Elite liberal journalist: AOC and I “Have Never Experienced American Prosperity in Our Adult Lives”
Young, successful journalist reflects fondly on her interview with a young, successful first-term socialist Congresswoman on how hard it is to become successful and prosperous in America.
TIME Magazine national correspondent Charlotte Alter wants you to know that she totally digs Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
If you didn’t know it by the magazine cover, you’d know it by reading her April feature piece. If you didn’t know it by the feature piece, you’d know it by the video the magazine published that comes off like an Ellen “sisterhood” segment. And if you didn’t know it by the video, you’d know it by Alter’s nostalgic tweets about her experience interviewing the freshman Congresswoman.
We’ll get to those in a minute.
But first, the article itself. Alter paints Ocasio-Cortez not as a woman of the moment, but as a visionary, a one-woman-show walking against the wind:
That’s because Ocasio-Cortez threatens the status quo, bringing a youthful impatience to a set of policies popularized by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign, like Medicare for All and tuition-free public college. Like Sanders, she seems more concerned with movements than elections; she doesn’t talk about flipping seats and votes, but rather of winning hearts and minds. Hers is the politics of the possible, not the practical. “By the time legislation actually gets through, it is five years from now,” she says. “So everything we introduce needs to have 2025 or our kids in mind.” She’s not thinking about how to keep the Democratic majority for another two years; she’s thinking about how to define the agenda for the next two decades.
We also learn some about Ocasio-Cortez’s early years and of the way things were economically in the 1990s and beyond:
Ocasio-Cortez was born in 1989, a few weeks before the Berlin Wall fell. George H.W. Bush was in his first year as President, Nancy Pelosi had just gotten to Congress, Sanders had already lost two Senate races, and Joe Biden had just bungled his first presidential bid. She was in elementary school during the financial prosperity of the 1990s, eating Dunkaroos while grownups clucked on television about Bill Clinton balancing the budget. “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity,” she says. “I have never seen that, or experienced it, really, in my adult life.”
This statement resonated with journalist Alter, as she noted in an addendum on her Twitter page:
https://twitter.com/CharlotteAlter/status/1108699246088409088
Twitter users immediately took issue with this statement, and for good reason:
Many critics have pointed out that Alter is a Harvard graduate and the daughter of former longtime Newsweek editor and New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Alter and former executive producer of “The Colbert Report,” Emily Lazar.
Oh lawd, grievance-monger. You've "never experienced American prosperity?" Your parents are Harvard-educated lib media/entertainment elites. Your sister is a venture capitalist. Your brother works for HBO Sports. You bloviate for Time mag & host a Sirius radio show. Poor you! https://t.co/mPhPgRSj03
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) March 21, 2019
https://twitter.com/Communism_Kills/status/1108853444809502720
Alter tried to clarify later that she wasn’t talking about her own experiences specifically, but no one was buying it—not from her, and not from Ocasio-Cortez:
Right on.
Should I, like tweet about socialism— or take another selfie for my insta?
Ugh America is so broken right now!
Here’s the kicker- #firstworldproblems Are evidence of prosperity.
The state can’t give you meaning, kiddo, you gotta find it for yourself
— Erasmus (@SuperErasmus) March 22, 2019
Born around the same time, and I have to disagree. Came to US as an immigrant with nothing and no asylum assistance. Have witnessed abundant prosperity and opportunities in this country. Worked hard in the lows and enjoyed the highs.
— Kostia M (@iamkostmos) March 22, 2019
There were many more responses like that, all with similar sentiments: It’s because both Alter and Ocasio-Cortez both live in a country with so many freedoms, one that is so rich with opportunity that both of their families were prosperous. Their parents were able to live the American dream and provide for both of them. And when they grew up, worked their own jobs while striving to aim higher, they respectively became a successful journalist and a Congresswoman.
But if they lived in socialistic countries, things would be much different. Dark and uncertain. We’re seeing that play out in real time every day in Venezuela, where conditions are appalling, the opportunities are few, and the future looks hopeless.
If only Alter and Ocasio-Cortez could see the irony in tweets like these:
https://twitter.com/CharlotteAlter/status/1108847165676445698
The date on the front page of the magazine where Alter’s piece on Ocasio-Cortez is featured is April 1st – also known as April Fool’s Day.
How fitting.
–Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter.–
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Maybe they should try developing good education and work ethics.
Ocasio-Cortez was born in 1989, a few weeks before the Berlin Wall fell.
************************
funny, I was in germany until just a few weeks before it fell
My girlfriend then, now my wife, and I were in high school in Germany when the wall went up.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Politics of a $3,000 Suit
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/nyregion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-outfit-designer-criticism.html
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez certainly is enjoying prosperity now as a member of Congress, and if the tradition of the Congress holds, she’ll enjoy ever-increasing prosperity and an increasing financial portfolio the longer she’s there.
Members of congress have enjoyed the right to make money via insider trading for some time. Someone can give them a tip about a company pending rise or fall, and they can then use that information to profit.
There was an effort to close that loophole a few years ago, but they voted to keep that loophole solely for themselves.
It’s amazing to watch so many people so obtuse.
Aside from the matter that socialism does not leave people better off.
I guess if you can dupe on Russia, socialism, which sounds like pie in the sky, is easy.
I’m guessing that Ms Alter has never seen the dorms at Boston University.
Of course you haven’t my little Socialist. You lived under the rule of your deity Barack Obama. Prosperity and his Socalism were incompatible.
This is simply more BS to attempt to salvage the AOC “image”, as a long suffering, woman from lower class roots. When, in fact, AOC is a privileged, relatively rich girl, from upper class parents, who was cast for the role she now has. Unfortunately, she lacks the experience to carry of that role. She has no acting ability and no experience in politics. And, her writers are terrible.
AOC was cast as a contender for Congress by a radical leftist political machine. She was financed, possibly illegally, by that machine. She was handled just like a Hollywood actress, by the machine. And, she was publicized by the machine. Unfortunately, the image provided for her is cracking and collapsing. So, the machine gets Time to do a flack piece on her. Unfortunately, even that is ludicrous.
If this woman was not in a position of power and prestige, in the government of the United States of America, this would be laughable. Instead, it is troubling.
Same idiots that support AOC see Beto as a savior and it is disgusting
Those two will destroy America if given anymore power.
And the total idiots who listen to these morons
Clearly, it should be harder to be successful in the US than it is currently because people as dumb as AOC shouldn’t be in Congress, and definitely shouldn’t be trying to write laws.
“America’s lightening rod?” More like, “America’s Nimrod.”
She’s such a contrivance and moron. Surprising that all five readers of Time magazine don’t see through it.
Does her photo look retouched like something out of the Soviet Union, or what?
Everyone: don’t forget to renew your subscription to Time Magazine!
Better headline: “THE PHRAUD”
Dear Mr. Fine, since aoc, the author of the article and you have mentioned her photo, her photo journalist and her “skin tone,” My first impression was that aoc’s make-up, air brushing and color-enhancing were Oscar-worthy. My second impression was that they would have to hire someone with a jackhammer to remove it. More of the lefty, snowflake’s first-world problems.
Notice, if you will, the “skin tone” of the part in her hair. It is white, as opposed to the absolutely uniform color of her face and ears.
Google early Soviet pictures of Leoniod Brezhnev.
Cortez’s photo is at least better than the grotesque official photos of those two obama idiots.
Typical of the voiced fantasy of liberals. They make a up reality and then try to convince others. In their fabrications they are always the heroic victim.
“In their fabrications they are always the heroic victim.”
Heh.
AOC danced and drank her way through Boston College at over $50,000 tuition (before room, board and books). Somebody paid that $250,000. Her mom didn’t make a lot but she paid enough taxes to ditch New York and head to Florida avoiding outlandish taxes paying for Socialist Democrat reforms already in place in NY.
.
In other words, AOC’s parents may not have been wealthy but somehow she came away with a $250,000 education, in Economics of all things, that qualified her to serve coffee and beer.
She’s a complete contrivance. It’s so bad, it’s that hard to believe.
But see for yourself:
The Brains Behind Alaxandra Cortez:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h5iv6sECGU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-3_FGyhg4k
I read that she got a full ride scholarship, partially due to her “science” background in high school (I wonder who did her projects “with” her….?) but decided to major in ECON and International Affairs (laughable, I know!).
I don’t know this, but I am pretty sure she would have been favored due to her ethnicity, due to the desire for universities to scoop up minorities, especially ones who plan to major in STEM.
Full ride…… Sounds about right for someone who “never prospered” or experienced success in the USA. /sarc #EntitlementMentality #Ingrate #BrainwashedLemming
Isn’t it more a pamphlet now than a magazine? I see their future as 2 articles and 36 pages of pharmaceutical disclosure and warnings ads.
Perhaps they aren’t seeing prosperity because of the massive $$ outlay for PR (public relations, not Puerto Rico).
Both Charlotte Alter and Alexandria Occasionaly-Coherent sadden me with their lack of perspective.
My father was a WWII vet and, along with my mother, a survivor of the Great Depression. Mom, the eldest of her siblings, dropped out of school in 6th grade to care for her brothers and sisters because her mother (my maternal grandmother) was sent to the state sanatorium with tuberculosis.
Mom and Dad were married in the chapel at the state sanatorium because mom herself was eventually diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Their first home (the house I was born into) had running water in the kitchen but for toilet facilities, there was a path out the back door to the “one-hole privy”.
I can’t tell you how many evening meals I had in which the center of the table held only a single sauce pan and I licked my lips in anticipation of finding whether the contents were oats or rice. As far as the meal went, that was it: That. Was. It.
But, hey, AOC – you and your ilk – Oh! Foolish me; I think I’ve seen prosperity since then! Beto – you and your ilk – forgive me! I’m white and therefore I’ve benefited from White Privilege!
Where do I send my reparations check?
My family too had great challenges. I am in awe of what they were able to do, yet saddened that we allow these assholes to disparage them with their “white privilege” BS.
My hope is that, as the in all things, they push this too far.
The West is ripe for Russia and China to destroy it, they are waiting for the end of Trump. I don’t think we will see his like again, before it maybe is too late
Winter is coming…
All these wannabe socialists should move to Venezuela and help make that country a workers paradise. After they have made socialism work in Venezuela they can come back and show us how to do it.
Anyone notice the release date on that Time cover?
April 1, 2019
epic troll
The contemporary Dumb-o-crat/Dhimmi-crat ethos of Leftists, distilled — ignorance, entitlement, pathological narcissism and an ingrate’s utter lack of appreciation for Liberty’s and the free market’s blessings and bounty, all while they enjoy unimaginable comforts, freedoms and prosperity, daily.
Stop giving them any clicks
Ocrazio who uses the word “racist” so frequently towards any sane person who questions her insane ideas, is, along with her supporters,the true racists. If anyone wants to know the genuine racism, and hostility towards whites,especially white males, and people older than age 50,they should read the more than 200 comments in the NY Times news story on Ocrazio winning the Democrat primary (with less than 10% of registered voters voting). Just about 100% percent expressed joy that a white male in his mid 50s was going to be replaced by Ocrazio. The genuine racism, sexism, and ageism was appalling.
Mr. Jimi, you and others are quite correct. I recall telling some friends decades ago that the only endangered species in America was white, Christian men with jobs and families and that were actual citizens.
The attitudes of some of these Millennial and Generation Z ingrates reinforces the fact that it is, in fact, Americans who have actually lived under the bootheel of communist and Islamic totalitarianism (and, their descendants) who often are the most appreciative of the U.S.’s freedoms and the blessings of peace, liberty and prosperity. They and those armed forces servicemembers and veterans who have sacrificed to protect our country and our freedoms.
Occasional-Cortez epitomizes the utter stupidity, ingratitude, lack of self-awareness and total absence of historical/socioeconomic perspective of many of today’s young adults, who think that they know what oppression and deprivation are, when, in actuality, they are coddled, self-entitled and utterly spoiled brats.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/realestate/first-time-home-buyers-statistics.html
Median age of first time home buyers is 32. She Guevara isn’t 32 yet.
No one said it yet: Dumb and Dumber.
“She Guevara”
Todays internet winner.
These millennial children in adult bodies remind me of OWS – middle-class kids with designer clothes, laptops, smartphones, and $5 coffees camping out in Zuccotti Park to protest . . . something. They were eating catered meals of smoked salmon and porcini mushrooms. Then some of NYC’s hardcore homeless decided to join the party and the kids ran back home.
Here are the results of liberal parenting. Proof that disciplining errant kids does have future benefit as they mature.
These spoiled, histrionic children want to destroy a system that they don’t understand and replace it with a system that is a well-understood humanitarian disaster.
“Youthful impatience” equals “youthful ignorance” in this article.
Two sad, yet representative, twenty nothings lamenting about how “poor” and “deprived” they are.
Give me a flipping break, will you? Who swallows this BS?
An appropriate cover for the April Fool’s Day edition of Time.
Young socialists don’t recognize prosperity for the same reason fish don’t recognize that they’re wet.