The Tennessee state legislature sent shockwaves throughout the nation when they voted to remove two members of their own body. Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives for a serious breach of decorum when they led protestors who stormed the floor of the Tennessee statehouse to push for gun control. A third representative was spared from expulsion after she, unlike her two colleagues, apologized for her participation in the unlawful demonstration.
The left has drawn considerable attention to this debacle, as they do any time Republican state legislatures show any backbone. Socialist star of the left Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pined on social media that, “Republicans may think they won today in Tennessee, but their fascism is only further radicalizing and awakening an earthquake of young people, both in the South and across the nation.” AOC’s ugly insults may be par for the course with the radical left these days, but terms like “fascism” and “socialism” need to be explained to a generation whose education in history has been questionable at best.
Fascist regimes like Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy did not rise with the conservative action of state legislators like what we saw in Tennessee. Historically, fascists rise to power by relying on rebellious young people to intimidate their opposition and disrupt proceedings that are harmful to their cause. Hitler’s blackshirts and Mussolini’s brownshirts are both prime examples of this. While I am hesitant to lump any contemporary American political faction in with Adolf Hitler, AOC’s casual willingness to do just that shows a complete disregard for history.
That same disregard for history is probably what makes AOC such a strong proponent of the failed system known as socialism. Socialism is not a path to economic equality, it is a path to allowing the government to pick who is worthy to have less and who is worthy to have more. Favor with the powers that be replace individual merit as the metric for success. Young people who would fall for the false promises of socialism need a history lesson, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has proven that she is not the one to give such a lesson.
