h/t George

Kind of creepily accurate.

A month or so ago I referred to her, rather seriously, as the left’s Sarah Palin.

Give that comparison some thought.

There's some validity to that. I'm concerned about her willingness to take on fellow Dems with as much zeal (if not more so) than she's doing with the GOP. Her squabbles with the GOP appear to be petty, name calling, twitter wars. She can do far more damage to Dems.

My 2c.

She's no Sarah Palin. She's impetuous, but not dumb.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
A month or so ago I referred to her, rather seriously, as the left’s Sarah Palin.

Give that comparison some thought.

That's unfair, because she's smarter. A lot smarter.

Just as rigid and inflexible, though. I was just making the point earlier today that watching Lindsey Graham's capitulation to Trump is going to look a lot like what many Democratic politicians will do to Ocasio-Cortez in 2020. Obeisance. Deference. Refusal to disagree.

Perhaps the millenial Bernie Sanders.

Next door they thought it was unfair because Sarah was more accomplished.


But look at the similarities:

- Each took a section of the base by storm, based largely though not completely on identity. (By identity i mean more than just gonads and melanin, "finally someone who is one of us/speaks for us!")

- Each represent the populist wing of their party, which felt ignored/taken for granted by the establishment

- Each thrust into prime time well before they're ready, and it repeatedly showed/shows.

- Re the above, base doesn't know/doesn't care/makes excuses
- Re the above, other tribe considers it proof of how far they've sunk

- Each seems uniquely skilled in driving the opposition crazy, which becomes part of their appeal. Which then drives the opposition more crazy. Lather, rinse, repeat.

- Each got/gets an inordinate amount of focus from the press, and from the opposition.

- Each's party's establishment walks a fine line trying to capitalize on their popularity while not losing control to it.


I could go on.

(Trump is on this same spectrum, of course.)

AOC graduated from BU with a degree in IR and Econ.

Palin bounced around colleges and CCs for years and finally cobbled together a "degree" in communications. She did win a beauty pageant ...

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
AOC graduated from BU with a degree in IR and Econ.

Palin bounced around colleges and CCs for years and finally cobbled together a "degree" in communications. She did win a beauty pageant ...

A critical difference that the right chooses to ignore.

They choose to ignore that Palin (and, almost to the same extent Trump) is plain old stupid.

Jungle smart, however, but stupid.

I haven't been next door in forever, but I wonder how they explain Trump's frequent statements about how he knows X better than anyone. Drones, technology, Afghanistan ... it hardly matters the subject, he knows more about it than anyone. I cannot understand how people on the right can respect that level of stupidity. Are they just so happy to see a bully (a bully, to be fair, who matches many of their instincts) in the White House that they are willing to forgive all other manner of sins?

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
A critical difference that the right chooses to ignore.

They choose to ignore that Palin (and, almost to the same extent Trump) is plain old stupid.

Jungle smart, however, but stupid.

You make it sound like the people on the right are making this comparison. They hate it as much as you do.

BTW, Jon, re your posts in the other place, the "optimal tax rate" arguments that Krugman presented are simple text book stuff. I think you can handle that.

Heck, it's even in Wikipedia!

Optimal Tax Theory

And as usual, the crowd over there cannot understand what he is saying, so we get old cracks about Enron and a lot of political nonsense.

I was serious when I said I hadn’t gotten beyond the first paragraph. I find his partisan writing deathly boring. All such partisan writing, actually.

I bumped the thread only because that’s where I had most recently referenced the similarities between Palin and AOC and wanted to expand on them.

I find his partisan writing boring as well. But that argument of his was rather straight up economics. The partisan tinge is in the eye of the beholder. If someone thinks an economic defense of high marginal tax rates at the very tippy top of the income distribution -- a defense backed by the bulk of the profession's wisdom -- is inherently partisan, then that person likely will ignore all the logic and all the evidence and simply roll their eyes in their own haze of partisan incomprehension.