It’s funny the way politicians, like celebrities, feel the need to endorse each other on social media — as if they all have some brand name magic that rubs off. Macron and Obama, Macron and Trump, Trump and Abe, and now Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
It was an honor to share such a lovely and wide-reaching conversation with you, @jeremycorbyn!
Also honored to share a great hope in the peace, prosperity, + justice that everyday people can create when we uplift one another across class, race, + identity both at home & abroad. https://t.co/7qnz42I8du
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 3, 2019
Poor old Jeremy, he’s trying to be the pope of international socialism — but his efforts often fall flat. What was it that first attracted him to the good-looking 29-year-old viral Congresswoman? Perhaps he has an eye for Latinas: he is married to one, his third wife Laura Alvarez. Or maybe he is drawn to AOC’s rhetorical gifts and her social-media savvy. Yet no sooner had the two tweeted out their best regards than AOC was under fire for palling about with anti-Semitism. ‘Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite, @AOC, a view widely shared by Jewish members of the UK Labour Party. Please educate yourself before you embarrass yourself. Again,’ tweeted New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. Poor girl. She can’t do anything right with the right.
Corbyn is already meant to have a deep connection to that elder statesman of the American left, Bernie Sanders — though I once asked Bernie Sanders what he thought of Jeremy Corbyn and he said ‘who?’ Perhaps it was Cockburn’s accent or his hearing: he has expressed his approval of Corbyn on a number of occasions.
The Sandersite and Corbynite brigades are meant to see considerable affinity with each other. Apparently they advise and support each other in elections. Corbyn has said that the Labour party borrowed from Sanders’s ideas for his almost successful election campaign in 2017. At least that’s what he told Naomi Klein.
But now Corbyn has turned his attention to the rising star of Democratic politics, the charming AOC. Where will this left-wing Atlanticism end?
