upon how much wealth we were producing, but we’re not, we’re paid on how much we’re desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and then given to a billionaire.

It’s not sustainable? What would explain America’s rise to become the most powerful and influential nation on the planet?

She is simply regurgitating all the time worn socialist criticisms of capitalism. Who works 80 hours a week? Certainly not individuals living under the yoke of socialism where there is no incentive to do more than what is necessary. Socialism stifles motivation, innovation and inspiration and whenever it has been tried, it has failed miserably. Capitalism brings limitless opportunity. It allows an individual who grows up in poverty to become a billionaire. It encourages hard work and spurs invention and is responsible for the dramatic increases in productivity and efficiency we’ve witnessed over the last century. 

“We should be scared right now because corporations have taken over our government.” @AOC explains why she is in favor of democratic socialism at #SXSW #tictocnews pic.twitter.com/1lSLYCyTew

— Bloomberg QuickTake (@QuickTake) March 9, 2019

AOC apparently sees herself as one of the world’s greatest visionaries.

She said, “The greatest things we have ever accomplished as a society have been ambitious acts of vision.”

This is a true statement. But not in the way she meant it.

Americans have never been afraid to think big. Without a doubt, our founding fathers thought big. They envisioned and fought for a country whose citizens would live in freedom from tyranny. Ambitious acts of vision have precipitated every major American invention and every positive political change in the US from ending slavery to the Civil Rights movement.

Ocasio-Cortez’ ambitious act of vision, the GND, does not fall into the same category. It is simply a vehicle with which to achieve control over Americans.

She is not a visionary, but a megalomaniac. She and her supporters are trying to foment fear among the American people. Then they present the GND as the solution.

We reject the GND, not because we are afraid to think big, but because, first, we want to maintain our freedom and second, because it would bankrupt America.

Despite the transparency and the misguidedness of her remarks, her interview certainly drew a large crowd of supporters. Among them was Bill Nye, the Science Guy, who tweeted enthusiastically that “AOC gets it.”

AOC gets it. She sees that fear is dividing us. We can address income inequality. We can address climate change, if we get together and get to work. #SXSW @AOC pic.twitter.com/I8tSbAc97u

— Bill Nye (@BillNye) March 10, 2019