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OPINION

Why AOC Is a Fraud

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
Why AOC Is a Fraud
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims to be a progressive. She also claims to be concerned about the working class. In fact she is a fraud.

We really need to stop calling the likes of Ocasio-Cortez a progressive. There is nothing progressive about her or her New Green Deal. She hates modernity, she hates progress and all the benefits it has brought the working classes. She wants to end fossil fuel use, she wants to stop cheap flights and people's freedom to live and spend their money as they choose.

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In fact Ocasio-Cortez is a regressive. She wants to end the use of fossil fuels and go back to the ancient idea that we can survive by paying homage to the wind and the sun. They may call them renewables, they may call them the energy of the future but the reality is sun and wind power are relics of a past where life was brutal and short. Countries stopped using windmills for a reason and no amount of subsidies or coercion will make them a viable alternative to fossil fuels that power the cities, factories, hospitals and electricity generating stations that we and the developing world need to survive.

Similarly, Ocasio-Cortez doesn't care about the working classes in America. It's hard to know whether this is as a result of the left's desire to control everything or perhaps it's more likely that it is a result of her dream driven, data-empty ideas.

And make no mistake her continued economic illiteracy will have profound ill effects on the constituents she claims to serve. Recently, Amazon announced that they will cancel their planned expansion in New York City primarily because of opposition to the deal from New York leftists like Ocasio-Cortez. The freshman congresswoman immediately took to Twitter to celebrate, tweeting: “Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world.” 

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She then falsely proclaimed that the deal’s collapse could free up $3 billion to “hire out more teachers” and “fix our subways.” Ocasio-Cortez would be well-served by a lesson in basic economics. The $3 billion promised to Amazon would have been paid out in the form of tax breaks, which can’t be “re-allotted” to other expenditures. That’s simply not how it works. Even New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio slammed Ocasio-Cortez’s misunderstanding, noting on "Meet the Press" that the $3 billion would be allotted to Amazon after New York received the jobs and revenue that would have been produced by the deal. 

In short - the $3 billion doesn’t exist-and neither do the 25,000-40,000 new jobs that would have resulted from the deal. Those hurt most by Ocasio-Cortez’s economic illiteracy are the working class New Yorkers she claims to serve. Instead of the dignity of work and financial independence, Ocasio-Cortez is offering New York’s working-class additional dependency on Democratic Socialists like her. Of course that is part of the plan. If people were free, independent and prosperous then there would be no need for people like Ocasio-Cortez and the crumbs she hands out to ensure her constituents are permanently in a poverty trap.

We shouldn't be surprised that leftists such as Ocasio-Cortez are triumphant that they have prevented people from securing jobs. They have been destroying the hopes and dreams of people in the developing world for decades under the guise of environmentalism. I have seen villages and towns crying out for mines or fossil fuel exploitation and the prosperity it brings. But they are often left with nothing after they were “saved” by Ocasio-Cortez styled foreign environmentalists.

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They really are classic imperialists. They come from countries made rich by resource exploitation to tell mostly brown and black people that they are not allowed to use their natural resources in the same way.

And now that imperialistic attitude has washed up on the shores of New York. And Americans have a choice. Will they embrace hyper-educated, unthinking control freaks who tell them where and when and for who, they can work? Or will they embrace freedom? There is an election in 18 months where they can let us know their decision.

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