“This is no joke!” she says. “We need to focus on keeping a democracy for anybody to be president in the next couple of years. That’s my central focus, is helping the people of this country right now.”
Yes, you heard it right, folks. She thinks our democracy is coming to an end, but the power of her seat in Congress might just be enough to stem the tide of history and give her a chance to prevent total and complete obliteration. If, that is, we vote for her. If we donate money. Lots and lots of money.
AOC will be the first to tell you she doesn’t believe what she’s saying; in fact, she’s told us this before more than once. It’s an oratorical device known as hyperbole, a trick of words designed not to teach or inform or even convince, but rather to persuade.
After being fact-checked about a claim that, for the third time in two decades, we have only twelve years remaining to address climate change before it causes irreversible change, she clarified that “…you’d have to have the social intelligence of a sea sponge to think it’s literal.” And yet, two-thirds of likely Democratic voters took the 12-year claim literally leading up to the 2020 presidential election, as though buying a Prius and reusable shopping bags was enough to somehow delay the dire predictions of two decades previously, when Al Gore made the same prediction.
Whether her opinion of DNC voters is literally that they have sea bottom level intellect is not the operative question. Everyone reading this, deep within themselves, is fully aware that “sea sponge” may be aiming high — and not exclusively for Democrats, who, being by and large better educated, have no monopoly on inanity. How else could We The People continue repeating the same mistakes over and over, voting the Party line because to fail is to court disaster? What sort of chaos curve must our society be riding along, such that immediate destruction attends our every misstep?
Both parties are using the same rhetoric: We have one last chance to save America.
To my mind, the real question is this: What sort of idiot keeps donating money to political parties after all we’ve seen? If we dig deep, and donate — give the statutory maximum — give until it hurts, and then give some more… the only thing we can demonstrably prove is that the airwaves will become inundated with incessant political ads. Seriously, people: Stop paying for political ads! Nobody but nobody likes the things. They don’t educate; they don’t inform; they just spout meaningless propaganda that we all do our best to ignore until the torture ends. If the compact disc ever makes a comeback, it’ll be as a defense against radio ads — YouTube ads — Netflix ads, God help us.
Political donations just buy them more ads. Stop buying them ad time! Save your damn money!
“What we risk is having a government that perhaps postures as a democracy, and may try to pretend that it is, but isn’t.” That’s what she said on Colbert the other night, and she likely intended it as hyperbole — but it’s the one thing she said that’s almost literally true. The only lie is that word “risk”; in truth, we lost our right to be called a democracy generations ago, if indeed we ever had it.
In the beginning, Congress had one representative for every 33,000 people, making it possible for a person to actually know who to vote for, at least by reputation. Today, with the House fixed at 435 members, the ratio is about 700,000 to one. There is no reason to expect that one person can even understand, much less capably represent, the interests of that many people, and even less to believe that the citizenry will have any meaningful access. It’s small wonder Congress doesn’t solve problems.
Shock and consternation followed the SCOTUS decision in the Dobbs case. The overturning of Roe v. Wade has created a chaotic situation, as a result of which some thousands of American women will suffer inconvenience at having to cross state lines, some hundreds more will experience preventable complications of what could otherwise be a simple and safe procedure, and so on. Teen suicides, already the second-leading cause of death, will experience an inevitable spike — unless something magical happens in conservative states that miraculously prevents teenagers from having sex. There are unavoidable consequences when societal change is suddenly enforced by law without taking the time or trouble to prepare amelioration, and as always it will be the young and the poor who suffer most.
There are those who blame the conservative Justices of the Supreme Court for this, President Trump for appointing, the Senate for approving, and so on — but that’s simplistic to the point of absurdity. The root cause is that there exists a political system so ineffective that such a small change as the political leanings of a single judge can have this much impact. Had simple and effective legislation been passed at any time in the five decades since Roe, this wouldn’t have happened; in point of fact, it’s likely that we would be choosing SCOTUS justices for their skill at jurisprudence rather than their views on abortion, which, if there were a well-written law wouldn’t be a subject they’d need expertise on.
Abortion has served as a rallying cry for both major political parties for decades. Neither has any interest in a permanent resolution of the problem, despite that the overwhelming majority of the general population is in agreement on the subject. Dividing us on abortion rakes in the cash by the tens of millions, so why would they ever pass a common sense law?
It’s past time we change the way we do things in this country.
If you disagree, you can always do things the way you’ve been doing them right along and hope it works this time. Vote Blue No Matter Who if that suits you, and never mind that they’ve held power multiple times but never accomplish anything. They had the chance to reform healthcare, and instead they taxed the poor for being unable to afford insurance. They’ve had a dozen chances to codify Roe and same-sex marriage and student loan reform and they never have — because it’s not in the Party’s interest.
But sure; go ahead: Buy them more political ads. Reward their indolence, their incompetence, and their incessant and nauseating abuse of hyperbole. Because if you don’t, you know, it’s the end of our democracy. And there are only twelve years left until the planet is destroyed.
Again.
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