Share
Commentary

AOC Says Republicans Passed Term Limits To Keep a Dead President from Running Again

Share

“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” Ronald Reagan was being generous when he said that in 1964 — but then again, he never met Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

While the “Democratic socialist” young representative from New York has been hailed as the new face of the left, she’s instead causing endless face-palms. The 29-year-old seems to make a new gaffe every other day, yet liberals continue to defend her.

Her latest foot-in-mouth statement happened at a town hall event hosted by MSNBC. On Friday, Ocasio-Cortez showed off her unimpressive grasp of American history with a nonsensical claim about Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“They (Republicans) had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt did not get reelected,” she insisted in her trademarked breathless style.

Trending:
Fani Willis Throws a Tantrum to Jim Jordan as Contempt Deadline Arrives

There was one glaring problem with that statement: FDR died in 1945. The presidential term limits were proposed in the 22nd Amendment in 1947 and not even ratified until 1951.

At first glance, this might seem like a simple mistake — after all, it’s mostly true that the 22nd Amendment was indeed passed as a response to Roosevelt’s 12 years in office.

But here’s the thing: It’s common knowledge that the famous liberal president died in office while World War II was still raging and was replaced by Truman before the conflict ended.

Are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's gaffes getting worse?

In other words, it makes no sense that Republicans would have had to stop a man who died in the middle of a term from being re-elected. About two seconds of thought was needed to realize it.

That’s definitely something a college-educated person like Ocasio-Cortez should know, and that’s without even considering that she’s a sitting U.S. congresswoman who serves the same state from which FDR hailed.

And that state — New York — was one of the 41 states that ratified the amendment! In other words, while Ocasio-Cortez tried to rewrite history by pinning the 22nd Amendment on Republicans, even her and FDR’s own left-leaning state joined the majority in approving term limits.

Does she really not know when one of the most famous presidents of the last century died, or when a key constitutional amendment was added? Maybe she should get a refund for her university degree, but then we still have to ask why she voiced her ignorant statement on live television with such confidence.

And that, really, is the problem here. It’s not just that a member of the House is historically clueless. It’s that she doesn’t realize she’s clueless, but instead acts as if she’s the smartest and most gifted person in the room, all while spouting nonsense.

Related:
Jon Stewart Has Anti-Trump Meltdown After Getting Caught Overvaluing His House by 829%

It’s a sort of proud, brash ignorance that should alarm both sides of the political aisle.

Some of her gaffes make you scratch your head. For example, almost everyone who has watched election results or follows politics casually knows that “red states” are Republican and “blue states” are Democrat. But not Ocasio-Cortez, who eagerly declared that she wanted to “flip this seat red” during the last primary.

Others are just entertaining, such as her rambling nonsensical answers to basic questions like “What is your plan?” Watching her scramble to create run-on sentences with the fervor of a student desperate to pad an overdue paper is mostly harmless.

What isn’t harmless, however, is when ignorance on full display in an elected official spills over into dangerous ideas.

Socialism is one of those disastrous plans which is no laughing matter. Since Ocasio-Cortez apparently slept though history class, she seems clueless about the horrors of socialism and its dark twin communism in just the last century.

Instead, she promotes it as if it’s a fun new idea that America should try, like some sort of fad diet. Maybe she’s not far off — after all, starving from lack of food is a reliable way to lose weight.

At some point, rampant ignorance stops being funny. The more appalling statements Ocasio-Cortez makes, the faster we approach that fateful point.

Truth and Accuracy

Submit a Correction →



We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Share
Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico.




Conversation