At Vox.com, which increasingly styles itself a sort of progressive reference guide, Dylan Scott argues that Ocasio-Cortez’s support for the “emerging litmus test of the American left,” is a vote winner. This list includes Medicare for all, a federal jobs guarantee, tuition-free college for all, repealing the Citizens United Supreme Court decision by constitutional amendment (i.e., repealing the First Amendment), abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, restoring great depression era financial regulations, a “green new deal to be fossil free by 2035,” and banning privately owned prisons.
Scott uses polling data to suggest that these big ticket items are popular with the public. But that polling is quite deceptive. It asks how phrases like “Medicare for all” make respondents feel. But were it accurately reflective of public sentiments, the poll would ask respondents how they feel about the phrase “medicare for all, paid for by a $1 trillion annual tax increase.”
That clarity is the conservative opportunity.
