AOC’s Socialist Sympathy Tour

Transnational criminal organizations are ravaging Latin America. Economic growth in much of the region is shaky, and corruption remains a perennial problem. Just when it looked as if things couldn’t get any worse, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez left on a South American socialist sympathy tour.

For Americans, it’s not what the congresswoman took to the region that’s disturbing. It’s what she might bring back—and I’m not talking about Covid-19. “We have much to learn from our counterparts in these countries, including how to confront disinformation and violent threats to our democracies,” she said before setting off to Brazil, Colombia and Chile with 10 other congressional Democrats and staffers—including Sen. Bernie Sanders’s chief of staff.

Much to learn? Brazil is a nominal democracy, but its Supreme Court is now using a war on “disinformation” to justify a crackdown on free speech the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1964-85 military dictatorship. Let’s hope AOC left her notebook at home.

The trip wasn’t an official congressional delegation (notwithstanding a Politico report saying it was). Better to call it ideological tourism. The trip was organized by the left-wing Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, according to the Los Angeles Times.

AOC and friends met with leftist politicians to offer their support for collectivist causes in the name of nonintervention. “Extractive” U.S. policies are on AOC’s list of gripes. In Chile this presumably means copper mining, which happens to have been the engine of the country’s economic growth going back decades. If it means lithium mining, perhaps Ms. Ocasio-Cortez should have had a word with President Gabriel Boric. He recently nationalized the industry so he could grab more wealth for the state.

A central talking point was the group’s outrage over U.S. Cold War policies, which kept Soviet and Cuban hands off the continent in the 20th century. The defense of the Kremlin’s Western Hemisphere puppets, 50 years after the fact, is a head-scratcher. One wonders why the gaggle of American anticapitalists, spouting facile economics, didn’t instead visit Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia—where communism has taken hold. They would have been greeted as heroes by any of those governments.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s vanity tour underwhelmed the locals. Brazil’s President Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva didn’t make time to meet with them. Press coverage overall was scant, though there was much posing.

Some special interests, such as Chile’s anti-American Communist Party, used the visit to show themselves close to American politicians, which seemed, well, weird. With a huge corruption scandal swirling around Mr. Boric, a meeting with members of the minority party of the U.S. House and some Hill staffers may have been a welcome distraction. For most Chileans the visit was background noise.

In Brazil the entourage met with a foreign-policy adviser to Lula. According to press reports, they discussed—wait for it—the climate. No news of a breakthrough. Mother Earth is probably wishing the Gang of 11 instead did a Zoom call. Be grateful, dear taxpayer, the excursion wasn’t on your dime.

One of the group reportedly spoke to the Brazilians in Spanish. In a meeting with a lower-house indigenous legislative committee, the noninterventionist from New York reportedly said, “And if I may be so bold as to ask for inclusion in any climate or planetary caucus you all may want to establish.” The head of the committee shot back: “Our caucus for the planet is already formed.” Translation: Butt out.

There was lots of blah-blah-blahing about democracy. But all three governments visited have used elected office to try to strike down the rule of law and establish populist tyranny. Mr. Boric backed a new constitution that would have dissolved the unified Chilean nation. It was defeated overwhelmingly. Colombian President Gustavo Petro wants to destroy property rights and decriminalize crime. He’s less popular than President Biden.

Like all elected extremists, Lula sees pluralism as a threat. His 2017 corruption conviction was annulled in 2021 on technical grounds so that he could be released from prison and run for president. But he was never exonerated.

Many Brazilians reject that politicized court decision and want to debate it in the public square. But the high court made it illegal to discuss the matter in media or in chat groups during the 2022 campaign. The gag order is still in place. Worse, the court has ordered social media platforms like X and YouTube to silence certain popular opinion makers in Brazil.

It’s bad enough that independent thinkers are barred from offering contrary views on things like Lula’s conviction or Covid-19. But an enemies list is the stuff of McCarthyism. Somehow AOC doesn’t see the irony.

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