Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Lubyanka) is furious with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) for daring to stand against the far-Left’s plans for socialism and election-rigging, and she is demanding that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Sinister) take action, and take action now. She wants him to “make their lives as difficult as possible.” This is the kind of rhetoric that destroys free republics, and AOC should be remembered for it.
AOC was responding to a tweet from Bloomberg congressional reporter Zach C. Cohen: “Sen. Kyrsten Sinema confronted Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor last night about the chamber’s slow voting process, per @StevenTDennis. ‘Could we have some discipline in the votes, ever? You’re in charge!’”
This apparently enraged AOC, who tweeted: “Actually he should continue to make their lives as difficult as possible and treat them the way they treat, say, public housing residents. Or parents who rely on CTC. When they improve, maybe process can improve too. Why should we make the lives of obstructionists easier?” She added: “Cancel vacation. Vote on weekends. Vote for hours. Vote last minute. Call votes when Senators are courting billionaires at fundraisers. They may get apoplectic, but it’s nothing compared to the people they’re forcing to sleep without heat in winter, or losing the right to vote.”
Actually he should continue to make their lives as difficult as possible and treat them the way they treat, say, public housing residents. Or parents who rely on CTC. When they improve, maybe process can improve too.
Why should we make the lives of obstructionists easier? https://t.co/KBbX8DbYdo
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 2, 2022
AOC’s hysterical and fact-free claims about public housing residents going without heat and people losing the right to vote aside, holding Senate votes at inconvenient times isn’t really very high on the scale of what can be done to make someone’s life difficult. If all that Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have to put up with are weekend votes, their lives could be a good deal worse. However, AOC called for making Sinema’s life as difficult as possible four months after Leftist activists followed her into a bathroom at Arizona State University in order to harass her for her opposition to Biden’s handlers’ socialist Build Back Better agenda. Around the same time, Leftists in kayaks harassed Manchin while he was on his boat.
Old Joe Biden dismissed those incidents are “part of the process.” But they weren’t. Intimidating people into being afraid to oppose a political agenda is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes and has never (with some notable exceptions) been a feature of American public life until recently when authoritarians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Squad colleagues gained ascendancy on the Left.
Last month, the New Yorker AOC declared that Kyrsten Sinema was not fit to represent the people of Arizona: “I don’t believe she’s really given a compelling case as to why she should be re-nominated as the Democratic nominee for United States Senate in Arizona. She has proven herself an obstacle to the right to vote in the United States.” But now, her call to make Sinema’s life as difficult as possible goes far beyond trying to make sure she isn’t reelected. The far Left has always targeted its opponents for personal as well as professional destruction, and AOC is opening the door to that against Sinema now.
The United States has been in this place before, but it was a long time ago. AOC’s call to Schumer recalls an incident that unfolded on the floor of the Senate in May 1856, in the run-up to the Civil War. On May 19 and 20, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered a lengthy speech entitled “The Crime against Kansas.” In it, he resorted to lurid imagery to make his case, saying: “Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of Slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave State, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of Slavery in the National Government.”
Sumner also mocked Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina in terms that strongly hinted at the widespread belief among abolitionists that slaveholders were primarily interested in their female slaves for sexual use. Southern honor was offended, although there was a great deal of truth to Sumner’s statement, and Southern honor would be avenged. On May 22, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, Butler’s cousin, entered the Senate chamber and made for Sumner’s desk. He began beating Sumner over the head with a heavy wooden cane and did not stop when Sumner began bleeding profusely and knocked his desk loose from the floor (it was bolted down) in an attempt to get away. Brooks didn’t stop until he had broken his cane. He later recounted: “I…gave him about 30 first rate stripes. Towards the last he bellowed like a calf. I wore my cane out completely but saved the Head which is gold.”
Brooks made Sumner’s life plenty difficult; it took him years to recover. Both men were hailed as heroes. Southerners inundated Brooks with canes to celebrate his attack and replace the one he had broken over Sumner’s head. The cane was not the only thing that was broken. The Union was as well. And today, it is as close as it has been since then to being broken again. AOC’s incendiary rhetoric against those whom she hates is not just a hallmark of totalitarian regimes; it’s a grim indication of how far from genuine American principles the Left has strayed.
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