AOC’s ignorant slam of Marco Rubio’s Munich speech proves he’ll never be prime time

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a star appearance at the Munich Security Conference, and her appearance went about as well as you’d expect from a female celebrity who spent about five minutes thinking about foreign policy.

AOC is to strategic thinkers what Gayle King is to astronauts.

He gives all the authority of an International Relations 101 student who didn’t realize there was going to be a pop quiz before Spring Break.

It sounds like he watched Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign and concluded that what sank the vice president was that the nominee’s policy responses were too strong and accurate.

There is no way, given his performance in Germany, that the AOC will allow themselves to make the same mistake.

Ocasio-Cortez blasted Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s landmark speech at the conference as a “pure appeal to ‘Western culture,'” which he delivered in air quotes as if its existence were somehow in doubt.

It is certainly true, as he said, that cultures change over time, but this does not change the fact that the West is unique as it has developed over a few thousand years.

The AOC seemed to find it offensive that Rubio had mentioned Western culture when discussing the Western alliance, NATO, which was created to protect Western countries from the threat of tyranny from the Eurasian boom.

In fact, the secretary’s speech was well received, and he convincingly laid out the common history and roots of Europe and the United States.

The AOC’s reiteration was that what it called “alleged” Western values ​​were false because they did not always describe our interactions with the “global South.”

Even if the West has not always lived up to its values, however, that does not make them false, or make them any less powerful.

The best path to success for underdeveloped countries around the world would be for them to be Western in the sense of adopting the rule of law, international rights, markets and stable, representative government.

The AOC also said that culture is “small” compared to economic interests. This belief that material considerations are culturally relevant – from religious belief to national identity – is an old Marxist chestnut that has been proven false time and time again.

At the beginning of World War I, the AOCs of the time believed that the working classes of the various warring countries would unite to oppose the conflict. As it turns out, they support their nations’ war efforts.

The average American worker has nothing in common with the Chinese worker, or, for that matter, the French or the German.

The AOC hopes, in fact, for the Fourth International as the basis of a “class-based” US foreign policy — Democratic Socialists of the world, unite!

This is a child’s dream, but it wasn’t at least something impressive he said in Munich.

Asked whether the United States should defend Taiwan if attacked by China, the AOC hesitated and stumbled as if the question had never occurred to him, before not answering.

He opposed our operation against Nicolas Maduro: According to the AOC, we took it “because the nation is under the equator,” where Venezuela is under the equator. in the north of the equator.

He insulted Rubio’s statement that America’s cowboy culture was “born in Spain,” apparently not realizing that he was completely right about this.

The AOC is young and ambitious with a long career ahead of it; no one will ever expect him to be the Metternich of the USA – or the Democratic Socialists of America.

Still, his time at the Munich conference was another reminder that no matter how much he’s billed as a rising star, he’s still callow and indifferent.

If the AOC knows and doesn’t know it, it doesn’t particularly care, and its disrespect for Western culture is a sign of the left that, to its shame, views its own civilization as an affront and a lie.

Twitter: @RichLowry