At this point, it’s common knowledge that Fox News is obsessed with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Hosts on the network love to be outraged by her ~radical~ platform and gross insubordination. Today, Media Matters for America noticed that a guest on Fox Business had some extremely interesting thoughts about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her democratic socialist ideals.
Fox Business host Stuart Varney had University of Maryland economist and frequent Fox guest Peter Morici on to rip apart AOC’s proposal for a Green New Deal.
After several minutes of Morici’s bloviating on the sheer impossibility of transitioning to a green economy, he pulled out the big guns.
This is the party, not to change the subject, that wants to tell us a 40th week abortion is not infanticide, but rather just choice. This is a party that no longer believes in core American values. And it also shows us what’s going on with immigration. Basically what you have in Ocasio-Cortez are Latin American values. Instead of us assimilating them, they are assimilating us. And they want to bring the kind of socialism that destroyed Venezuela, and frankly Mexico, here. You know, it isn’t that we’re going to become Venezuela, but we could easily become Mexico, and you won’t be able to go outside your door without getting shot. And if you say, “Hey Peter, boy aren’t you really going over the top,” think about what the last eight or ten years have been like in Chicago.
A lot going on there!
First, Morici references the recent attempt of Democrats in Virginia to pass a bill easing the restrictions on late term abortions for women whose fetuses are unviable. We wrote about that here. Suffice it to say, the bill does not allow infanticide or anything of the kind.
Then we get to “Latin American values.” Morici begins by noting that the American-born Ocasio-Cortez is, somehow, “what’s going on with immigration.”
He then manages to pivot to discussing Venezuela, a favorite right wing talking point for fear-mongering on the dangers of socialism. This is actually pretty clever—you see, it’s not Ocasio-Cortez’s ethnicity or background that’s bringing in “Latin American values,” it’s that she agrees with the policy of Latin American leaders like Nicolás Maduro!
Of course, we all know that Morici’s references to “Latin American values” and “assimilation” in this context are a dog whistles for Ocasio-Cortez herself, who is, lest you forget, Puerto Rican.
Then, just to round out this right wing scare tactic bingo, Morici closes out have a nod to the gun violence in Chicago that so terrifies the Republican Party.
So, to summarize: the Green New Deal is a terrible idea because it’s unrealistic, and Ocasio-Cortez supports it because she is “assimilating us” (despite her literal birth in the U.S. and roots in a U.S. territory). AND, if we were to submit to her “Latin American values,” the U.S. could end up like Mexico, or worse, Venezuela.
Very cool!!!