On Sunday, Fresh Face™ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) explained to a cheering crowd that she was now the “boss” of the Democratic Party. In her typically brilliant, woman-of-the-people patois, reminiscent of great minds such as the “cash me ousside, how bout dat” girl, Ocasio-Cortez championed her own Green New Deal proposal – a proposal, you’ll recall, that called for an end to air travel, the destruction or retrofitting of all buildings in America, the demise of all farting cows, and similarly constructive and realistic suggestions. She stated:
Like I just introduced the Green New Deal two weeks ago, and it’s creating all of this conversation. Why? Because no one else has even tried. Because no one else has even tried. So people are like, ‘Oh it’s unrealistic. Oh it’s vague. Oh it doesn’t address this little minute thing,'” she added. “And I’m like, ‘You try. You do it. Cuz you’re not. Cuz you’re not. So, until you do it, I’m the boss.’ How about that?
The sheer intellectual firepower is nearly overwhelming.
But AOC’s self-coronation is certainly telling. To Democrats, in fact, it should be reminiscent of the accusations they routinely make about President Trump regarding the southern border: exaggeration of a national threat as an excuse for centralization of power. Now, to be fair to Trump, hundreds of thousands of people do cross our southern border each year illegally, and his arrogation of power for purposes of building a border wall is hardly on the order of the ambitions of the Green New Deal. But the principle is the same: Democrats are very much against manufacturing crises in order to gain power, unless they’re claiming that the end of the world is nigh, and that AOC ought to be our policy leader.
Here’s the truth: nearly every claim AOC makes about climate change is exaggerated beyond the boundaries of the rational. In the past 48 hours, she has argued that people should consider not reproducing so their children won’t have to live in a Mad Max hellscape:
Our planet is going to hit disaster if we don’t turn this ship around and so it’s basically like, there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult, snd it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question, you know, ‘Is it OK to still have children?
She’s even argued that “we’re screwed”:
I’m sorry to break it to you. If we do nothing, there is no hope, period. That’s just the principle across the board. When it comes to climate in particular, we’re actually screwed. There is a global threat to the planet. A global threat. And at this point we don’t even have to prove it. Just walk outside in winter in a lot of places and it’s either way worse than you’re used to or way warmer than you’re used to. Hurricane storms, wildfires — we are doing now.
This is sheer nonsense. She conflates weather and climate, suggests that our children will be living “very difficult” lives while world poverty is at an all time low and life expectancy is at an all-time high, and she says that there’s a “global threat” that will leave us all “screwed.” That’s nonsense. Human beings adapt, our technology is getting better, and zero climate scientists believe that climate change presents an existential threat to life on earth. Even if you believe climate change is a problem, these claims are doomsday garbage of the highest order.
But when you suggest that the end of the world is nigh, it’s easier to convince people you ought to be the boss. Which, after all, is AOC’s goal. In the end, this isn’t about crisis. It’s about no good crisis going to waste – and creating crisis where concern would be more appropriate, so as to maximize the case for centralization of power in the most ambitiously ignorant.