“The U.S. Is Seeing a Massive Spike in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes,” reported New York Magazine’s The Cut on Monday, with the predictable analysis: It’s all Trump’s fault. That intrepid warrior for freedom, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Ditzy), known to the legions who follow all the episodes of her superheroine adventures as AOC, was eager to believe. There was just one problem: reality intervened.
“Many blame the Trump administration for inciting this violence,” reported The Cut’s Madeleine Aggeler, apparently with a straight face. You see, “Trump and numerous other members of his White House staff embraced racist and xenophobic anti-Asian rhetoric early on in the pandemic, repeatedly referring to COVID-19 as the ‘China virus’ and the ‘Wuhan virus.’”
The ever-vigilant AOC was ready with the apposite tweet, commenting on The Cut’s story: “We stand with our Asian American & Pacific Islander community against the rising tide of racism and hate crimes that have been stoked to a fever pitch, much of amplified by the actions of our last president. It’s on all of us to speak up against bigotry & protect our neighbors.”
Right you are, O Oracle of Righteousness! And so we all locked arms and prepared to march together on the glorious socialist path, paved with images of the miscreant Trump so that we could trample his vile visage under our feet, but then – a small snag developed. The Cut had included with its story a video of a man in Oakland, California, walking up behind a 91-year-old man on a street and suddenly, viciously, pushing the old man to the ground. The perpetrator turned out to be a man named Yahya Muslim who had committed several other attacks on random passersby.
This was actually mentioned in The Cut’s story: “Oakland police later said they believed that the man in the video is Yahya Muslim, 28.” The story also notes that it “has been updated,” although it doesn’t say how, so it’s possible that the original story didn’t include mention of Mr. Muslim, and isn’t certain that AOC knew the identity of the perpetrator when she posted her tweet blaming Trump. It is certain, however, that she has had several days now to explain how she decided that a crime by a black Muslim, two groups that she would be the first to insist were on the front line of Trump’s victims, had to be Trump’s fault.
It is remotely within the realm of possibility that Yahya Muslim will turn out to have a MAGA hat in his closet and decided to brutalize this 91-year-old man because he had heard Trump say “China virus” one time too many, but it is much more likely that he was incited to violence by the left’s race-baiting propaganda, or even by the Islamic State’s repeated calls on Muslims in the U.S. to commit lone wolf attacks against random civilians.
However, in this case we may never know why the attack happened. If it really was racially or religiously motivated, the establishment media is extraordinarily unlikely to turn from its 24-hour Trump-hate to inform the public of that fact. AOC may be a vacuous, vapid, empty-headed socialist propagandist, but she is no dummy. She knows what kind of statements are likely to get massive airplay and keep her in the headlines, bolstering her reputation as a rising star of the Democratic party. Speaker of the House? President of the United States? It’s all in play for her, because she and/or her handlers know all the right notes to sound, the ones that “journalists” will love too much to check, much less to correct once disconfirming facts come to be known.
Imagine for a moment that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were a young conservative congresswoman who blamed Old Joe Biden or Saint Barack of Hussein for a string of attacks on Trump supporters that later turned out to have been committed by a disgruntled libertarian. Would her “lie” be widely publicized? Of course. Would she be ridiculed, pilloried, mocked, and called upon to resign? You bet your life. But for AOC, dishonesty and blaming Trump when there is no conceivable way he could be at fault is not a bug, it’s a feature. The establishment propagandists want you to believe what she is telling you. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t true.
In fact, it’s all the better that it’s false: that way its propagation, and the continuing adulation and complete lack of accountability for AOC, become manifestations of their raw power, and the powerlessness of the dissidents. They hold all the cards, and they know it, and they want us to know it. But nevertheless, Yahya Muslim came along and pushed down their propaganda construct, and so for at least some people, AOC and the propaganda machine stand exposed. The situation is bleak, but for conservatives, our most powerful ally is reality.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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