Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is steadily revealing herself to be a rigid ideologue, and now extends her embrace of dogma into the realm of paranoid conspiracy theories. This is not surprising because once a person embraces a worldview that has a cause-and-effect explanation that must always be true, everything that happens in the world must be forced into that framework.  Anytime opponents say that their motives have nothing to do with the explanatory scheme that the ideologue embraces, they must be lying. The ideologue, with her superior understanding, claims to understand what their real motives are.

Thus, yesterday the freshwoman from Westechester  the Bronx instructed pro-lifers that the real reason they think a fetus with a heartbeat is a human being is not what they consciously think, but rather a hidden lust for control – over her sex life.

Abortion bans aren’t just about controlling women’s bodies.

They’re about controlling women’s sexuality. Owning women.

From limiting birth control to banning comprehensive sex ed, US religious fundamentalists are working hard to outlaw sex that falls outside their theology.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 16, 2019

followed by:

Ultimately, this is about women’s power.

When women are in control of their sexuality, it threatens a core element underpinning right-wing ideology: patriarchy.

It’s a brutal form of oppression to seize control of the 1 essential thing a person should command: their own body.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 16, 2019

I wonder how many evangelicals Rep. Ocasio-Cortez knows, how many she has sat down with and had deep conversations with about their goals and motives in pushing to protect the unborn? My guess is none, but maybe Boston University, Westchester, and the Bronx have stronger representation from evangelicals than I realized and Sandy from the Bronx hung out with them more than with the dancers she obviously practiced her moves with. And maybe more evangelicals than I would have guessed have patronized the bar where she established her adult professional life before discovering Saikat Chakrabarti and the Justice Democrats, the sponsors who groomed her for Congress in order to push their ideology.

Maybe there is such a side to Ocasio-Cortez, her heretofore invisible interest in understanding her opponents in a deep and human manner. But I actually see nothing in her words or her demeanor that suggests such a personality, instead of the arrogant know-nothing who thinks she understands everything because being "morally right" is more important then being factually correct.

Image credit: YouTube screen grab.