“You got trouble right here in River City.” With that simple refrain Professor Harold Hill, played by Robert Preston in the 1962 movie musical the Music Man, extolled the virtues of River City investing in a boy’s band to fend off the evils of a new billiard parlor opening up in their fair community.
The reality is that Professor Harold Hill was basically nothing more than a traveling confidence man preying on the unwitting residents of River City, Iowa. That same theme is playing out right now in another “river city”, this time it’s the river city of Washington, D.C., on the Potomac River.
But instead of musical instruments the snake oil being sold to Americans is the Green New Deal currently being peddled by the Socialist Democrat Party, led by the upstart New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Green New Deal has been described by Ocasio-Cortez as her generation’s “World War II”, requiring the same commitment and determination now that Americans exhibited back then in defeating the evils of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
But according to Ocasio-Cortez and all of the couple of dozen Socialist Democrats (give or take a few) running for president, the effects of climate change threatens our very survival as a planet requiring such an effort, no matter how foolish or misguided.
According to the Green New Deal-ers America must embark upon a massive institutional and infrastructure change or face dire consequences. Air travel must be curtailed, all vehicles must become electric replacing the internal combustion engine, and even cow flatulence must be prevented in order to limit the amount of carbon emissions occurring in America.
No explanation has been provided as to how we are supposed to do anything about pollution in China, Russia, and all the other countries who release far more carbon emissions into our atmosphere than those produced by the United States. Nor what to do about all those cows continuing to fart freely in India. I doubt any of those countries will cooperate with the economy-killing proposals put forth by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Socialist Democrat Party.
No, the real trouble in River City is within the Socialist Democrat Party. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has an insurgency developing within her party, led by the future one term Congresswoman from New York’s 14th Congressional District, affectionately called AOC by her devotees in the news media.
AOC and her allies are testing the patience of Pelosi who appears to be losing her grip on control of her party, much like she has lost her grip on reality years ago. Pelosi hasn’t experienced such dissension within her caucus before as she is seeing from AOC and AOC’s freshman colleagues Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
Much like rebellious teenagers, they are pushing back against Pelosi’s leadership, something Queen Nancy has never tolerated in the past. Those who did received a serious smack-down if they kept it up, and eventually found themselves being introduced on news programs as “former Congressman so-and-so”.
How much Speaker Pelosi is going to put up with before she starts exerting her considerable power as Speaker remains to be seen. At seventy-nine years of age Pelosi likely won’t serve that many more years in office before she wills her congressional seat to her daughter (which is what Socialist Democrats do), and she won’t want to leave with her party in a shambles. Out of touch with everyday Americans is ok, but in a shambles won’t do.
But there definitely is trouble in River City. And to paraphrase Professor Harold Hill, “it begins with A and it ends with C and that rhymes with T and that stands for trouble”. AOC is stirring up trouble for her party and may very well soon find herself being introduced on news programs as “the former congresswoman from New York”.
