“Hubris” is defined as “excessive pride or self-confidence.” Synonyms include: arrogance, conceitedness, haughtiness, pride, vanity, self-importance, self-conceit, pomposity, superciliousness, feeling of superiority … well, you get the idea.
“AOC,” of course is the new Democratic Congresswoman from the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Most freshman congresspersons tend to go to Washington, D. C., and try to learn all they can from those who are experienced. Apparently, AOC finds this step unnecessary.
It didn’t take long for AOC to grab the headlines by staging a protest in the office of Nancy Pelosi, also a Democrat, who would be the Speaker of the House. Gotta admit, that took hubris.
Recently, after proposing a Green New Deal that even most Democrats say would break the national bank, AOC responded to critics thusly: “You know what? I don’t care anymore. I don’t care anymore, because again, I’m at least trying, and they’re not,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “So the power is in the person who’s trying, regardless of the success. If you’re trying, you’ve got all the power, you’re driving the agenda, you’re doing all this stuff.”
“Like I just introduced Green New Deal two weeks ago and it’s created, creating all of this conversation. Why? Because no one else has even tried,” she claimed. “So people are like ‘oh it’s unrealistic, oh it’s vague, oh it doesn’t address this little, minute thing.’ And I’m like you try, you do it.”
“So until you do it, I’m the boss!” she declared. “How about that?!”
Indeed, how about that? Ocasio-Cortez, who is just one freshman lawmaker in a group of 435, challenged her detractors on Friday to “come up with your own ambitious, on-scale proposal to address the global climate crisis. Until then, we’re in charge — and you’re just shouting from the cheap seats,” she said. One certainly cannot accuse the Congresswoman of being non-confrontational.
Now, truthfully, hubris doesn’t trouble me. I often think I should have more hubris than I do. Certainly Donald J. Trump has an overabundance of hubris and, love him or love him not, one must admit that he has little trouble with confrontation either. The problem, for me, with AOC is that she reminds me of my children when they were 13-17 years of age. To one degree or another, they all thought that they knew everything and that the Old Man was just plain stupid. I was that way as a teen as well.
The difference in adults and teenagers is that adults have experience and maturity that teenagers are less likely to have. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not a dumb person. She garnered honors in high school and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (with honors) from Boston University, majoring in international relations and economics. Some would paint her as someone who has no work experience at all and that would not be true. It’s clear that there’s tons of potential there even if one does not agree with AOC’s agenda.
But here’s a fact — AOC has been in office just a tad over two months. To grab the headlines, to proclaim one’s self as the “boss,” to chastise her fellow lawmakers as people who are just making noise (“shouting from the cheap seats”), to state that, “Congress is too old. They don’t have a stake in the game,” to declare, “I don’t think that most of Congress knows how economics works,” just comes across like a … well, a teenager who thinks she knows better than anybody about everything.
It remains to be seen what her own congressional colleagues will ultimately do with her. Will they back her? Attempt to marginalize her? Promote her? Slap her down? (Figuratively, not literally). Right now, she’s the most visible and, arguably, the most vocal woman in Congress. What does Speaker Pelosi, who is not used to sharing the limelight, think about that?
Will she emerge as a leader of the Party and not just of the extreme leftists? Will she grow in popularity and become a national figure? Will she be a future vice presidential or presidential contender? Or will she overplay her hand and crash and burn? There are a lot of enemies to be made in a place like D.C.
It’s too early to tell about any of that. Certainly, Donald Trump shocked literally everybody who thought that all he had during his campaign was an abundance of hubris. Hubris will certainly take you places. You just don’t know where until you finally get there.
[David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, 4881 Hwy. 34 E., Sharpsburg, GA between Newnan and Peachtree City (www.ctk.life). He is the bishop of the Charismatic Episcopal Diocese of the Mid-South which consists of Georgia and Tennessee and the Associate Endorser for the Department of the Armed Forces, U. S. Military Chaplains, ICCEC. He may contacted at davidepps@ctk.life.]
The scary thing to me is that the conversation centers on ideals which by definition are unattainable images of perfection with absolutely no regard to the practical issues of implementation or sustainability – or the negative impact of striving for them without regard as to these pesky issues of pragmatic concern.
AOC is either an idiot or a genius. Some of her statements are demonstrably false, such as her “Unemployment is down because people are working two jobs”.
That begs the question, does she really not know, or does she have so little respect for the intelligence of her constituency that she’s willing to lie to them knowing that they’ll suck it up without question?
We have become a Sound Bite Society. Very few of us do our own fact checking when confronted with these fabrications.
“People will believe the biggest lie, repeated a thousand times.” Look the quote up. It’s no less relevant today than it was 80 years ago.
I guess if the AOC army proclaim that Trump is a liar and an idiot and hateful – then they would just say we would rather have our liar and idiot who is inclusive.
Hey Bernie – I am interested in your statements:
“That begs the question, does she really not know, or does she have so little respect for the intelligence of her constituency that she’s willing to lie to them knowing that they’ll suck it up without question?”
and
“People will believe the biggest lie, repeated a thousand times.”
AOC will be gone after the next few news cycles, but a sitting President who made 8,158 false or misleading claims in his first two years in office is getting much close to Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda menace. Where is the outrage at the Orange guy?
Truth is stranger than fiction!
In reference to swac36’s comment – I think that as long as she stays in the Democratic party, I think she will be an asset for the Republican party.
Rev. Epps. I suggest that you view AOC asking Wilbur Ross questions at a House committee hearing. She certainly does her homework before she interrogates witnesses. How novel, no false accusations, no histrionics, just pertinent questions. I think she is an asset for the Democratic party.
AOC ( and others ) need to abide by the classic dictum that Hubris invites Nemesis.
Thank you so much for mansplaining, AOC, to us liberal men.
You are most welcome.
David Epps