Ridglan Farms was forced to release thousands of beagles from hideous experiments because activists formed a trans-ideological coalition. AOC-style liberals would never dirty themselves in that way.
I saw through AOC’s performance years ago. She loves power, money, the wealthy, their parties, their events. She’d prefer a room full of multimillionaires than full of blue collar workers from her district. If you think a few children being blown up in the Middle East would reorient her soul then you’re mistaken. Her political career and aspirations to be wealthy (and hang out with the wealthiest liberals) override any good her office grants her the power to do. She’s Nancy Pelosi Jr.
When she first ran for Congress, one of her campaign ads featured her saying something along the lines of "If you go to Washington and you have the courage to do the right thing, then maybe you only end up being there for one term, but you'll accomplish a LOT more than somebody who doesn't have that courage and who just does what their party expects from them."
Since then, she's proven time and again that she doesn't have that courage. When Max Blumenthal asked about whether she opposed regime change in Venezuela, she lamely said that she would defer to party leadership on that issue before running away. When she voted against additional Iron Dome funding, all it took for her to change her vote was Pelosi publicly dressing her down (assuming that wasn't staged). While genuine leftists opposed censorship of any kind, AOC has been a strong proponent of online censorship since at least early 2021. There are many more examples.
I hate her. I'm sure that if I ever told her so, she would accuse me of being sexist and racist. That's not why I hate her, of course. I hate her because I don't like being backstabbed; I supported this woman, I donated money to Justice Democrats that helped her get elected, and at the end of the day she betrayed me and everybody like me. At least when somebody like Lindsey Graham does the wrong thing, there isn't that added sting of betrayal; I never had faith in Lindsey Graham the way I once had faith in AOC.
When AOC attacked Jimmy Dore after he proposed that the Squad refuse to vote for Pelosi for Speaker unless she put Medicare For All up for a vote in the House, I knew she was a phony. The Squad's main purpose is to sheep dog progressives into the Democratic Party so they can be neutered.
That quote could be partially correct in that the way the Govt collects unemployment info. Part time jobs, people who stopped looking for work, etc. However I do think she is mostly economically illiterate and absolutely a hypocrite on so many other topics.
Reminds me of when Nate Silver -- who, like AOC, has a degree in economics -- made a similar economic blooper. Silver put out an article scrutinizing whether trends in the unemployment rate were slowing down or not, and mistakenly assumed that if this was happening with the unemployment rate it would automatically be happening with the "employment rate" as well. (What economists call the employment rate is not simply the mirror image of the unemployment rate, but Nate Silver assumed it was.) Here's the Nate Silver article -- https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/horray-second-derivative-of/ . He also mixed up his math in that article, saying that if the job statistics are worsening less quickly than they used to, it means the "second derivative" of the job statistics has improved, which is not what a second derivative really is.
Who can forget the time in 2021 when poor Alex was pressured into changing her vote on cutting US funding of Israel's Iron Dome Defense System from 'yea" to "Present", because Nancy said mean things to her on the House floor? In theory, at least, Alexandria was firmly for cutting the funding , but she caved and changed her vote anyway.
Then she wept on the House floor because that was the moment she realized there was nothing special about her, and she was just another run-of-the-mill political hack.
I can forgive everyone who voted for Trump as the anti-war president. Most probably see their mistake now. I can't forgive anyone who continues to vote for the likes of AOC.
Another example of trans-ideological coalition-building is the gender critical movement to protect women and children, promoted by conservatives, left-leaning lesbians, feminists, Muslim families and others. The movement has succeeded in pushing the issue into mainstream discourse and has achieved some significant court victories, even though it has not yet achieved all of its goals.
AOC is dumb as a rock. She represents a new low in liberal politics --which isn't saying much since they are pretty much scraping the bottom these days!
I would have respected AOC had she expressed that her distrust of MTG led her to the personal choice of not investing her time working with MTG. Instead, she opted for the finger-pointing and word salad snark that both corrupt parties sell as "governance" when they cannot articulate in agreement a damned thing that they are FOR and will COMMIT to DO to take care of the nation and its people.
This. Exactly this. MTG was actually pretty vile to AOC and until she turned on Trump was one of the most disgusting apparatchiks for the MAGA movement. Likewise, for all his seemingly new wokeness, Tucker continues to insist that the real problem in America is bigotry towards rich white men like himself.
But I don’t need to like or trust someone to make common cause. The slaughter of innocents is more important to me than someone else’s political purity. If MTG and Tucker want to protect kids from mass murder, they are my allies.
I have some serious issues with MTG, but what you said is dead wrong. She opposed funding the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine early on, for example. I totally oppose her Christian, pro U.S., and anti-abortion crap, but she's had way more integrity than AOC when she was in Congress.
I believe some of those who criticize AOC for not working with MTG would be at least as harsh to those who had attacked them in the past. What keeps these AOC critics from realizing they have to do more to avoid hypocrisy is largely their partisan attachments, which is ironic since they are criticizing AOC for partisanship.
It's not that I think AOC is innocent on the whole, but AOC does have factual support for describing MTG as an anti-semite. The infamous MTG Facebook post, which does not literally contain the phrase "Jewish space laser", is convincing evidence that MTG had anti-Jewish prejudice at the time. I do not believe that we should all refuse to mention anti-Jewish prejudice just because of the severe wrongs committed by Israel. Both ungrounded accusations of anti-semitism hurled by Israel fans, and the tendency by some people to over-hastily deny that certain critics of Israel show faint signs of anti-semitism, contribute to making Israel's allies among US voters more willing to put up with Israel's bad actions. Anti-Jewish prejudice is a fairly widespread bias, although most instances of it are pretty much harmless as long as you don't get sucked into the game of pretending they don't exist.
I don't blame AOC for not trusting MTG, because the latter has such a long history of disrespect, duplicity, and partisan stooging that in her place I would choose to work with more reliable people to end the genocide. What I find disappointing is AOC's being an apologist for what is a nation in the Middle East that is acting like an arsonist with a flame-thrower, commandeering our military, two corrupt political parties to cheer lead for them & their invasion of bordering sovereign nations & stealing their land, enacting a genocide, and literally displacing the votes of American constituents to influence and run our government with MONEY MONEY MONEY.
Know why Bernie Sanders does NOT act as an apologist? It's not because he is Jewish. It is because Israeli money, their ugly deprecations, and AIPAC cannot threaten him. His position of most popular politician in America (look it up--don't rely on Glenn to validate it) gives him a SOLID base of small donation voters. With their support, he doesn't need to accept blood-drenched AIPAC money.
The Democratic Party operatives hate and fear such situations as much as Republicans hate it. They don't want voters picking their candidates and politicians. They want power party politics to do that and keep picking the candidates out of reach of grassroots citizens.
AOC should have that position of power too, if she just remains true to the person she was when she upended a legacy Democrat. If she starts being perceived as untrustworthy, she will not have that grassroots power forever.
In my opinion, I was disappointed by her response here. It was a disaster. It shook my trust, and I've been a fan since Bernie endorsed her initial campaign.
AOC has flaws, including on Israel-Palestine, though on some issues she is one of the better members of Congress.
You describe AOC as "being an apologist for [Israel which is] ... enacting a genocide." I would think it's fair to say that she is one of the few people in Congress who criticize Israel's acts as genocide. Again, I'm not saying AOC is beyond criticism by any means. But could you say in what way AOC in her current positions is an apologist for Israel, preferably with specific quotes?
You ask for "specific quotes," but I value what people SAY is less important than what they DO. If you value what people say over what they do, we probably have no common ground for discussion.
I'd welcome it if you have any evidence that AOC, either in what she does or in what she says, has been part of making apologetics for Israel's misdeeds. But you haven't given any evidence, either in what she does or in what she says. The MS NOW article you linked to doesn't show her doing apologetics for Israel, any more than it shows her being an apologist for Israel in words.
I have to conclude that you aren't scrupulous about making sure your statements match reality. You described AOC as "being an apologist for" Israel, and you couldn't show any sign of her doing that, even in her past positions -- although it would be much more relevant if you could show her doing that apart from her past positions and actions. Your post uses present-tense language ("being an apologist") but the MS NOW article you linked to as backup only criticizes her for things that are no longer her position and no longer what she's doing in the present, so your present-tense accusation against her remains unsupported.
There are certainly things to criticize AOC for in reality, but if this Substack page is a place to pile on against AOC where people can just say negative things about her regardless of whether it's true, it's a waste of time. I have to wonder about why this is being encouraged and whether it really helps Palestinians. A lot of the politics that forms around a genuine injustice, in this case the oppression and genocide of Palestinians, ends up degenerating into pile-ons and partisanship, and detaches itself from reality so much that it can never meet the human concerns of those who aren't already singing in the same choir.
To Glenn's point, Alex supposedly cares about lower income workers, yet she played a significant role in Amazon's decision to forgo plans to build and staff a huge regional campus in NYC. It's been estimated that as many as 25,000 high paying white-collar jobs would have been created, many of which would have been available to people in her own district.
Sadly, Alex's disdain for capitalism is so great, it allowed her to fight against Amazon's proposal, thus denying thousands of New Yorkers and others all of those high paying jobs.
Nothing says "Caring about your constituents " more than denying them a chance at a good job.
Horrifying. Everyone celebrating the release of the beagles (and 500 of them WEREN'T released) should be against this. Pigs are gentle, intelligent animals, not BACON...😳
Not off topic. It's bad that it passed (even though animal rights isn't one of my priorities). Greenwald's approach faces substantial challenges but it may well be able to work over time. A lot of politics involves things like responding to concerns about pig torture with slogans like "Save Our Bacon", and that should make us realize how much gross stuff is hidden by the average political slogan. But there is room for people to wake up, and some people already have. I'm glad to see that the pig torture thing couldn't have passed as its own bill even with their slogan; they had to slip it into a much bigger bill. The fact that there's already that much opposition is a good sign.
They did something similar when Trump wanted to ban state and local governments from regulating AI. They slipped that AI regulation ban into the big bill the House passed last year. MTG voted for the whole bill without reading that part, then acknowledged her mistake and said she wouldn't have voted for it if she'd known. Acknowledging her mistake is more typical of MTG than it is of the large majority of congressmembers, though many of them are also like her in failing to read big bills (a lot of them also don't care about the bad things in the bills until they're made public). In this case there was a good ending -- after MTG and others spoke up against the AI regulation ban, the Senate took it out of the bill. We can hope for progress on animal rights as well.
I've seen a statistic that says 60% of Americans now oppose Israel. The polls show Trump now with an unfavorable rating even greater than that. If Democrats are going to make common cause with Republicans, as those who shut down Ridglan Farms were confident enough to do, why not over an issue that they see the greatest agreement on? Oh, yeah. Gaming the electoral system is what Republicans are counting on, so they would never go along with impeachment. Nonetheless, I wonder if Republican obstinacy over holding onto the White House, though it lead to disaster for the world, is what keeps AOC convinced that there is no chance of getting cooperation over stopping funding for Israel. I suspect you are right about AOC's rigidity but am at least pointing out that the beagle-saving coalition had a much better chance of forming than one involving issues that impact politicians' reelections.
Thanks Glenn. Good to see you back on Substack. MTG, Tucker, Massie, Meghan Kelly represent the principled and sincere 'World Peace and American Prosperity' MAGA faction.
The only solidarity we see from AOC and anyone in Congress comes from the prepared speeches they give to protect their own careers.
It's not to pass beneficial laws.
No other employer in the real world would pay these people 6 figure salaries for the knowledge and skills they have, and they know it. Their career is #1, and they cling to it.
It's all theater of the ineffectual; it's meant only to protect their careers, not positive change. Change risks careers.
The national security state also makes absolutely sure there is no change, just in case any rogue actor happens to get out of line (See: Thomas Massie).
Unless of course you're the Epstein Class; then it's clear sailing for you.
I saw through AOC’s performance years ago. She loves power, money, the wealthy, their parties, their events. She’d prefer a room full of multimillionaires than full of blue collar workers from her district. If you think a few children being blown up in the Middle East would reorient her soul then you’re mistaken. Her political career and aspirations to be wealthy (and hang out with the wealthiest liberals) override any good her office grants her the power to do. She’s Nancy Pelosi Jr.
Even though I loathe Nancy Pelosi I must say she has at least 50 IQ points on AOC.
When she first ran for Congress, one of her campaign ads featured her saying something along the lines of "If you go to Washington and you have the courage to do the right thing, then maybe you only end up being there for one term, but you'll accomplish a LOT more than somebody who doesn't have that courage and who just does what their party expects from them."
Since then, she's proven time and again that she doesn't have that courage. When Max Blumenthal asked about whether she opposed regime change in Venezuela, she lamely said that she would defer to party leadership on that issue before running away. When she voted against additional Iron Dome funding, all it took for her to change her vote was Pelosi publicly dressing her down (assuming that wasn't staged). While genuine leftists opposed censorship of any kind, AOC has been a strong proponent of online censorship since at least early 2021. There are many more examples.
I hate her. I'm sure that if I ever told her so, she would accuse me of being sexist and racist. That's not why I hate her, of course. I hate her because I don't like being backstabbed; I supported this woman, I donated money to Justice Democrats that helped her get elected, and at the end of the day she betrayed me and everybody like me. At least when somebody like Lindsey Graham does the wrong thing, there isn't that added sting of betrayal; I never had faith in Lindsey Graham the way I once had faith in AOC.
She was great when she was seeking to make it to The Hill. Once she climbed, oh brother. She’s a completely different person.
Just shows how corrupt and evil this system is. It can't be changed from the inside, it has to be overthrown.
When AOC attacked Jimmy Dore after he proposed that the Squad refuse to vote for Pelosi for Speaker unless she put Medicare For All up for a vote in the House, I knew she was a phony. The Squad's main purpose is to sheep dog progressives into the Democratic Party so they can be neutered.
Personally, I think it is easier to ethically earn a billion dollars than to ethically hold on to congressional power.
Hope you're not suggesting that presidential power is any more likely to be ethical.
I'm suggesting AOC isn't qualified to speak of ethical behavior.
Neither. To paraphrase Jesus, it's harder for a rich person to be decent than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Whenever Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez becomes part of the conversation, I like to remind people that she's the moron who once said this:
"Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs."
-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 2018
Firing Line, PBS
I still get a good chuckle every time I remember that line. And the really wild part is she has a degree in Economics.
It's almost on par with the classic Yogi Berra line "No one goes there anymore because it's too crowded."
She's no Yogi Berra.
That quote could be partially correct in that the way the Govt collects unemployment info. Part time jobs, people who stopped looking for work, etc. However I do think she is mostly economically illiterate and absolutely a hypocrite on so many other topics.
In 2018, only 5% of US workers had more than one job. It's about the same today, maybe a bit higher.
And unemployment numbers are based on the number of people who don't have jobs, not on how many or what kind of jobs people have.
I'd love to see your best theory as to how her quote might make the slightest bit of sense.
Reminds me of when Nate Silver -- who, like AOC, has a degree in economics -- made a similar economic blooper. Silver put out an article scrutinizing whether trends in the unemployment rate were slowing down or not, and mistakenly assumed that if this was happening with the unemployment rate it would automatically be happening with the "employment rate" as well. (What economists call the employment rate is not simply the mirror image of the unemployment rate, but Nate Silver assumed it was.) Here's the Nate Silver article -- https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/horray-second-derivative-of/ . He also mixed up his math in that article, saying that if the job statistics are worsening less quickly than they used to, it means the "second derivative" of the job statistics has improved, which is not what a second derivative really is.
Who can forget the time in 2021 when poor Alex was pressured into changing her vote on cutting US funding of Israel's Iron Dome Defense System from 'yea" to "Present", because Nancy said mean things to her on the House floor? In theory, at least, Alexandria was firmly for cutting the funding , but she caved and changed her vote anyway.
Then she wept on the House floor because that was the moment she realized there was nothing special about her, and she was just another run-of-the-mill political hack.
Anyway, Israel got the funding.
Thanks, Alex
I can forgive everyone who voted for Trump as the anti-war president. Most probably see their mistake now. I can't forgive anyone who continues to vote for the likes of AOC.
Another example of trans-ideological coalition-building is the gender critical movement to protect women and children, promoted by conservatives, left-leaning lesbians, feminists, Muslim families and others. The movement has succeeded in pushing the issue into mainstream discourse and has achieved some significant court victories, even though it has not yet achieved all of its goals.
AOC is dumb as a rock. She represents a new low in liberal politics --which isn't saying much since they are pretty much scraping the bottom these days!
She is ecstatic to play her role as the Latin female version of B.O. WIll the electorate fall for it again?😳
Dogs are my favorite people.
Thank you for your never-ending clarity.
I would have respected AOC had she expressed that her distrust of MTG led her to the personal choice of not investing her time working with MTG. Instead, she opted for the finger-pointing and word salad snark that both corrupt parties sell as "governance" when they cannot articulate in agreement a damned thing that they are FOR and will COMMIT to DO to take care of the nation and its people.
This. Exactly this. MTG was actually pretty vile to AOC and until she turned on Trump was one of the most disgusting apparatchiks for the MAGA movement. Likewise, for all his seemingly new wokeness, Tucker continues to insist that the real problem in America is bigotry towards rich white men like himself.
But I don’t need to like or trust someone to make common cause. The slaughter of innocents is more important to me than someone else’s political purity. If MTG and Tucker want to protect kids from mass murder, they are my allies.
I have some serious issues with MTG, but what you said is dead wrong. She opposed funding the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine early on, for example. I totally oppose her Christian, pro U.S., and anti-abortion crap, but she's had way more integrity than AOC when she was in Congress.
Good point about MTG's attacks on AOC. MTG posed during her initial election campaign holding a gun next to pictures of AOC and her allies, as mentioned in this article which shows a longer list of MTG's attacks on AOC. https://www.thelist.com/1711126/inside-marjorie-taylor-greene-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-brutal-feud/
I believe some of those who criticize AOC for not working with MTG would be at least as harsh to those who had attacked them in the past. What keeps these AOC critics from realizing they have to do more to avoid hypocrisy is largely their partisan attachments, which is ironic since they are criticizing AOC for partisanship.
It's not that I think AOC is innocent on the whole, but AOC does have factual support for describing MTG as an anti-semite. The infamous MTG Facebook post, which does not literally contain the phrase "Jewish space laser", is convincing evidence that MTG had anti-Jewish prejudice at the time. I do not believe that we should all refuse to mention anti-Jewish prejudice just because of the severe wrongs committed by Israel. Both ungrounded accusations of anti-semitism hurled by Israel fans, and the tendency by some people to over-hastily deny that certain critics of Israel show faint signs of anti-semitism, contribute to making Israel's allies among US voters more willing to put up with Israel's bad actions. Anti-Jewish prejudice is a fairly widespread bias, although most instances of it are pretty much harmless as long as you don't get sucked into the game of pretending they don't exist.
I don't blame AOC for not trusting MTG, because the latter has such a long history of disrespect, duplicity, and partisan stooging that in her place I would choose to work with more reliable people to end the genocide. What I find disappointing is AOC's being an apologist for what is a nation in the Middle East that is acting like an arsonist with a flame-thrower, commandeering our military, two corrupt political parties to cheer lead for them & their invasion of bordering sovereign nations & stealing their land, enacting a genocide, and literally displacing the votes of American constituents to influence and run our government with MONEY MONEY MONEY.
Know why Bernie Sanders does NOT act as an apologist? It's not because he is Jewish. It is because Israeli money, their ugly deprecations, and AIPAC cannot threaten him. His position of most popular politician in America (look it up--don't rely on Glenn to validate it) gives him a SOLID base of small donation voters. With their support, he doesn't need to accept blood-drenched AIPAC money.
The Democratic Party operatives hate and fear such situations as much as Republicans hate it. They don't want voters picking their candidates and politicians. They want power party politics to do that and keep picking the candidates out of reach of grassroots citizens.
AOC should have that position of power too, if she just remains true to the person she was when she upended a legacy Democrat. If she starts being perceived as untrustworthy, she will not have that grassroots power forever.
In my opinion, I was disappointed by her response here. It was a disaster. It shook my trust, and I've been a fan since Bernie endorsed her initial campaign.
AOC has flaws, including on Israel-Palestine, though on some issues she is one of the better members of Congress.
You describe AOC as "being an apologist for [Israel which is] ... enacting a genocide." I would think it's fair to say that she is one of the few people in Congress who criticize Israel's acts as genocide. Again, I'm not saying AOC is beyond criticism by any means. But could you say in what way AOC in her current positions is an apologist for Israel, preferably with specific quotes?
You ask for "specific quotes," but I value what people SAY is less important than what they DO. If you value what people say over what they do, we probably have no common ground for discussion.
Now, see the first sentence:
https://www.ms.now/opinion/aoc-israel-military-aid-iron-dome.
I'm about where the authors are on this. No time to write more now.
I'd welcome it if you have any evidence that AOC, either in what she does or in what she says, has been part of making apologetics for Israel's misdeeds. But you haven't given any evidence, either in what she does or in what she says. The MS NOW article you linked to doesn't show her doing apologetics for Israel, any more than it shows her being an apologist for Israel in words.
I have to conclude that you aren't scrupulous about making sure your statements match reality. You described AOC as "being an apologist for" Israel, and you couldn't show any sign of her doing that, even in her past positions -- although it would be much more relevant if you could show her doing that apart from her past positions and actions. Your post uses present-tense language ("being an apologist") but the MS NOW article you linked to as backup only criticizes her for things that are no longer her position and no longer what she's doing in the present, so your present-tense accusation against her remains unsupported.
There are certainly things to criticize AOC for in reality, but if this Substack page is a place to pile on against AOC where people can just say negative things about her regardless of whether it's true, it's a waste of time. I have to wonder about why this is being encouraged and whether it really helps Palestinians. A lot of the politics that forms around a genuine injustice, in this case the oppression and genocide of Palestinians, ends up degenerating into pile-ons and partisanship, and detaches itself from reality so much that it can never meet the human concerns of those who aren't already singing in the same choir.
To Glenn's point, Alex supposedly cares about lower income workers, yet she played a significant role in Amazon's decision to forgo plans to build and staff a huge regional campus in NYC. It's been estimated that as many as 25,000 high paying white-collar jobs would have been created, many of which would have been available to people in her own district.
Sadly, Alex's disdain for capitalism is so great, it allowed her to fight against Amazon's proposal, thus denying thousands of New Yorkers and others all of those high paying jobs.
Nothing says "Caring about your constituents " more than denying them a chance at a good job.
But, NYC's loss was Another city's gain.
A bit off topic, but did you see the pig torture bill passed the House? It makes me so sad.
Horrifying. Everyone celebrating the release of the beagles (and 500 of them WEREN'T released) should be against this. Pigs are gentle, intelligent animals, not BACON...😳
Not off topic. It's bad that it passed (even though animal rights isn't one of my priorities). Greenwald's approach faces substantial challenges but it may well be able to work over time. A lot of politics involves things like responding to concerns about pig torture with slogans like "Save Our Bacon", and that should make us realize how much gross stuff is hidden by the average political slogan. But there is room for people to wake up, and some people already have. I'm glad to see that the pig torture thing couldn't have passed as its own bill even with their slogan; they had to slip it into a much bigger bill. The fact that there's already that much opposition is a good sign.
They did something similar when Trump wanted to ban state and local governments from regulating AI. They slipped that AI regulation ban into the big bill the House passed last year. MTG voted for the whole bill without reading that part, then acknowledged her mistake and said she wouldn't have voted for it if she'd known. Acknowledging her mistake is more typical of MTG than it is of the large majority of congressmembers, though many of them are also like her in failing to read big bills (a lot of them also don't care about the bad things in the bills until they're made public). In this case there was a good ending -- after MTG and others spoke up against the AI regulation ban, the Senate took it out of the bill. We can hope for progress on animal rights as well.
I hadn't heard of it until now. Goddamn it... 😞
I've seen a statistic that says 60% of Americans now oppose Israel. The polls show Trump now with an unfavorable rating even greater than that. If Democrats are going to make common cause with Republicans, as those who shut down Ridglan Farms were confident enough to do, why not over an issue that they see the greatest agreement on? Oh, yeah. Gaming the electoral system is what Republicans are counting on, so they would never go along with impeachment. Nonetheless, I wonder if Republican obstinacy over holding onto the White House, though it lead to disaster for the world, is what keeps AOC convinced that there is no chance of getting cooperation over stopping funding for Israel. I suspect you are right about AOC's rigidity but am at least pointing out that the beagle-saving coalition had a much better chance of forming than one involving issues that impact politicians' reelections.
Great article and wonderful to know about the release of these poor dogs. I can’t stand AOC. Thank you. Kathryn from Brooklyn.
Thanks Glenn. Good to see you back on Substack. MTG, Tucker, Massie, Meghan Kelly represent the principled and sincere 'World Peace and American Prosperity' MAGA faction.
The only solidarity we see from AOC and anyone in Congress comes from the prepared speeches they give to protect their own careers.
It's not to pass beneficial laws.
No other employer in the real world would pay these people 6 figure salaries for the knowledge and skills they have, and they know it. Their career is #1, and they cling to it.
It's all theater of the ineffectual; it's meant only to protect their careers, not positive change. Change risks careers.
The national security state also makes absolutely sure there is no change, just in case any rogue actor happens to get out of line (See: Thomas Massie).
Unless of course you're the Epstein Class; then it's clear sailing for you.