ProfessorPlum
ProfessorPlum's JournalA round up of conservative reaction to AOC
https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/07/09/ocasio-cortezs-win-has-right-wing-raising-a-new-red-scare/Conservatives now find themselves having to make more of an effort to explain what’s so bad about bread and roses, and their rustiness is embarrassingly evident.
In last year’s state and local elections, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), to which Ocasio-Cortez belongs, saw fifteen of its members elected to local office. But Ocasio-Cortez is making a bigger splash than they did because she won a primary for a U.S. congressional seat in the nation’s biggest media market, and happens to be young, attractive, Latina, and eloquent.
This last impression conservatives labored mightily to dispute, with articles like “Socialist Ocasio-Cortez Can’t Differentiate Between Socialism, Democratic Socialism” at Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire — not only an inaccurate portrayal, but one based on the assumption that anyone not bred like an orc in a right-wing think tank would give a shit about such a difference.
https://themoscowproject.org/ The roadmap for Russian control of the US
https://themoscowproject.org/pass it on.
Conservative politics is built on disgust
Some of you may know that I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind" as a really great starting place for understanding the conservative mind, and what makes them tick and how they are different from liberals.
On of the principles that guides conservatives in their emotional reaction to the world is "purity", meaning cleanliness, wholesomeness, savoriness, acceptability. For them, disgust is an emotional reaction close to the surface, and it manifests itself frequently as their sense of purity is offended. Hence, the maniacal obsession with virginity. Hence, the drive towards "racial purity" and the contempt and disgust towards people who are in any way different - different races, different cultures, different sexuality.
And so, the conservative media have developed the conservative brand around stoking disgust that conservatives have for their fellow Americans - Gay people are gross. Trans people are gross. Brown people are gross. Drug users are gross. Hippies are gross - and Democrats are all hippies.
Meanwhile, on the other side, liberal politics is built around equality under the law and equality of opportunity for people, overcoming our fear of the different. It is a politics that urges us to get over ourselves, to not be disgusted by our fellow Americans, but rather see them as worthy of the fruits of citizenship as we are.
I am glad to see to that liberals can be disgusted by the actions, policies, and hatemongering of conservatives, if not so much for the people themselves. But we should recognize the force that is disgust in our politics, and try to use it to our advantage or to disarm it.
boy I wish Jennifer Granholm had been born in the U.S.
She's poised, quick on her feet, knows her policy, and would make a great candidate.
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