Recently I was talking politics with a political friend of mine, and the subject of perhaps the dumbest member of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) came up. My friend optimistically claimed that she will be a font of laughs for years to come. Yes, an embarrassment perhaps, but he said “just for New York”.
He cited her post-election declaration that she couldn’t wait to be inaugurated so she could sign bills into law. She obviously has never read article I or II of the Constitution which gives the exclusive power to the President to sign bills into law.
Come to think of it he was referring to her claim that there are 3 chambers of government. You may say it was a simple mistake, she meant to say the 3 branches of government. No, I heard her explanation. She claimed that the 3 chambers of government consist of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Executive branch.
Clearly, she could not pass a high school civics class. And one may conclude that Boston University, where she studied, is a bad university.
I do think she is will be great for laughs, but more importantly an excellent, living, breathing argument against “free” college. Imagine if you as a taxpayer had to pick up the tab for her college tuition.
But I think her ignorance of history and economics, and public policy is far more profound than people can imagine. Especially American history. An example from yesterday, she said:
“They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt did not get re-elected.”
She doesn’t know that the President died in office in 1945, two years before the 22nd amendment was ratified? Does she think Wendell Wilkie was elected President in 1940, or Tom Dewey was elected in 1944?
Does she think Roosevelt retired to Warm Springs Georgia to write his memoirs? In his final years he became an elder statesman?
Maybe. Too bad there wasn’t a real journalist questioning her, I think she made the remarks on MSNBC. They could have asked her when she thought the 22nd amendment was ratified. Was it ratified before or after the attack on Pearl Harbor?
Her claim that Republicans “had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt did not get re-elected” is not a minor gaffe.
Is she so ignorant and cynical to believe that Republicans amended the Constitution to deny the commander and chief re-election in the middle of a two front war? That would be a major development in American history. We may not have won World War II.
Hitler may have concluded that if Roosevelt was term limited he could wait him out. Not declare war on the US and wait to deal with Dewey or Wilkie.
Imagine if Lincoln couldn’t run in 1864. The war would have had a different outcome. If Roosevelt couldn’t have run in 1940 or 1944 the world would look different today.
You see by the late 30’s Roosevelt knew we were headed for another world war. Through overt aid, lend lease, and covert aide, he was preparing the country for war. However, the public was not yet with him so he had to maintain the fiction that he “would not send our boys to fight in a foreign war.” All the while working within the law, and outside it, to aide Britain and Russia.
Of course, Franklin Roosevelt was not subject to a term limit. The world is a different place because of that fact. But Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t know that.
If she claimed that President Rutherford B. Hayes was from Pennsylvania, when of course he was from Ohio, well that is a minor mistake, although she should know that.
However, to be under the impression that Franklin Roosevelt could not run for reelection because of the 22nd amendment is someone who is ignorant of basic American history.
And the other gaffe yesterday, she wondered why a croissant at the airport costs so much. Well, New York does have a 15-dollar minimum wage, but I doubt she would make the connection. After all she studied economics at Boston University.
