Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—who believe it or not holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Boston University—would benefit by getting back to basics. Her day-to-day factual errors, which plumb the depths of reason, simply cannot be overstated and will be elaborated on in a moment. For now, this litotes gets the point across: she’s no Mises or Rothbard.
Enter Aaron Abel. He’s a new legend in the libertarian movement after having mailed an entire set of Tuttle Twins children’s books to Ocasio-Cortez. The deed is not only comical and inspirational, but it’s undoubtably the best troll of 2019 thus far (my trolling of a Madeleine Albright event was so last year in comparison.)
Let’s back up for a moment for those who are lost.
The Tuttle Twins series, which you can find here, are beautifully drawn pictorial books that easily convey free-market ideals through well-scripted stories. Connor Boyack—who I’ve had on my podcast—has changed the lives of thousands of parents and their children. On top of that, the illustrator for the books, Elijah Stanfield, is a brilliant artist, so don’t hesitate to buy a set for yourself.
When Abel sent the books out, he included this letter that reads:
Congratulations on your successful run for Congress! The entire nation is eager to watch the progress the 116th Congress will make in securing and facilitating the rights of the People, and the continued growth of our nation’s prosperity! It is imperative for the future success of the People and their representatives to start this legislative journey with their best foot forward. However, based on your knowledge and understanding of the legislative process and American economic philosophies expressed thus far, we’re concerned that you may need a little refresher in the ideals that have made and continue to make this nation of people great. With that in mind, we wanted to send you this welcome package, filled with a wealth of information, to help you on your way! These reference books can help you in determining the best courses of action on a myriad of topics. If you find any of the concepts difficult, feel free to reach out to your fellow Congress members Justin Amash and Thomas Massie. Caring members of #TeamLiberty, #TheRebellion, and RLC-MO would also be willing to offer explanations as you may need them. Our intentions, as we believe yours to be, are to help make this Congress the Tippy Tops!
Connor found it hilarious! And if we’re being honest, there’s no lie in that letter!
In fact, these books are so well made that any rational adult would be hard pressed to not grasp the concepts.
If it’s starting to make sense why AOC is a prime candidate for the book series, take into consideration these gaffes she made:
- In a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, when asked about her faulty arithmetic on a past issue she stated “If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees. . .I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.” Ironically, she is neither factually correct nor morally right, but at the least she’s not fooling anyone. We’re either dealing with liar, a comedian, or someone that in general equates feelings with a sense of moral superiority.
- She tweeted last March that “NYC’s fourth driver suicide. Yellow cab drivers are in financial ruin due to the unregulated expansion of Uber. What was a living wage job now pays under minimum.” How kind of her! The only problem is the glaring contradiction; her campaign had utilized rideshare services to the tune of $4,000 on 160 Uber trips and about $2,500 on over 90 Juno trips.
- This last example is a doozy, and again keep in mind that she has an economics degree. At one point in an interview with Trevor Noah this past July, she stated that “One of the biggest problems that we have is 200 million Americans make less than $20,000 a year. That’s 40 percent of this country.” If you didn’t catch that, the population in the U.S.A. is a little over 325 million; if 200 million accounted for 40% of the population, then we must have nearly 500 million people in the country! From another perspective, this would mean there is 170+ million people that are unaccounted for.
She’s far from sagacious if you couldn’t tell. Keep in mind this telling quote from Thomas Sowell’s book The Vision of the Anointed:
What a vision may offer. . .is a special state of grace for those who believe in it. Those who accept this vision are deemed to be not merely factually correct but morally on a higher plane. . .those who disagree with the prevailing vision are seen as being not merely in error, but in sin.
Sowell published this book in 1995, while AOC made her “factually incorrect but morally right” claims 24 years later in 2019.
We owe a special thanks to Aaron Bell for hopefully setting a precedent here and I encourage everybody to donate to him here. As it turns out, the enemy of our enemy is books.