Unity Watch: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Pushes a Fact-Free Narrative Intended to Divide

Are you tired of all the unity yet? It was a nice campaign message, but it was never the goal. If you look at the Democrat coalition, it requires a common enemy. The various factions have almost nothing in common. The cracks started to appear right after the election when several moderate members of the House lost their seats. Some in the caucus blamed the radical rhetoric from members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) for the electoral difficulties. In particular, talking about defunding the police was a problem.

It seems Ocasio-Cortez is determined to be a liability for her colleagues again. She has decided to jump all-in on one of the most destructive narratives being pushed in our public discourse. Unfortunately for She Guevara and her allies, it isn’t easy to make people believe a fact-free narrative they don’t want to believe. It is becoming increasingly clear that the left is determined to convince America we are in a race war. This keeps voters from realizing their policies destroy the working and middle classes, regardless of race, color, or creed.

Make no mistake about it. What we are seeing all around us at this point is “repressive tolerance” to force the preferred narrative. Defined by Herbert Marcuse in 1965, it specifically calls for limiting the freedoms of anyone who does not subscribe to left-wing ideology. We have heard Ocasio-Cortez talking about reigning in the media, which most certainly means eliminating conservative media.

She says the goal is to stop the flow of disinformation. In reality, it aligns with Marcuse’s assertion that only the left can define tolerance, and tolerance is only given to truth. Of course, this relies on the belief that leftism corners the market on what is true. So, after outlining how she will limit press freedoms for her ideological opponents, Ocasio-Cortez goes directly after freedom of speech:

People really twist themselves into knots giving platforms to white supremacists and their enablers like “come on everyone, we must listen to both sides equally: fact and fiction”

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 14, 2021

You see, if you disagree with Ocasio-Cortez, you are clearly a white supremacist or enable that detestable ideology. Therefore, you don’t deserve the ability to speak or be heard. This narrative has been applied broadly to anyone who voted for President Trump. Recently CNN commentator Don Lemon asserted that Trump’s voters were on the side of the KKK and Nazis. When Chris Cuomo asked him if people could have voted for Trump because they preferred his policies, Lemon said:

Well then get out of the crowd with them. Get out of the crowd with them. You’re in the crowd who voted for Trump. If you voted for Trump, you voted for the person who the Klan supported. You voted for the person who Nazis support. You voted for the person who the alt-right supports. That’s the crowd that you are in.

According to Lemon, if detestable people prefer your candidate, you take on their bad characteristics. The only way to be on the “right side of history” is to vote for candidates on the left no matter what policies you prefer. Like Ocasio-Cortez, Lemon believes only the left knows the way forward.

Luckily, most Americans don’t look around their communities and see Nazis and members of the KKK. This is probably because not even the Southern Poverty Law Center can find very many. Their Hate Watch Map for 2019 tracked 309 groups that adhered to a white identitarian ideology. To compare, they also found 255 black separatist groups. Considering the percentage of the population for each of these groups, white identitarian movements are far less common and consist of a few thousand people out of nearly 340 million.

Further, despite an overwhelming troll campaign in 2016, white identitarian movements under the general umbrella of the alt-right are not fans of President Trump. The administration’s robust support for Israel, bombing in Syria, and relative moderation on immigration policy were all roundly rejected by these groups. Going into 2020, experts said the movement was no longer coordinated because Trump engaged in typical electoral politics.

“Whenever I talk about the alt-right at this point, I do so in the past tense,” said George Hawley, an assistant political science professor at the University of Alabama and author of two books on the alt-right. “For the most part, as far as I can tell, there’s no enthusiasm within the extreme right for President Trump — which isn’t to say they’re going to become Democrats. The massive trolling operation we saw in 2016 I think is unlikely to be repeated.”

Oddly, at least one member did become a Democrat. Richard Spencer stated publicly that he was voting for Joe Biden and Democrats. He has also repeatedly praised Representative Ilhan Omar, who was named Anti-Semite of the Year in 2019. Honestly, Ocasio-Cortez herself has more in common with Spencer’s ilk than any conservative does. She supports BDS, which calls for the destruction of Israel. In fact, Democrats have a faction in their coalition that is anti-Semitic or supports people who are. The party tolerates these individuals at their convention and in the halls of Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez sees bogeymen that just aren’t there. She is either intentionally spinning up a narrative, or she is paranoid. If it is the former, it must be countered loudly and factually. If it is the latter, she should get a therapist.