Dancing Queen

In the great tradition of welfare queens, conservative pundits tried to make a Dancing Queen out of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez only to watch it blow up in their faces.  Some conservative blogger managed to dig up a video of young Alexandria dancing on a roof top with some of her Boston University friends, and thought the world would like to know what a flaky new representative we have in Congress.  Only problem was that no one saw any harm in it, and those who did take exception to the video came up with some of the most lurid responses, which only made themselves look like perverts.  Alexandria didn't even need to fire back but she did anyway with a video of herself dancing in front of her new office on Capitol Hill.

A deep hidden fear has emerged in all this loathing of the freshman representative.  It isn't so much that she is an avowed "democratic socialist" (gasp) but that she is bright and funny and good looking.  It wasn't that long ago that the Republican party was pushing forward perky young ladies like Michelle Malkin as their spokespersons, but somehow they ended up with sad-eyed press secretaries like Sarah Huckabee and prune-faced presidential counselors like Kellyanne Conway.  Where are the glamour girls like Alexandria?

The young Bronx native has danced her way into the public heart and mind like no politician in recent years.  She has become the lightning rod for all the Republicans worst fears -- a take over from the Socialist Left.  Alexandria has ruffled a few Democratic feathers as well with her unflinching stances on everything from universal healthcare to a 70% tax rate at a time Democratic leaders would like to tack to the center politically.  Even Whoopie seems to think Alexandria needs to sit down and shut up, admonishing the 29-year-old representative on The View.  Alexandria and other radical new Democrats aren't taking any of this shit.

Just ask Rashida Tlaib, who isn't letting Alexandria hog up all the limelight?  She brazenly called for the impeachment of the motherfucker in the White House, setting the conservative twitterverse on edge.  The gall of this "foreigner" to call our president such an obscene name!  Rashida simply voiced what many Americans feel about Trump.  To her credit, she is expressing no regrets for her blunt statement.

Yep, the 116th US Congress is shaping up to be one of the wildest and woolliest we have seen in a long time.  Outspoken Democratic women now occupy more seats than ever before thanks in large part to all the anger and frustration with our Misogynist-in-Chief.  Nancy Pelosi even seems to have found her groove, questioning Trump's manhood and derisively referring to his border wall as a "beaded curtain."  The next two years should be entertaining if nothing else.

Trump is so locked into his wall that he hasn't had the time to fire off tweets at all these nasty ladies.  He did take exception to Rashid Tlaib's outburst, but when it was pointed out all the nasty things he has had to say about people, he seemed to settle down.

Not the Fox pundits though.  Jeanine Pirro tried to take Rashida to the woodshed and give her a good whooping, but it was an epic fail.  The conservative cackle of pundits really have no answer for these young upstarts, as they are doing exactly what they wish their young conservative representatives would do in Congress, but they are overshadowed by the Bully Boy in the Oval Office.

Like it or not, Trump has unleashed a fearless backlash, mostly women, who have no time for niceties.  It was great seeing Krysten Sinema being sworn in by Mike Pence.  The avowed bisexual put her sexy shoulders forward, looking a bit like Marilyn Monroe, and made the VP and Senate President choke on that fake smile.  Not only did he have to stand there alone with a woman but swear her into the Senate as well.  What's a poor conservative white boy to do?

One can understand how it is all too much for conservatives.  They thought they had tamped down the unruly mob in the 2016 election, only to see it rise up with a vengeance.  Now they will try to turn it into the worst socialist nightmare anyone can imagine and hope the conservative base will step forward in 2020 and restore normalcy to the American political system.

The only problem is that Democrats didn't just take back the House but many state legislatures and governors' mansions too.  This means a rewriting of all those gerrymandered districts that disenfranchised so many Democratic voters across the country, which could result in Congress becoming even more Democratic and diverse in two years.

Looks like the Republican elephant got caught sitting on his haunches, and wasn't ready for a revolt that saw a record number of women assume political office.  Nevada became the first state with more women than men in its assembly.

The GOP seems to have sensed it misjudged this election.  In Arizona, where Sinema edged out Martha McSally, the state governor named McSally to replace Jon Kyl, signaling that Republicans will run more women for office in 2020.  Only 13 Republican women were elected to the House.  The lowest number since 1987.

This still doesn't resolve the problem many Republicans face.  In an openly hostile political climate where the GOP as standing on the wrong side of almost every major issue, women like McSally and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are viewed as female proxies for a misogynistic party that has no sense of what appeals to the majority of women in this #MeToo age.  Not just women of color, which the GOP long gave up on, but all women.

More than ever the GOP is seen as the party of angry white old men unable to accept the ever-changing reality of the world outside their window, or as the surly Mike Huckabee likes to say, Bubbaville.  Glenn Close summed it up beautifully at the Golden Globes, "we have to find personal fulfillment," reacting as much to the new political reality as the massive changes in Hollywood in the wake of the #MeToo movement.  This is no longer a man's world!