To put it simply, AOC scares the bejeezus out of the privilege-protectionists and they are desperate to heap scorn on her. But in each case, without rancor and with a smile on her face, she puts them in their place. When she proposed returning to the 70 percent marginal tax rate of the Kennedy era, one GOP Congressman told her he didn’t think ordinary Americans would want to pay 70 percent of their incomes in taxes. Politely, she asked him whether it was really necessary for her to teach him what a marginal tax rate is. And of course, he knew, but found it more politically expedient to lie to voters who actually may not realize how such taxes work (in this case, the 70 percent tax would apply only to all annual income exceeding $10 million a person, not really an issue for anyone but the top .1 percent.)
AOC then schooled the House on what kinds of morally questionable ways of “making as much money as fast as possible with as little work as possible” were allowable for those who would turn to Congress for assistance in getting rich. “Think of me as a bad guy,” she began—if she wanted to, for example, be financed in her campaign by a corporate PAC, and then when elected, wrote bills that sent dollars flowing to her funders, would it be legal? Time after time, an expert panel had to say Yes, it would. AOC tweeted the video coverage of her questions, and almost immediately her tweet was retweeted 37 MILLION times, something of a record. The video shows an incredibly poised and smart young woman giving lessons to all the gray hairs sitting around her.
Most remarkable of all was her introduction of the Green New Deal resolution into the House, surrounded in her press conference by adoring gray-haired Democratic members of Congress, mostly men, whom she had finally stirred into overdue action. The Green New Deal may well be the most significant and comprehensive legislation proposed since the original New Deal itself, or the Great Society reforms of Lyndon Johnson. AOC made one mistake on its rollout, letting a clueless staffer release notes from a meeting that included foolish references to “farting” cows, abolition of airlines and free money for those “unwilling to work.” Of course, FOX and Friends had a field day with this, but the resolution actually entered into the House contains none of this language.
The young will make mistakes like this, but surely all of us who are older have made them, and many more. We will do well to heed their new courage and leadership and stand with them; indeed, the future depends on it.
Research Sources Cited:
The Atlantic
How the Parkland Students Changed the Debate
Vox
The kids suing the government over climate change want to halt fossil fuel extraction
BBC
Greta Thunberg as started an international youth movement against climate change.
Alternet
Young Kentucky climate activists demanding Green New Deal arrested at Mitch McConnell’s office
Grist Magazine
Minnesota youth demand Green New Deal in meeting with Governor
NewsweekVIDEO
CleanTechnica
Full Text of Congress Green New Deal Resolution