AOC: Oh look, someone took a photo of what my life is like debating Republicans in committee each wk

[PandoraAwakened]

135. What You Need to Understand About AOC Bashers

You are, of course, correct jaxexpat. However, you're trying to apply a logical premise to answer an emotional bias held by certain posters here, a bias that clouds their judgment such that they cannot even understand the words you've written.

If you find the snarky attitude repeatedly exhibited here toward AOC a tad confounding---on a site that professes a policy of not bashing fellow Democrats---let me help cut through the fog of inconsistency. It's not terribly complex, really, because it comes down to one simple but sad human emotion: JEALOUSY---in this case, a nuanced version best described as "generational jealousy."

Yes, I said it. I went there. Cat's out of the bag now. It's nothing more than petty, generational jealousy. (Cue AOC haters clutching pearls in "righteous indignation"...gasp!)

Anyone who has read posts here for at least the past couple years knows that it's always the same small group of self-proclaimed "elders" who get on their hypocritical high horses whenever someone dares to speak of AOC...Oh, the horror, Bertha bolt the door!

For these folks, like a true zombie-eyed Fox auduence, you might as well replace "AOC" with "BOO!" However, what gives away the exact nature of their opposition to AOC as being nothing more than generational jealousy is that they inevitably proffer "age and wisdom" arguments as somehow dispositive.

If you're not sure what I mean by this, think back to the Vietnam War when "age" and "wisdom" were the most commonly cited arguments amongst the elderly against "those damn hippies" who were burning their draft cards and marching in the streets by the thousands. These arguments by older, supposedly "wiser" persons proved to NOT be dispositive in any way to the moral injustice of that illegally propagated war. In other words, that bucket held no water.

Now, reasonable people might ask why in the world old folks who are self-proclaimed Democrats would be so jealous of this person, a duly-elected Democratic member of Congress? Well, it's quite simple, really:

They're jealous that a young woman of color is able to speak to and influence HER OWN GENERATION, including young, white people, in a way that they themselves were personally never able to achieve.

They're jealous that she is able to do this with her generation much more effectively than any of these social justice warriors were ever able to do themselves in 40, 50, 60 years of trying to have an impact on their own Silent Generation.

To the elderly who feel compelled to focus their generational jealousy on AOC, I say the following:

Thank you for your service if you protested Nixon and the Vietnam War. In particular, thank you for not listening to the elders of that time with their bullshit "age and wisdom" arguments.

Thank you if you marched for Equal Rights---even if you ultimately dropped the ball by only mustering to the polls 30% to 40% of voters at any given time and thereby failing to consistently elect legislators and jurists that would actually UPHOLD the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 1968, 1974, & 1988.

Thank you for this patchwork tapestry of legislation---even though you never quite finished the job by getting an Equal Rights Amendment enshrined in the Constitution---you know, an actual solution that wouldn't have left everyone constantly twisting in the wind at the whims of right-wing, nutjob politicians & judges with their systemic mysogyny, homophobia, racism, and xenophobia.

Thank you to the far fewer number of you who spoke out against the Reagan and Bush era atrocities---protestations that, unfortunately, weren't loud enough or effective enough to prevent millions of people from being murdered.

And finally, thank you to the teeny, weeny, tiny number of you who had the courage and the brains to speak up 30 years ago in the name of science about the climate change perils ahead---at a time when it was up to your generation, the ones in power, to implement mitigation measures...yet didn't...and now it is likely too late.

Thank you for all of this and more. We recognize it has been a sincere and heartfelt, albeit imperfect and often ineffective, effort on your part.

Now, it's your turn to recognize and accept that others younger than you have picked up the mantle where you dropped it. It is not your place to shit on those efforts, particularly when most plans center on either fixing what your generation broke or finishing what your generation was incapable of completing.

Time to give up the jealousy ghost. You know, I know, and everyone else knows that it has nothing to do with AOC herself. If not her, it would be some other young nail you'd pound that same old, tired hammer on. So, just let it go. You've given up on other causes many times...trust me, you can just as easily turn away from your jealous AOC bashing.

Once the green dust clears, you'll be amazed at all the things that make so much more sense to you...like why the cartoon of this OP is so hilarious and why jaxexpat's logical words ring so true. See? Simple.