Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez perfectly summed up why nobody should be cowed by Trump and MAGA’s performative displays of power:
OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think there's two things that are happening at once, and this is something that's very important for people to understand. One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of norms, erosion of our government and our democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian style of governance. That is happening.
However, they are weaker than they look, and it is important that we remember that, because what they rely on is the impression of power, the perception of inevitability in us giving up in advance, to say, “Oh, what's going to happen if I stand up, etc, nothing's going to happen.” They rely on that perception of inevitability and power so that people comply in advance and acquiesce in advance and give up in advance.
Trump and Republicans are quite unpopular, AOC continued. They are “under water across the board,” she correctly noted, “and they know it and that is causing them to double down in public, but it is backfiring.” Yep, by a wide margin, Americans blame Trump and Republicans for the government shutdown, not Democrats.
That is all the more reason Democrats need to stand strong everywhere,"be the consequences" for Republicans and not just over the shutdown.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: That is why, whether it's a shutdown, whether it's all of this, they want us to blink first, and we have too much to save. Protecting people is too important a task for us to give up before anything even starts. So, they may want to send people in, but these National Guardsmen do not want to be turned against their fellow Americans.
We're seeing this here in Washington, D.C. It is an insult. Donald Trump is insulting the service members of this country by putting them on these silly tasks that they themselves do not want to be enforcing. And so we have to understand that standing up matters, that our voice matters, to not give in to the cynicism, because that is what they rely on in order to perpetuate this idea that they are, that they have total immunity from consequence. They will experience the consequences of this, but we have to be the consequence, which is why we have to stand tall right now alongside everyday Americans who want us to be standing up right now as well.
100%, Congresswoman.
