Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to be a gift to the right. As Allahpundit noted earlier today, AOC’s approval rating is down in New York. She’s 13 points underwater overall, but it’s not just Republicans who are turned off by her. She’s also 29 points underwater with Independents in the state. Even among Democrats she now has a 30 percent disapproval rate. Could it be that her socialist extremism isn’t playing that well, even in her own left-leaning state?

Well, no, that’s not it. Today, someone offered an excuse for AOC’s bad polling and she quickly jumped on it. Notice the starting point here is that her problems are the result of “racism, sexism, and Fox News.”

When “centrists” care more about the GOP base than the Dem base, bigotry gets legitimized.

This is *the* playbook. GOP does it w/ virtually every Dem figure who isn’t a white male: otherize, demonize + splinter.

It’s vital that we adapt & dismantle this approach, not cow to it. https://t.co/dKlzflqZVn

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 18, 2019

AOC takes the jumping off point and adds that what is happening to her is part of the GOP playbook. So, apparently, all of those Independents in New York are racists, sexists and fans of Fox News. And I guess a lot of people in her own party are the same thing since nearly a third of them don’t like what she’s saying. I mean, that must be it, right? What other possible explanation could there be?

Could it be that people are simply put off by AOC’s aggressive, extreme approach to issues? Is it possible that some of the criticism coming her way is about her proposals and views and not about racism and sexism?

For instance, maybe people are genuinely bothered by the fact that she can’t explain how she would pay for very expensive agenda or the fact that her attempts to explain it have been failures. Maybe people are put off by her attacks on capitalism. Maybe it was the fact that she bad-mouthed the Amazon deal without understanding how it would have worked? Maybe it’s her dishonest attacks on critics or claims she’s being harassed or her threats to use her position to silence them? Maybe Democrats didn’t like her threat to put moderates on a list? Maybe some didn’t like her attack on prayer after a shooting at two mosques. I can tell you one thing it was probably not about: her dancing. No one cared about her dancing.

The point is this: AOC has given all sorts of people all sorts of reasons to dislike her approach and the actual content of her proposals. Bill de Blasio is a socialist and he doesn’t seem to be a fan. Nancy Pelosi is a San Francisco leftist and I don’t think she’s too fond either. So AOC claiming that all of the blowback she’s getting is about racism and sexism and Fox News is a dishonest dodge. If her approval rating is down it’s probably because she keeps talking and thereby revealing that she frequently doesn’t know what she’s talking about even as she’s lecturing the rest of us about how to change the world.