=========
=========
Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
=========
=========

If you watched Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s college dancing video and her new video taking on the alleged conservative dancing critics, you may be getting uneasy.  This is eerily like we’ve seen this movie before in the early days of Barack Obama’s media honeymoon (circa 2004).

Because you probably also saw her on CNN with Anderson Cooper and realized she can’t reason her way out of a wet paper bag (kinda like Anderson Cooper after a few too many Tequila shots on New Years, but I digress).

Or maybe you read Elizabeth Vaughan’s important story on the Twitter debate between Republican Rep. Steve Scalise and Democratic Socialist Rep. Ocasio Cortez (AOC) over her stated desire to see 70% tax rates.  You won’t see this on CNN. Not only doesn’t she appear to know diddly about tax policy, but some of her followers posted classless comments about shooting Scalise – and I’m assuming they knew he’s a victim of an attempted assassination by a Bernie Bro.

I’ve seen two general reactions to AOC on the right.  One is that she’s an idiot we shouldn’t pay attention to.  The other is that she needs to be confronted and not underestimated (like now former President Obama).

How can someone who has been caught saying so many dumb things be taken seriously?  Why hasn’t she been laughed off the national stage?

Because much of our culture, especially those on the left and too many ‘independents’, are superficial and uninterested in facts. To them it doesn’t matter we say AOC is ‘wrong’ or her policy ideas unrealistic. According to their priorities, her intentions are what matters. Her radicalism is actually a benefit since they have been brainwashed by schools teaching Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States”.  I’m not going to link to the book but if you believe America is evil and oppressive you’ll like it a lot.

Various polls show a majority of Millennials have a favorable view of Socialism and they buy into the idea that America is defined by injustice.  What’s obvious if you peruse the typical school curriculum is they don’t know anything of the dark side of Socialism and they don’t understand how unique our republic is in human history.  Nor do they know that capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than any other economic system in human history.

I don’t always agree with Ben Shapiro but he’s is dead on when he says Republicans confront leftism with the wrong arguments. As with AOC, we tend to point out how expensive free college would be. Or how Medicare for All would bust the budget even more than Obamacare did.  We use facts and numbers to argue her policy ideas won’t work.  Or we remind everyone that Obamacare has been deemed unconstitutional by a judge in Texas.

That’s all true but her target audience doesn’t care about ANY of that.  AOC is making a moral and emotional appeal that is exponentially more powerful because it resonates at a deeper level than logic. And let’s remember that winning elections is a numbers game, and emotions drive turnout and selection.  Say what you want about the 2008 and 2012 contests between Republican candidates and Obama, but the same dynamic played out then, too. We could argue he was unqualified for office, that he had a radical past, and that his Hope and Change agenda was thinly disguised leftism – but it didn’t matter. He moved the masses more effectively than McCain or Romney.

And while we’re talking about presidential contests, I think most would agree President Trump deployed more emotional rhetoric than never president Hillary. Enough said.

Now, let’s get back to the superficial aspects of Ocasio Cortez’s appeal. Arguably, AOC is eye candy compared to the typical female Democrat. We should not judge a book by its cover, but let’s be honest, celebrity is correlated with good genes in the looks department.

The narrative that conservatives were outraged by her dancing video was pure Fake News, but it gave the media an excuse to show her looking seductive and feminine instead of her usual pantsuit deer in the headlights look. It seems much of Twitter was astonished to discover she has a curvy figure and can approximate dance moves from the Breakfast Club. I guarantee you the Soy Boys and man-hating SJW females in her fan club noticed. And I absolutely can imagine that folks like Bill Clinton in the Democrat party orbit would be more than happy to help her rise to power.

Let’s face it, someone who’s ambitious and unburdened by facts or truth can seduce the media and the voters.  She may be far more dangerous than Obama, and his act is tough to follow. Like Obama, AOC is not white, which makes her outrank more Senior Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi in the intersectionality hierarchy. And she’s young in a youth-obsessed culture. In fact, she’s a Millennial, a 73 million member demographic with as much voting horsepower as the baby boomers.  And many leftist boomers will support AOC too.

I believe she needs to be discredited and defeated politically before she gets too powerful.  And I don’t believe the way to do that is to argue she’s wrong on facts or stupid on policy. Even though she is both. She’s cunning and willful and knows how to say the right things for her audience. That’s all she needs. And the old white left, including Pelosi, know she’s got the star power they need to pass the torch of leftism to the next generation. Unless she truly makes the wrong enemies, I believe she could go far, whether in or out of politics.

How can we combat her if not on just facts? With moral and emotional arguments supported by facts.

For example, how to counter this ‘conservatives hate dancing women’ narrative?  I don’t know if she did this on purpose, but there are viral videos now that show brave Iranian girls dancing in public. By doing so, they risk imprisonment and death. As Kurt Schlichter points out in his upcoming TownHall column, AOC is putting Republicans and conservatives in the role of the scolding preacher in the movie Footloose.

In other words, she’s implying the conservatives want a Handmaid’s Tale reality where women are oppressed. It’s an utter fabrication but it’s effective persuasion if we don’t counter it.

This is typical of the left’s strategy.  They erect a strawman (that conservatives oppose women dancing). Then they slay that strawman with a defiant video.  And then they declare victory. Obama did this all the time.

How do could we counter it? We could simply say it’s not true. Point out that the media coverage doesn’t cite any actual examples of outraged conservatives.  That’s fine as far as it goes.  But how about this: Conservative women could make dance videos and prove her wrong in a ‘show not tell’ visual way.

While not a woman, as far as I know, James O’Keefe just challenged Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to a dance-off.  You can decide for yourself if O’Keefe nails the Michael Jackson impression.  But it’s the kind of thing that refutes the left’s characterization that conservatives are humorless squares.

That’s fine as far as this dancing non-kerfuffle goes, but what about policy?  The American people are tired of politicians lying to them (you can keep your doctor comes to mind).  Instead of just saying AOC’s New Green Deal is unaffordable and impossible, let people know how much their monthly bills would skyrocket if these reckless policies were enacted – and remind them of the last time a big talking Democrat did a lot of damage with fancy talk about lowering health care costs when we’re still paying for his failures.

I would like to see conservative women and minorities take AOC to the woodshed when the opportunity arises – like when Elizabeth Warren was dopey enough to release her DNA test results. That’s when its time to mock without mercy.

It will be harder for men to do this because she will always play the damsel in distress (as she did when Ben Shapiro allegedly ‘mansplained’ to her). But I bet Trump could do it effectively. He knows how to instantly define someone by their weakest characteristic – Low Energy Jeb, Crooked Hillary.

If she develops a reputation for trying to get by flashing her big eyes and bright smile, I suspect she’ll lose support among women because the accomplished women I know resent women who trade on their charms to get ahead in life.

With all that said, there is a more powerful weapon we need to deploy so that we’re not constantly fighting one lefty media darling after another (like Beto).

We need to correct the public misconception that socialism = justice. Those who believe that are objectively ignorant of the full historical record and the current human suffering from that sick ideology. As long as leftists can pretend to have the moral high ground, they can win on looks and lies. AOC is selling suffering. Too many just don’t know it yet.

If we can crush the core mythology of Socialism their entire strategy collapses. We need to deny any leftist’s attempt to whitewash the evils of Marxism with fluffy platitudes.

Liberals and leftists say we are the only nation that puts profit over health care. They cite countries like England and Canada and declare that we already have socialism in the form of Social Security and even the military.  When faced with criticism on the cost of their schemes, they make it a moral argument and shame people who don’t agree.  AOC’s played that card on Anderson Cooper.

That’s why we need to hit them with a moral argument supported by facts. Let’s reveal their history of lying to discredit their big promises.

What did Cuba’s revolution promise? How about Venezuela? North Vietnam? North Korea? How about the actual record of rationing and euthanasia in the ‘national health care’ schemes in other first world countries. How about the abject poverty and suffering in Communist countries and the decimation of formerly wealthy Venezuela?

Then point out WHY just about every country south of our border has perpetual poverty and instability.  Why does Africa remain stuck in poverty and why are countries like Brazil, Eastern Europe, Austria and Italy making conservative changes to fix problems caused by Socialism?

We need to paint a picture of inevitable failure and suffering.  And we can cite a recent example much closer to home.  Obamacare was a big lie. In fact, our economy struggled for 8 long years and had the worst recovery since World War II.  Contrary to Obama’s lies, the economy took off right after Trump’s policies started kicking in.

On that note, I think we have good news.  The most recent jobs and manufacturing report was much stronger than expected -even with all the fear mongering about tariffs and trade wars.  Millions of Americans are seeing the benefits of Republicans reigning in government, lower taxes, reforming bad trade deals, and stripping away insane Obama era environmental and foreign policy.

At the end of the day, what the Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez want will hurt everyone except the fat cats at the top of the party and their donors.

We need a Willie Horton style ad that reminds middle and upper-middle-class Americans that the Democrat policies will hurt them. Remind them it wouldn’t take much to have them drop from middle to working class, or from upper to middle class. People HATE to lose status.

Contrast that grim future with the roaring Republican economy now. Over 400k new factory jobs in just 2 years.  Obama lost over 200k manufacturing jobs after 8 years.

Right now we’ve got a jobs boom where kids can graduate high school, go to a trade school, and be making 60 to 80k a year while Democrats deploy their SJW degrees slinging lattes at Starbucks.

We need to smash their Marxist idols and tear down their mythology. Right now, Socialism is tied to social justice. It needs to be that Socialism is held responsible for 120 million dead in the 20th century and it hasn’t kept promises anywhere.

Needs to not be “the right thing we’re not doing enough” and be exposed as the “evil thing we must never do again”

If we keep hitting the deeper moral and emotional appeals with the facts about the left’s failures and the successes of conservatism, we can prevail for years to come (much like Reagan did).

Let Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the left try to dance around that.

Or, as Ben Shapiro says brilliantly here, THIS is dancing that matters.

Never forget that we on the right stand for freedom and the left and totalitarians stand for oppression.