Now if he’d only get an adult haircut.
The modern GOP seems to think that “slicked back mobster hair from Goodfellas” is a good look.
We are all Gordon Gecko now.
Anything that covers his face will be an improvement.
Recently had a discussion about whether or not Yglesias is an idiot.
I present exhibit 8,003,432.
This woman has literally never held elected office, at all, but we should totally change the constitution so that she can become President of the United States.
One of the awesome “arguments” for why she should be president? That she has a cool nickname. This is literally a thing he says.
One good sign that AOC should run for president is that she has a nickname — AOC.
A House Democratic staffer told me the other day that “ACO” was a good example of something, and I knew exactly who she meant despite the error because there aren’t any other members of Congress who have widely recognized nicknames that you would just drop into casual conversation.
Is having a nickname a sign that you would exercise good judgment in the Oval Office? Absolutely not. But it’s proof positive that she’s an honest-to-goodness political superstar, and it’s clear that’s what many Democrats are looking for in 2020.
On some level, this article is so profoundly dumb that I feel like it’s got to be satire… and yet, I don’t actually think it is. It appears to be totally real.
Dude, the section about her nickname is clearly tongue-in-cheek. You’re misunderstanding Matt’s audience and his tone, which yeah can make him look ridiculous if you assume he’s writing it straight. But “she’s an honest-to-goodness political superstar, and it’s clear that’s what many Democrats are looking for in 2020.” And “Beto O’Rourke, a similarly experience-light candidate whom many Democratic operatives are pushing in a quest to capture some Bright Young Thing magic.” Do those sound like endorsements to you? He often writes in this kind of half-serious/half-trolling tone. Read his endorsement of Martin O’Malley in 2016 to get a similar troll/serious flavor. It’s just how he writes–he makes serious points while also softly poking at liberal shibboleths or conventional political wisdom.
His case is that anyone who can run should be able to, and let the primary season sort it out. Arbitrary barriers like age and where you were born are unnecessary. It’s a good point.
That worked out great for the republicans. :)
Indeed, that’s part of his point:
While the law prevents anyone under the age of 35 from becoming president, we currently have a septuagenarian in the White House whose frequent nonsensical diatribes and notoriously scattered Twitter outbursts repeatedly raise the prospect of mental decline.
Is it? Is it all just satire then? Because, as I said in my post, it was so profoundly dumb that it seemed like it MUST be satire… but it doesn’t seem to be. It seems like he’s actually saying we should change the constitution, specifically for Cortez.
I don’t know? Yeah? Is he endorsing Cortez? Is he making a joke about how it’s absurd to endorse her?
I’m not seeing what the hidden meaning is, so yeah, all I’m left with is what he’s actually saying. And it’s dumb.
Normally I can tell when someone is saying something that’s intentionally dumb, as satire… but this doesn’t seem like that. I’m willing to admit that my satire-senses may be damaged given how every day’s actual events are effectively satire these days.
If he’s just joking, what’s the actual point?
No, he’s softly poking fun at this “cult of the new” in certain Democratic constituencies. At the same time he’s trying to capture what’s appealing about her to many Democrats:
she captures what’s appealing about Bernie Sanders — independence from ossified Democratic Party leadership and a keen back-to-basics grasp of the basic people-versus-powerful stakes of political conflict — while also being dramatically more fluent in contemporary progressive discourse around race and gender in a way that makes her appealing to a much broader swath of Democrats.
Immigrants, young people, and everyone else should be allowed to run.
So, then, not so stupid.
No… It seems like it’s still really stupid. It’s just that Matt is trying to say he’s just joking… But that he simultaneously is serious.
Like, that it’s just a joke to be totally infatuated with Cortez… But at the same time, we should change the Constitution, so that she can be President… Despite her complete lack of qualifications to hold that office.
So… Yeah? That still sounds really dumb?
If it were just pure satire, then it’d be fine… But it’s not. It’s suggesting that we make a constitutional change, so that she can run for president.
…or so people like her, not necessarily her can run for President.
I’ll help you ouit (and I haven’t even read the original article):
Serious part: We should change the Constitution to allow naturalized and perhaps younger citizens to serve as President
Joke part: The reason we should do this is that everyone is so infatuated with Ocasio-Cortez.
In other words, people’s infatuation with Ocasio-Cortez is ridiculous, but it brings up the valid point that some of the restrictions on holding the office of President are anachronisms
See, here’s the problem with this though…
Other than one throwaway section saying , “also Schwarzenegger”, the whole article is about Cortez.
Soo… If all that stuff about Cortez is just satire, then what’s the actual argument in favor of changing the Constitution?
The entire argument being made by Yglesias, is that Cortez is awesome. Like, that’s really the entire article. If you remove it or dismiss it as satire meant to lighten the mood… Then there’s nothing left in the article.
I don’t think you can just handwave away the stuff about Cortez when it’s the vast majority of the article.
I actually believe in the “35 years old +” qualifier. Even more nowadays. Naturalized, I’d have to think about, though I’d probably be ok with it (but probably qualified by a citizenship + residency requirement on the order of 10 years at least.
AOC’s response, FWIW:
“How about… no,” she wrote. “Sometimes political media is too fixated on personalities instead of policies. The whole country JUST went through an exhausting midterm election. We need a break.
“Can we instead talk about healthcare, a living wage, legalizing cannabis, GND [Green New Deal], & other issues?”
Leftist radical! Someone find a Sensible Moderate, for God’s sake!
I’m curious why. MLK Jr. was 34 when he was the voice of the Birmingham boycott, when he wrote “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, when he gave the “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington. Cesar Chavez was 34 when he started the UFW with Dolores Huerta. Forbes publishes multiple lists, every year, of under-30s who are already vastly more impressive than I will ever be.
35 is totally arbitrary. It would be more rational to require a college degree, but we don’t (and probably will never, for good reasons) do that. 35 is even less sensical than term limits. Let the voters decide.
With experience comes wisdom (for most). Being good at organizing doesn’t necessarily mean one is ready to preside over the richest and most powerful country in the world. It also is something of a check on demagogues.