Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wants her fellow progressives to receive amnesty for the insane policies and rhetoric they promoted during the 2020 pandemic because she knows those positions are anchors that will be hung around their necks in future elections.Ocasio-Cortez made these comments while defending Francesca Hong, the socialist state representative who is about to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin. In 2020 and 2021, Hong loudly and proudly declared her support for abolishing prisons and policing, positions she claims she no longer supports. According to Ocasio-Cortez, “During this time and especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window” and “Of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.”
That’s not a good excuse. Calling for the abolition of prisons or policing is delusional, no matter whether there is a global pandemic or not. Calling for abolishing prisons, in particular, should be disqualifying for anyone to hold any elected office. Hong was 31 years old in 2020, which is old enough to know that advocating prison abolition is a moronic decision by about 25 years.Hong’s radical comments were not limited to supporting letting all criminals roam free or abolishing the police, either. She dove heavily into racism, claiming that her half-white son’s whiteness made her uncomfortable and that the United States exists thanks to its “toxic white supremacy culture.” If Hong was simply a dumb college student during the pandemic, you could maybe give her a pass. In 2020, she was a 31-year-old woman running for political office. She doesn’t get a do-over just because it was a “crazy” time.
