Marco Rubio Schools AOC at ‘Munich University’

The world is abuzz over Secretary Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, which appears poised to go down as the most emphatic explication of President Trump’s foreign policy doctrine yet delivered. Mr. Rubio got a rise out of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, also at Munich, called his address a “pure appeal to Western culture.” If that is the line of scrimmage, put us on Mr. Rubio’s side.It goes without saying that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Rubio are both reckoned to be candidates for president in 2028, though Mr. Rubio has pledged his support for Vice President Vance, who made his own démarche on this head at Munich last year. Bloomberg judges that the congresswoman’s time in Germany gave “audiences an inkling of what Democrats’ post-Joe Biden foreign-policy vision might look like.”That vision is hardly a clear, never mind considered, one. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, when asked if America would come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of an attack from Communist China, mumbled that “this is such a, a, you know, I think that, this is a, um, this is of course, a, ah, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States.” She is being advised on foreign policy by Matt Duss, who blames the “Epstein class” for tensions with Iran. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, like her Vermonter mentor, Senator Bernard Sanders, asserts that Israel is committing “genocide,” a libel she repeated at Munich, a central city on the road to an actual genocide eight decades ago. In contrast to her denigration of “Western culture,” Mr. Rubio insisted that “We want Europe to be strong” and that America and Europeans “belong together.” He insisted that “We are part of one civilization — Western civilization.”Mr. Rubio added that “our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe” and that America wants “allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.” As the Journal notes, this describes Ukraine’s self-defense. It is a pity Mr. Rubio did not say so. Mr. Rubio, while delivering a blunt message, did not shy away from rhetoric that could have been delivered by President Reagan. He credited Spain with “Our horses, our ranches, our rodeos — the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West.” He invoked the “Scots-Irish – that proud, hearty clan from the hills of Ulster that gave us Davy Crockett and Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt.”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was clearly upset at that last remark in respect of Spain. Mr. Rubio, she suggested, overlooked the Mexican Americans and African Americans. She set down Mr. Rubio’s point as “cultural nostalgia.” That strikes us as illuminating less the faults of Mr. Rubio and more the lack of a substantive response from AOC and her camarilla. It reinforces the impression that the rising generation of Democrats lack for a foreign policy. Democrats are, to put it gently, catching up. One German leftist, Julius van de Laar, tells the Times that it “almost appears as if Munich turned into Iowa” with all the potential candidates. He adds that all the neophytes in attendance — including Governor Gretchen Whitmer — made the conference feel like “Munich University,” with Democrats “getting sped up on foreign policy.” Mr. Rubio, the Trump loyalist, is clearly setting the class curve.

Marco Rubio Schools AOC at ‘Munich University’

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