A new career for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Here's a news flash for you: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hinting she may quit politics.

AOC was asked in a recent interview if she was considering a Senate run in the next couple of years. "I genuinely don't know," she said. "I don't even know if I want to be in politics. You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn't even know if I was going to run for re-election this year. It's the incoming. It's the stress. It's the violence. It's the lack of support from your own party. It's your own party thinking you're the enemy." Ouch, that must hurt.

I can't blame her for thinking about quitting politics. AOC has learned a hard truth: Politics is a dirty, nasty game. Personally, I've never understood why anyone would want to enter it to begin with, but then I've never had a lust for power either.

However, it wasn't Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's cageyness about a Senate run that caught my attention. It was a follow-up statement she made: "But I'm serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere – they're probably the same."

Wow, what a coincidence! AOC is thinking about starting a homestead somewhere! Gosh, we're homesteaders too! Just think, we have similar career interests.

By way of clarification, modern "homesteading" is a form of small farming, the goal of which is to raise, grow, or produce all one's own food. It differs from farming in that it's not meant to be an income-earning enterprise, though there are exceptions. Modern homesteaders often raise cattle, sheep, pigs, or goats; they also may raise chickens, geese, ducks, or turkeys. Most have an orchard and a huge garden. Some even grow their own grains. The spoken or unspoken goal is never to have to enter a grocery store, at least for food items.

My family and I been engaged in modern homesteading for nearly 30 years now, so I'm pleased AOC might be joining the ranks of the self-sufficient. Seriously, I genuinely am happy to hear it.

Why? Because until folks get their hands dirty in the endlessly fascinating task of raising food, they can't understand or appreciate how the system works … or how government regulations can affect it.

I'm sure Ms. Ocasio-Cortez knows, at least at an academic level, that eggs or milk aren't manufactured in the back rooms of grocery stores. And while there's a great deal of satisfaction to opening up the chicken coop door in the morning and finding a dozen fresh warm eggs, there's also a great deal of horror to open that same chicken coop door to find a weasel got in during the night and slaughtered the entire flock. Until you experience this in person, you can't grasp it.

This is why I sincerely applaud whenever politicians join the ranks of the plebeians. Only by experiencing how the little people live can they understand the magnitude of how their legislative actions affect the lives and livelihoods of America's blue-collar backbone.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez certainly seems to have an affinity for homesteading. Last year she grew a small plot in a community garden in Washington, D.C., and apparently learned an astonishing fact: Vegetables grow in the ground. Isn't that amazing? I'll bet you didn't know that either.

"I am SHOOK, like honestly, gardening, FOOD – that comes out of dirt … like, it's magic," she said in a video.

Presumably, the congresswoman did not grow cauliflower, since she declared that planting the offensive vegetable in community gardens in nonwhite neighborhoods is an act of colonialism.

(As an amusing side note, the progressive website Daily Dot mocked conservatives who were critical of Ocasio-Cortez's gardening efforts. "Though most of the feedback was positive, the gardening video did plant seeds of discord in the right-wing, who love digging on Ocasio-Cortez for even her most benign activities." The website then went on to admit, "Still, it's probably a good idea to complete your first season as a gardener before you start handing out advice." Ya think?)

OK, mockery aside, AOC encapsulates the frustration most Americans have with politicians. She entered Congress at the tender age of 29, before she had any appreciable real-world experience. She never tried to start a business. She never had to deal with government regulations. She never had to make payroll. Yet she felt qualified to birth the Green New Deal, which would affect 350 million hapless citizens who would be forced to deal with the economic and societal fallout. And she wonders why people mock her gardening efforts?

Real farmers particularly dislike AOC's policies. In March 2019, after AOC went on a "rant" against Republicans for refusing to support her Green New Deal – which has major implications for the food system – reaction was scathing. "She's a rookie and she's looking for publicity," said Dale Spencer, a rancher and the former head of the Nebraska Cattlemen's Association, whose family has been in the ranching business in Nebraska since 1886. "Some people ought to put some boots on the ground and get out to ranch country and see what's being done."

Tanya Storer, a member of the Nebraska Farm Bureau and a rancher in Cherry County, Nebraska, added: "Socialism is a great idea for those who are too young to understand the real consequences of it."

So yes, I would welcome AOC to the world of real-life homesteading, where she can experience firsthand the policies she's trying to force down everyone else's throats. Welcome to the world where normal (I stress normal) vagaries of weather can prevent you from planting the garden before June 1 or kill your tomatoes after Sept. 15. Welcome to the world of calves born at the farthest end of the pasture that must be carried to the barn for safety. Welcome to the world of castrating and dehorning. Welcome to the world of pests and diseases. Welcome to the world of food preservation.

Late springs. Early frosts. Heat waves. Cold snaps. Livestock mishaps. There's only so much you can blame on climate change. The rest of the time, you have to roll up your sleeves and handle the boots-on-the-ground reality of farming, whether large-scale or small-scale.

But I don't expect to see AOC castrating calves or butchering chickens any time soon. Like most politicians, I suspect she prefers to avoid circumstances where she has to experience the regulations she helped create.

The post A new career for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared first on WND.