If we borrowed a characterization from AOC’s friend Ilhan Omar, we’d have to say that on January 6 at the Capitol “some people did something.” They did, too, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s telling of her experience that day is something else. The New York Democrat has maintained that although she wasn’t even in the Capitol building when protesters breached it, she nonetheless believed the grim reaper was nigh — and now she’s doubling down on her claim.
The Daily Mail summarizes the story, writing:
- AOC … accuses skeptics of ‘minimizing the experiences of survivors’….
- Ocasio-Cortez spoke out again in [an] interview on Friday morning
- She pushed back at critics who said she exaggerated her account of [the] MAGA riot
- ‘The account is accurate,’ she said….
- AOC drew skepticism with an Instagram Live video Monday detailing her ordeal
- She feared death when someone pounded on her door, but it was a Capitol cop
- Republican Congresswoman pointed out no rioters breached their hallway
- AOC gave a floor speech on Thursday devoted to her experience in the [incident]
If you’re interested in hearing Ocasio-Cortez’s initial account of the event, part of her Instagram video follows.
As already mentioned, however, the congresswoman wasn’t in the Capitol building when “some people did something.” Rather, she was in a structure known as the Longworth office building. It remained wholly unmolested, too, as Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) confirmed when tweeting, “My office is 2 doors down. Insurrectionists never stormed our hallway.”
(Note: Calling the “did-somethingers” “insurrectionists” isn’t accurate.)
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Journalist Jack Posobiec illustrated Ocasio-Cortez’s actual situation during the some-people-did-something event (SPDSe), tweeting the map below. Note that Representative Katie Porter’s office is in the Longworth as well.
Ocasio-Cortez also implied when telling her SPDSe story that the Capitol police officer who came to her building was a white supremacist, saying he had “anger and hostility in his eyes.”
Additionally, the 31-year-old lawmaker became emotional in her Instagram video, “revealing that she was a sexual assault survivor, which caused her to ‘struggle with the idea of being believed,’” reported the New York Post last Thursday. (Actually, it’s being a politician and, in particular, AOC, that should make her struggle with the idea of being believed.)
Ocasio-Cortez was believed even less after the Posobiec tweet, too, with “the hashtags #AOClied and #AlexandriaOcasioSmollett vaulted to the top trends in the US, an apparent comparison to actor Jussie Smollett, who falsely claimed to be the victim of a hate crime,” the Post also informs.
The congresswoman’s response, however, has, again, been to double down on her claims. She did this on CBS This Morning on Friday (video below).
While Ocasio-Cortez said above that doubting her constitutes “minimizing the experiences of survivors,” in reality, it’s exaggerating a bad event’s magnitude that does so.
I’ll point out here that my father was a prisoner of war in Germany during WWII, having been captured in battle. Among other things, he’d seen a buddy’s head blown open by mortar shrapnel in the field. Yet he never was, or would have considered being, 1/10th as dramatic about his experiences as Ocasio-Cortez is about her SPDSe.
This said, I may surprise you: It’s entirely possible that the congresswoman is being honest about how she perceived things — that is to say, not clearly. Let me tell you a story.
Many years ago I attended a feminist event in my area, and during the question-and-answer segment I stood up and refuted claims that had been made. This inspired some of its organizers to approach me afterwards. Arrows shooting from their eyes belying their façade of civility, they asked me if I was with an organization (I wasn’t, but my informed exposition made them suspicious). Quickly thereafter trying to beg out of the conversation, as debate wasn’t getting them far, they offered to send me some literature about their “cause.”
I politely accepted and then quipped quite comedically that I’d provide my address “as long as you don’t send a hit squad to my house.” Well, taking me entirely seriously, they sternly replied, “We don’t do things like that!” The point?
Leftists are defined by dislocation from reality. I’ve seen many examples of it. But the bottom line is that while Ocasio-Cortez is dishonest, perhaps more significant is that as with all leftists, she’s dishonest with herself.
Leftists live in a world of rationalization. A rationalization, of course, is when you lie to yourself, bend reality for yourself. Yet when this becomes habitual and self-deceivers bend reality for themselves repeatedly, year after year, they begin falling out of touch with reality. At this point, they often can’t find it even when they want to. Some people call this being crazy.
This not only explains why leftists can embrace lunacy, but why they may wrongly believe their opponents are lunatics — to be feared.
Don’t misunderstand me. I realize that many liberal politicians embrace fashionable insanity as a power-seeking pose (e.g., Bill Clinton). Yet others fit the mold above. Remember that man’s nature is complex; not everyone with the same professed agenda has the same motivations. Moreover, a given person can have multiple motivations, caring, for example, about both power and platform, though usually prioritizing one over the other.
Note also that this self-deception-induced dislocation from reality and devotion to an ideology can actually make a leader more dangerous. Consider: Would you rather have a gun held on you by a relatively rational person who just wanted to exercise power over you or by someone absolutely terrified of you?
A power-oriented leader may leave you be as long as you don’t threaten his power. One considering you a threat, however, as dictated by an ideology (e.g., “white privilege” theory) and viscerally afraid of you, may seek your elimination no matter what you do. As the saying goes, “A person capable of deceiving only others is not nearly as dangerous as a person capable of deceiving himself.”
And as to my analogy, since powerful government officials essentially hold a really big gun on us, we ought to take this matter very seriously.
