The "Bartender" Serves a Shot

The Democratic National Convention is over, but it wasn't exactly a picture of harmony. A party whose rhetoric is one of "unity" and "diversity", bared its fangs with regularity and alacrity at their opponents and each other. Alexandria Occasio Cortez provided the convention's first ever "whiskey sour".

AOC served the convention's viewers a shot of vitriol followed with a chaser of unquestioned bitterness. The former bartender knows the meaning of a "mean drunk" and seemed intent on demonstrating how mean she can be while sober.

What has AOC in such a bad mood she tried to serve the nation the first virtual "mind eraser"? This figurative libation came when she took her screen time at the convention to make a nominating motion. Was she angry because she was given a scant sixty seconds to speak by convention planners? Was it because Kamala Harris has the number two spot on their ticket? We'll never know what put her in such a funk, but what she said to viewers was the rhetorical version of a "screwdriver".

She began with this portion of bitters,

"In fidelity and gratitude to a mass people's movement working to establish 21st century social, economic, and human rights, including guaranteed health care, higher education, living wages, and labor rights for all people in the United States; a movement striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past; a movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many, and who organized an historic, grassroots campaign to reclaim our democracy."

She ended by salting the glass,

"I hereby second the nomination of Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont for president of the United States of America."

Perhaps she was drunk after all. How else can you explain her having nominated the wrong septuagenarian to be the Democrat Party's nominee for President of the United States?

Let's examine what she said and see if we can determine her motivations.

The first quote seems more proper for a meeting of the Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China, or Cuba, or the Soviet Union. You get the idea. The differences between the modern Democrat Party and communist parties of sixty years ago are minimal. This screed would be better suited to a Socialist Workers Party rally than to a nationally televised Democrat convention.

Distinguishing between bitter hatred and mild discontent however is easy. In the less than affable words of AOC she shows that her progressive bite is decidedly worse than her bark.

In the next quote she seconds the nomination of Senator Sanders, which is really a first. It's the first time a second came before a first. An explosive shot at Biden and one no one will soon forget.

Biden seemed unaffected by AOC's slight when he accepted the nomination later in the program. Biden somehow seemed surprised by his nomination, if not slightly bewildered. Surprised and bewildered are his most common psychological states, but it seems in this case he should have been prepared.

As for me, I enjoyed the New York mixologist's "earthquake" served icily. I don't know about you but make mine a double and keep them coming. It's the only way anyone of us is going to enjoy this election season.
 
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