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Mar. 13th, 2019
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Mar. 13th, 2019 12:47 pmBut the problem here is that conservatives aren’t engaging with the argument AOC actually made. Instead, they’re engaging — whether by design or default — with an argument she *didn’t* make.
This happens all the time. On his deathbed, the Republican political consultant Lee Atwater apologized for having said during the 1988 presidential campaign that he would “make Willie Horton [Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis’s] running mate.” [Horton was a notorious black criminal who was furloughed from prison under the administration of Dukakis, the Democratic nominee.] “It makes me sound racist, which I am not,” Atwater said plaintively, completely missing the point that the issue wasn’t his personal views but the way in which he debased the campaign (and the criminal-justice debate) with a racist scare tactic.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ronald-reagan-racist-ocasio-cortez-didnt-say-that-but-the-controversy-reveals-a-lot-about-how-americans-discuss-race-090000040.html
This happens all the time. On his deathbed, the Republican political consultant Lee Atwater apologized for having said during the 1988 presidential campaign that he would “make Willie Horton [Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis’s] running mate.” [Horton was a notorious black criminal who was furloughed from prison under the administration of Dukakis, the Democratic nominee.] “It makes me sound racist, which I am not,” Atwater said plaintively, completely missing the point that the issue wasn’t his personal views but the way in which he debased the campaign (and the criminal-justice debate) with a racist scare tactic.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ronald-reagan-racist-ocasio-cortez-didnt-say-that-but-the-controversy-reveals-a-lot-about-how-americans-discuss-race-090000040.html