Posted on 07/02/2018 5:52:21 AM PDT by TBP
After the ’10 census, New York lost two congressional seats. Overpriced, lacking any growth industries except tourism and community organizing, the state just couldn’t keep up with the rest of the country.
New York had been bleeding congressional seats since the rise of the suburbs. After the massacre of ’10, its congressional delegation was the smallest since 1823. And it’ll lose more seats after the next census.
But the ’10 massacre also forced Rep. Joe Crowley out of the 7th Congressional District and into the 14th. The 7th became a gerrymandered a district built like a Frankenstein’s monster out of parts of Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens that had nothing geographically in common except Puerto Rican populations who will keep voting for Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat, until the city sinks beneath the waves.
Crowley, who is paler than birch trees, had no shot at the new 7th. But he settled down comfortably in the 14th, winning 70% of the vote by just showing up, without the fuss of a primary challenge. While representing a Hispanic district in Queens, he was allegedly living comfortably in Arlington, Virginia.
That was never going to last.
New York City’s working class white population is an endangered species. If you’re not on welfare or earning well in the six figures, you can’t afford to live there. Crowley’s district was 46% Hispanic. It had the second highest share of Latino voters in New York. The machine pol was living on borrowed time.
It’s hard to imagine a more vulnerable politician than doughy Joe, the echo of a 19th century political establishment of barstools and crony government jobs, used to winning ¾ of the vote in safe districts and who had forgotten how to compete in an election (if he ever knew how) facing a Hispanic district.
Of course that’s not the story you see in the media.
Instead the media thrills to its own fake news of how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the "girl from the Bronx", a Socialist candidate and “giant-slayer”, impossibly defeated Rep. Crowley. And that’s accompanied by analysis of how her victory is proof of the inevitable triumph of Socialism. The media has even begun trying to ‘Obamaize’ her with stories about her brand of lipstick selling out.
The fake news narrative has nothing to do with the truth about Cortez and the reality of the 14th.
The simple truth is that the Democratic Socialists of America and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put in time and money into a district that the Democrats hadn’t bothered to protect because Republicans couldn’t win it. The secret to Cortez’s victory wasn’t socialism. It was her last name.
Nor is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “girl from the Bronx”. She’s the daughter of an architect from a pricey suburb in Westchester County. Her father, a Pratt Institute grad, was a founder of KOR which stood for Kirschenbaum & Ocasio-Roman Architects. The Ocasio (rather than the Kirschenbaum) part of the name meant that it operated as a “certified minority business enterprise” which came with assorted privileges.
MBEs are able to cut in line and get all sorts of lucrative government contracts. All it takes is having a minority grandfather and your company is entitled to drink from a river of government cash flowing only to MBE companies. And if your ancestry is whiter than that of Senator Elizabeth Warren, you can always find a minority partner and then let the good times roll. At the expense of the working tax-paying stiffs.
After her father cashed in on affirmative action while living in Westchester County, his daughter cashed in her minority card in a New York City election even though she has far more in common with the white hipster Bernie Sanders supporters who provided the muscle for her campaign than any of the minorities living in a housing project in Queens or the Bronx. But that’s also why the media loves Cortez.
She’s one of them: a suburban leftist with a bio consisting of studying International Relations at Boston U, working on immigration issues for Ted Kennedy, serving as the National Hispanic Institute's Social Entrepreneur in Residence, producing a web series, shuttling between trendy lefty protests and founding what appears to a defunct social justice publishing house.
This isn’t the biography of an urban minority politician, but an upscale lefty hipster drifting after college from one activist gig to another, developing the contacts that put her in the right place at the right time. These are the bios of ten thousand professional lefties who infest the non-profit sector. They’re all angry, self-righteous and interchangeable. The minorities among them hail from wealthy areas.
And like all upscale lefties, they love putting on as much working class cred as they can get away with.
The media is using Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to push the Democrats even further to the left. But her victory is no argument for socialism. It is evidence that the left can win an election if the turnout is really low and a Hispanic district is being represented by a boring white Democrat who lives in Virginia. Since the 14th is a minority district, Cortez will probably be able to hold on to it until she’s older than Maxine Waters. Or unless the coming redistricting after New York loses more seats changes its racial composition. And Cortez and her Socialism will go down hard in an Asian or African-American district.
The unspeakable truth is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez didn’t win because of her views but because the Democrats have created a political racial tribalism that is as bad as that of any third world country.
It’s not Socialism that will send Cortez to Congress. It’s racism.
The 14th district has the second highest share of Latino voters in New York. The 13th has the highest. Before Crowley bit the dust, Rep. Rangel, an elder statesman of the Congressional Black Caucus, barely survived a 2012 challenge by Adriano Espaillat, a Dominican former illegal alien, when his Harlem district’s racial demographics shifted. Frantic efforts were made to dig up Rangel’s “Latino roots.” Rangel finally eked out a victory by a little over 1,000 votes. He didn't show up in 2016. And Espaillat beat Rangel's chosen African-American successor but not after some embarrassing race-baiting by both sides.
Nobody in the 13th or 14th needs Socialism. They’re already living it. Their phones, food, education, medical care, transportation and, their jobs (if they have them) all come from the government.
The 14th dumped the old white guy for the same reason that the 13th dumped the old black guy. They were the wrong color. And the 13th, 14th, and the other multicultural voting districts of Dem strongholds can’t be satisfied with getting their free phones from a political representative of another race.
The media has been marketing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the new Obama. And that’s what she is. Her lesson isn’t that socialism works. The details of her politics were as incidental to the voters of the 14th as Obama’s policies were to his most dedicated base. It’s that racism works. Just ask a Democrat.
I had no idea this bastard was living in Virginia! This has got to stop - Lautenburg lived in Manhattan, representing New Jersey and that felon Corzine is STILL swanning around top restaurants in NYC while claiming to be a Jerseyean.
>>This isn’t the biography of an urban minority politician, but an upscale lefty hipster drifting after college from one activist gig to another, developing the contacts that put her in the right place at the right time. These are the bios of ten thousand professional lefties who infest the non-profit sector. They’re all angry, self-righteous and interchangeable. The minorities among them hail from wealthy areas.
This hit me as spot on. We had a special election last year to fill the seat vacated by Tom Price, Trump’s short term Secretary of HHS. The Republican who ultimately prevailed, Karen Handel, is a woman long on accomplishment and fiscal responsibility. We are lucky to have her in Washington representing us.
Her Democrat opponent, hoisted by a huge war chest raised mostly outside the district driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome, was a guy named Jon Ossoff. He had very little resume outside of government and activism, maybe none. Long on self-righteous for sure.
Greenfield nails it yet again, as he does multiple times each column.
Greenfield nails it again! Share with your Facebook friends.
Ping
Nazis started in Europe. We have them in the U.S. too.
Now, we’re getting the “hopeful” messages of the National Socialist Party of America: NAZA. Not exactly racist, but still very harmful to minorities, including the Hispanics and blacks. They deserve everything coming to them, and it won’t be good. The Puerto Rican hurricane masked the socialist disaster in Puerto Rico, and the election of socialists in America will make things much worse for those who aren’t knowledgeable enough or intelligent enough to know how they’re voting themselves into much bigger misery than the misery which brings about elected officials such as Ocasio-Cortez.
Actually it is not "government money".
It is my money and your money, taken from us and given to the underserving and incompetent. It is economic slavery.
But let's talk about the human toll. I look at my (white) children and my heart breaks knowing all the opportunity denied to them, solely because of the color of their skin, and on top of that their tax dollars will be diverted from things that benefit them and given to those that do not deserve it. Because you know, those people are brown and my children are not.
My children will be less able to earn a decent wage. They will be less able to feed their families. They will be less able to own a home.
And it is all by design.
Affirmative Action is a Hate Crime against every white person in the country. It is a slow motion cultural and economic Holocaust.
Good writing. Billy Jeff got a pass on the women. Hussein got a pass on everything. This looker stiffed her co-workers on the tip money. Do you think that will matter in the overall scheme of things given the media track record? Leave it to Trump to point it out on a future tweet. No one else will.
As far as living in Virginia, what is not stated here, is that Arlington, Virginia, is a suburb of Washington, and that Crowley lives there when Congress is in session.
The vast majority of members of Congress live in the Washington, DC area when Congress is in session.
I’m not sure this is a legitimate criticism of him. It is legitimate if he never went back to visit his congressional district, if that’s the implication.
Good point.
Or if he doesn’t own a home or rent a place in his district.
The parallels in upbringing, schooling (and major) and job path between nobama and Cortez is interesting.
Alex, the clock is ticking. Grab all you can while you can.
NY obviously needs more illegals to help them gain congressional seats and electoral votes like Californica.
A white, Christian, heterosexual male has no future in the United States. A minority with no way to claim victim hood.
Yup. I said this the night she won.
Actually, the current President is changing that scenario.
Basically, the message is to hell with progressives, especially tight assed attitudinal city bitches, and their PC balderdascious drivel.
I’ve heard this is one reason the liberals don’t want the question on the census about citizenship. a lower census count results in less congressional representation.
Make no mistake, Ocuckoo is the Latin klan fully manifested and a thief too boot. Rotten to the core, and driven by ingratitude and envy of her betters.
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