A study in contrasts


Here is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the urgency of meeting the climate change threat, which the Green New Deal seeks to do.


And here is Republican senator Mike Lee speaking on the same topic.

Lee also showed a poster with Ronald Reagan riding a dinosaur firing a machine gun to make the point that … well who knows?

In case you were not aware, Lee is frequently touted as one of the serious Republicans with gravitas. Well, say goodbye to that reputation, Mikey. You will now forever be known as the Reagan dinosaur guy.

Opponents are making a mistake by thinking that Ocasio-Cortez is somehow sui generis, a freak who has managed to get a platform, and that if they manage to discredit her, the threat to them will be gone. My feeling is that she is not just speaking for herself but her passion is because she is channeling the anger of a younger generation that is just fed up with my generation’s complacency and lack of action because we (or at least some of us) happened to be born at a time when we rode the crest of a prosperity wave, and where we did not give a damn about the long-term consequences of our actions.

What makes AOC almost unique is that she, along with a few other young and energetic progressives, got elected to Congress. They are tribunes of their generation. They are not the entire army, just the vanguard.

Comments

  1. Allison says

    she is channeling the anger of a younger generation that is just fed up with my generation’s complacency and lack of action ..

    Not just a younger generation. I’m 65, and I’ve been fed up for quite a while.

    I have three “Republican-lite” congress critters (Nita Lowey, Charles Schumer, and Kirsten Gillibrand) mis-representing me, and I so wish we’d have some AOC-like Democratic primary challengers, so I could vote against them. And, of course, the Republican party only ever puts up challengers in the general election who are so awful, even their party ends up repudiating them.

    You know, it’s funny. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when everybody was talking about how “the younger generation” was going to make everything different, I remember saying that most of them would grow up to be just like their parents. Unfortunately, it seems I was optimistic — an awful lot of them are worse.

  2. Pierce R. Butler says

    … a poster with Ronald Reagan riding a dinosaur firing a machine gun …

    To clarify: in the poster, Ronnie Baby is the one firing the gun -- not the dinosaur (which is, of course, waving an American flag).

  3. jrkrideau says

    Lee is frequently touted as one of the serious Republicans with gravitas. Well, say goodbye to that reputation, Mikey.
    From what I see of the US Senate that may not be true. He may have boosted it.

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