New Litmus Test: AOC or MTG? AOC Says MTG a "Proven Bigot" We Should Not Trust. Same Should Go for Tucker Carlson and his ilk. Being Anti-Israeli Does Not Automatically Make Someone An "Ally".

Major Fail for Ryan Grim, Sabby Sabs, Cenk Uygur, Peter Daou, and Susan Abulhawa.

AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic member of the House of Representatives, NY-14) spoke with former Clinton aide David Axelrod at University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics this past week.

You can see the video here.

During the Q&A segment, she was asked by an audience member whether she stood by her 2021 comment to Chris Hayes on MSNBC (see video below) about there being “legitimate white supremacist sympathizers that sit at the heart and at the core of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives":

in contrast to “working across the aisle”, as she had with Republican Tim Burchett on insider trading in Congress:

“We gotta ban insider trading in Congress. I care about results.

Now there are certain places where, certain areas, where I don’t think that we should ignore some folks record on some of these issues. Right? But where we trust intent, where we trust where those outcomes are going.

I personally do not trust someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a proven bigot and antisemite, on the issues of what is good for Gazans and Israelis. I don’t. I don’t think that it benefits our movement, in that instance, to align the left with white nationalists, I don’t think it serves us.

And so I think it’s about looking at the context, the place, the results, the outcomes, the intentions, and where we think that train would go…”

The headline that came out of that was this:

The Hill: Ocasio-Cortez warns against associating with Greene, calling her a ‘proven bigot’

There has been much discussion in recent times about working with right-wingers like Marjorie Taylor Greene (former member of the House, known as MTG), Rand Paul, Tucker Carlson, and Thomas Massie.

Indeed, The Hill article quotes Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna as welcoming right-wing support for good bipartisan causes.

In recent months, all manner of right-wing and right-wing-adjacent cretins have emerged from the swamp to declare their support for Gaza, and their hatred for the IDF. Candace Owens, Scott Ritter, Jackson Hinkle, Alex Jones, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Jimmy Dore, Hasan Piker, Caitlin Johnstone, Megyn Kelly, TYT’s Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur, and George Galloway are just a few. Many have quickly pivoted to criticizing the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Israel’s renewed attacks on Lebanon as well.

Ben Shapiro, Laura Loomer, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity have been left out of the fun because they support Israel. Although Hannity is not Jewish, he recently renounced his Catholicism to protest Pope Leo’s “wokeness”, so he may be shopping for a new faith (which for some doubles as an ethnicity and a political agenda)

It has been a real question whether we should work with these people or not.

The answer is no, we should not work with them.

Ryan Grim would disagree. So would Sabby Sabs, Cenk Uygur, Peter Daou, and Susan Abulhawa.

But in a Litmus Test between AOC and MTG… C’mon. No contest. Not even close. Anyone who picks MTG in this fight is a bonehead.

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There have been countless times in the past little bit where we have been asked to welcome the support of someone reprehensible and forgive their past errors, simply because they’ve finally turned on Trump, or they condemn Israel’s genocide in Gaza, or they’ve called for the release of the Epstein files.

Joe Rogan has been hailed for his condemnation of ICE violence. On budget matters, the release of the Epstein files, and opposition to forever wars, several right-wingers have been offered to us, reformed, polished, ready to be forgiven and embraced.

Especially Tucker, Candace Owens, and MTG.

My argument is that their “gift” is a Trojan Horse, which seems harmless or even beneficial, so much so that we let our guard down and accept the gift… only to be overwhelmed by the lethal “gift” hidden within once we’ve opened the gates and allowed the Trojan Horse to be brought inside.

From their association with us, they get “Whitewashing” and “Sanewashing”, and they begin the process of “normalizing” extremism, which is akin to rewriting history and denialism. These are sometimes well-intentioned approaches that ultimately prove to be harmful. From our alliance with them, we are sullied by our association with unsavory types and reactionaries. If Tucker and MTG can get us to accept them as “reasonable voices” on forever wars, Gaza, and Iran, what’s to stop them from trying to get is to accept The Great Replacement Theory or The “Jewish Space Lasers” Theory of Weather Modification and Fire Control?

But there’s a fundamental difference our side being against the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran and their side being anti-Zionist, anti-Israeli, and ultimately, anti-Jewish. Both sides in this debate would theoretically be opposed to further U.S. military aid for the war in Gaza, but for very different reasons.

It is startling to hear Rand Paul, MTG, or Tucker Carlson say something we agree with. Perhaps it is natural for us to want to welcome them aboard, now that they’ve seen the light.

Yet AOC touches on something in her Chicago remarks, something about “trust”. We’ve seen these people say crazy things in the past, can we trust them to work with us on the future? Who’s to say they won’t change their position entirely if the winds of changes suddenly shift? These folks belong to the “Show me which way the crowd is going so I can lead it” crowd.

A “Red-Brown” alliance between the far-left and far-right (AKA Horseshoe Theory) would be a disaster. Both sides could oppose the U.S. and Israel on many issues, but some people on their side are aligned with Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah.

On specific issues, sure, we can work with these people to get things done, things like global warming and ending the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, and Sudan, but always remembering and denouncing their past errors and ever mindful of slippage.

The only way a former right-winger could be truly accepted again would be for them to completely denounce ALL of their previous fucked-up beliefs, and furthermore, actually FOLLOW THROUGH and, as AOC says, show “results” over the long term. So not just talk and rhetoric, but also concrete actions and results. As AOC puts it, “It’s about looking at the context, the place, the results, the outcomes, the intentions, and where we think that train would go…” (She had begun with a metaphor about two trains on tracks going in different directions, one to Auschwitz and the other to The Future).

Among the first to attempt to “normalize” MTG were the so-called leftists from Code Pink, who are often reactionary and right-wing-adjacent, as well as being completely uncritical of the Chinese government since receiving millions from Chinese government ally Roy Singham (who is married to Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, although he lives in China and she lives in Los Angeles).

Code Pink’s other co-founder, Medea Benjamin, put it this way:

Which led to….

and

and, in 2025, a fond farewell…

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Finally, let’s always recall that one of our most powerful weapons in the arsenal against fascists is humor. Make them look ridiculous and they are defanged and can be easily defeated. The Emperor is naked. It takes a child to say so…

and then there’s self-parody…

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