In one of the many, many O.J. Simpson jokes that got the late, great Norm Macdonald fired from the Weekend Update desk at “Saturday Night Live,” he recounted a report that, during the football great’s interviews with police, he claimed Nicole Brown Simpson “used to beat him up.”
The punchline: “He also claimed that she and Ron Goldman killed him.”
That joke came to mind when I heard about Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s appearance on a podcast last week — in which she claimed the presumptive GOP nominee, recently convicted on 34 kangaroo-court charges in AOC’s native New York, might throw her in prison because, you know, what the heck?
According to Fox News, AOC made the remarks during an interview with tech journalist Kara Swisher.
“I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail,” Ocasio-Cortez told Swisher.
“He’s out of his mind. I mean, he did his whole first campaign around ‘lock her up.’ This is his motto,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
It’s here worth noting that the “lock her up” chant had to do with 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton — who, during her time as secretary of State, kept a personal email server to conduct official government business in contravention of federal records-keeping laws.
That’s bad enough, but she had classified — in some cases, top secret — documents on that server. Despite this, then-FBI Director James Comey decided against charging her with a crime.
Meanwhile, Trump is facing charges over retention of classified documents despite the fact that he, unlike Hillary, had the power to declassify them as president.
Do you think AOC should resign?
And meanwhile, as the Democratic Party and its surrogates engage in unrestrained lawfare against the political opposition, Ocasio-Cortez worries that Trump’s going to put her in prison. Why? Her reasoning on the matter isn’t terribly coherent, but that’s par for the course with the New York congresswoman.
“I take him at his word when he says that he’s going to round up people,” AOC explained. “I take him at his word when he threatens journalists. I take him at his word.”
“I feel like what we saw in his first presidency was an amuse-bouche to what his intentions are,” she added. “He has learned from his mistakes of appointing professionals, and he will not make that mistake next time.”
Before we dismantle AOC’s febrile assertion that it’s Donald Trump who plans to throw the rule of law in the dustbin of American history and throw her in jail for no good reason, let’s at least marvel at the fact that Ocasio-Cortez knows the phrase “amuse-bouche.” Rep. Cow Farts has come a long way!
Also, let’s get another thing out of the way: This assertion is prima facie insane. It has no merit and evidence behind it. It’s the aimless rantings of a woman who seems decidedly unwell. But, for the sake of humoring the notorious AOC, let’s go through all the reasons why this is insane aside from the fact that, duh, it is.
First, Trump has said nothing about rounding up random Democrats and throwing them in prison for no good reason. The only people he’s intimated could theoretically be a subject of a probe is the Biden family, thanks to their suspect overseas dealings — and in an interview with Sean Hannity, he made it clear that he wouldn’t pursue this because tit-for-tat lawfare would essentially end U.S. democracy as we know it.
“It has to stop, because otherwise, we’re not going to have a country,” Trump said.
“Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine,” the former president said.
Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but I don’t recall AOC or anyone in her family being on the board of Burisma or making deals with Beijing-linked energy firm CEFC. I miss news items every now and then, but I’m pretty sure that one didn’t just slip right under my nose.
Furthermore, as much as the numerous frivolous charges lobbed Trump’s way have challenged this notion, you can’t just lock up your political opposition in America because you don’t like them.
The “lock her up” chants from the 2016 campaign came after Hillary Rodham Clinton spent a career trying to find out how close you could come to breaking the law without getting charged with a crime. Unless there’s something we don’t know about AOC — and I don’t think she’s sly enough to make these statements in order to get ahead of a criminal prosecution for behavior that’s yet to come to light — what is she going to be charged with?
Negligently letting her abuela’s house fall into disrepair? Using the phrase “Oh girl, baby girl! Don’t even play!” during a House Oversight Committee hearing? I know we’ve lowered the bar on what we can charge the political opposition with under the Biden administration, but come on.
Finally, it’s worth noting that even if AOC’s dystopian nightmare were to ever come to pass — which it can’t and it won’t, but let’s indulge the witless hyperventilator for a moment — why, precisely, would any Republican want Ocasio-Cortez behind bars if she didn’t absolutely deserve it?
The upshot of the upset 2018 victory that propelled Ocasio-Cortez into the national consciousness and a seat in the House of Representatives is that she’s functioned as a one-woman paid political advertisement for the GOP. Is this woman the kind of future you want for your country? Do you want to eat beef ever again? Do you think that bovine flatulence is a major legislative problem Congress needs to tackle? I’m a Republican, and I approve this Democrat’s inane message to America.
But, no: AOC is incredibly worried that Donald Trump is going to throw her in lockup for no good reason. Now, if you’ll excuse Ocasio-Cortez, she has to prepare to fight the preposterous RICO charges that Fani Willis has filed against her in Fulton County, Georgia.
Oh, wait…
