I keep coming back to memes as subject matter because of the outsized role they play in shaping public opinion. We live in a sound-bite age, and social-media memes are simply the most efficient delivery system for simplified narratives—stripped of nuance, context, and consequence. What once required speeches, editorials, or sustained argument is now reduced to a graphic, a slogan, and a few emotionally charged lines.
Today’s meme is built around rhetoric attributed to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She has a well-established habit of dramatic language, but this instance goes beyond theatrics and into something more troubling.
It is worth noting that memes often compress, paraphrase, or combine statements rather than reproduce them verbatim. Whether these lines represent a precise quotation or a composite of past rhetoric is ultimately beside the point. The meme itself—and the response it generates—is the subject here. It illustrates how inflammatory framing circulates, gains authority, and shapes perception regardless of precision or context.
The meme attributes to her the following statements:
“Mass resistance to fascism is led on the ground.”
“The many outnumber the few.”
“ICE will NOT win, and neither will this corrupt regime.”
This is not policy. It is not a solution. It is a slogan—designed to inflame, mobilize, and divide—packaged perfectly for the meme economy.
She is entitled to her opinion. Every citizen is. But when that opinion is delivered from the pulpit of the United States Congress, it carries weight far beyond personal belief. Words spoken from that office are amplified, legitimized, and often acted upon by people who take them as guidance rather than commentary. In that context, language that frames political opposition as a corrupt regime and calls for mass resistance is not brave—it is reckless.
Legally, no crime has been committed. The Constitution rightly protects even extreme political speech. But censure exists precisely for moments like this—when conduct falls below the standard of restraint expected of an elected official, even if it does not cross a legal line. The problem, of course, is that censure itself has become largely meaningless. It would be dismissed as partisan theater, absorbed into the outrage cycle, and used as fuel rather than correction.
There is no tidy resolution here, because the public has no direct mechanism to impose restraint beyond elections, and elections are blunt instruments. This is not about disagreement over policy. It is about orientation. Her rhetoric, taken as a whole, is not aimed at preserving the American system and improving it—it is aimed at discrediting it, destabilizing it, and ultimately replacing it. That is the language of revolution, not governance.
“A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.”
— Proverbs 29:11
I’m Wayne – and that’s my world view. What’s yours?
