Yes,
AOC’s Dress Was Performative Politics, But She Got Her Point
Across.
New York’s
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent
Met Gala dress
caused a stir for sporting the bold message “Tax the Rich.”
The progressive lawmaker, who is known for being media-savvy, donned
a simple white gown with the blood-red wording emblazoned across the
back, designed by a Brooklyn-based brand called Brother Vellies.
Attending the
gala on a free ticket (wealthy elites usually pay tens of thousands
of dollars to be seen at the annual event known for its outrageous
and eye-catching fashion), Ocasio-Cortez seized the opportunity to
amplify her simple, yet powerful, political message. She explained to
the press, “When we talk about supporting working families and
when we talk about having a fair tax code, oftentimes this
conversation is happening among working and middle class people (on)
the senate floor.”
She added, “I
think it’s time we bring all classes into the conversation.”
In other words, she was aiming her message of higher taxation of the
wealthy directly at the faces of those elites, with the press as
witness.
The
congresswoman’s dress, however, was criticized not just by the
right - Donald
Trump Jr.
called her a “fraud” because she wore, “[t]he ‘tax
the rich’ dress while she’s hanging out with a bunch of
wealthy leftwing elites” - but by liberals too.
CNN host Chris
Cuomo
bizarrely ranted that because “she is a member of Congress for
a poor district,” she should “be fighting their fight all
the time.” He added, “I think she was having it both
ways. I think there’s a poser aspect because she likes to be
with those people,” implying that Ocasio-Cortez likes to hobnob
with wealthy elites while ignoring the fact that it took
courage for her
to confront those same elites with a bold call to tax them.
Some on the
left balked at the dress for similar reasons, such as John Ganz
writing for Gawker. Ganz,
who called Ocasio-Cortez a “working-class hero” and
ostensibly supports her, critiqued her Met Gala dress as “lame.
And juvenile. And sad.”
His appraisal,
which appears to reflect much of the liberal and left-wing critique
of the congresswoman, is based on the question of “whether it
makes sense to demand taxation of the rich while evidently enjoying
the celebration of glamour and wealth.”
Had
Ocasio-Cortez showed up at the Met Gala with her complimentary ticket
making a fashion statement based purely on apolitical theatrics (like
other celebrity attendees), she likely would have received even more
criticism from all sides. Perhaps her critics would have been happier
with her forsaking the opportunity to make a political statement
altogether by refusing to attend.
If
Ocasio-Cortez’s Met Gala stunt was performative, it was by
design and at the very least consistent with her political persuasion
as a democratic
socialist
and her support
of bills and proposals
to levy hefty tax rates on millionaires and billionaires.
Recall the
Kente
cloth scarves
that liberal Democrats wore while they knelt for cameras at the
Capitol to mark a moment of silence for George Floyd whose police
killing sparked a national uprising. Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who were among
those kneeling, subsequently failed to introduce or even support the
BREATHE Act
championed by the Movement for Black Lives that was meant to hold law
enforcement accountable for racist police brutality.
Instead,
Schumer, Pelosi, and other Democrats backed the reformist Justice in
Policing Act, indicating that their support for Black Lives Matter
has been largely performative.
Meanwhile, for
an example of right-wing performative fashion that was just as
sincere as Ocasio-Cortez’s (albeit appallingly callous), one
need look no further than former First Lady Melania
Trump.
Her infamous green jacket worn during a 2018 visit to an immigrant
child detention center sported the sentence, “I really don’t
care, do u?” The message on her jacket, clear as day, was an
intentional performance
that reflected her lack
of concern about the optics
of family separation.
Regardless of
whether or not Ocasio-Cortez’s “Tax the Rich” dress
was appropriate, she provoked
a strong reaction,
which in turn sparked
a discussion
of the words adorning her dress. Coming at the same time that
Congress is considering a massive $3.5
trillion spending bill
that includes a modest rewriting of the U.S. tax code to garner
more revenues
from the top
earning tiers,
the message on the dress was apropos.
It was also
fitting that Ocasio-Cortez donned the controversial dress right
around the 10th anniversary of the Occupy
Wall Street (OWS) movement,
which aimed a razor-sharp focus on the rich and their infamous tax
evasion. That movement sparked a new level of class consciousness
among the American public using language such as “we are the 99
percent” to identify the obscenely rich as the source of
unequal power and wealth and put them on the defensive.
The
right-wing pushback against taxation of the rich has been relentless,
eager to cast the wealthy as benevolent caretakers of the economy.
Fox
Business
echoed a popular statistic, saying, “The richest households
paid 40.1% of all federal income taxes in 2018,” adding that,
“[t]he share of taxes shouldered by the nation’s richest
individuals has climbed over time,” as if to suggest that
wealthy Americans are becoming more generous.
That
assessment conveniently plays down the critical fact that the rich
suck up a disproportionate (and increasing) percentage of all
earnings. The mistaken notion of the wealthy as generous revenue
generators, as Jonathan
Chait
explains, “turns the fact that rich people account for a
massive share of the income pool into a reason to see them as
mistreated.” Chait also reminds us that the statistic that Fox
Business cited focuses only on federal taxes, not all taxes. When
accounting for all taxes, the rich pay a much lower percentage of
revenues.
Increasingly,
higher taxation of the rich is a very
popular proposal,
rejected by only the very wealthy and their allies, which is why the
reactionary responses to Ocasio-Cortez’s dress are so puzzling.
When put into
the context of the modest proposals to restore
the tax code
to pre-2017 levels, the message is hardly radical, and indeed, some
on the left have used the “tax the rich” message as a
jumping-off point to pithily demand it’s time to “eat
the rich.”
Others have
expanded the conversation to remind us that the Met Gala is an
opportunity for wealthy Americans to write
off donations,
suggesting that Ocasio-Cortez’s dress could have sported the
(somewhat less catchy) slogan, “This Event Is a Tax Loophole
for the Rich.”
USA
Today
used the story of Ocasio-Cortez’s dress as a jumping-off point
to identify who qualifies as wealthy enough to face higher taxation
and to clarify that “[m]ost U.S. households will not see a tax
increase.” This is an important counterpoint to head off the
standard right-wing argument against higher taxes, which plays on
fears that taxes will rise for all Americans.
The dress also
sparked a conversation around the fact that the U.S. tax system has
become regressive
over time and that the Democrats’ modest proposal to increase
the top marginal income tax rate and add a surcharge on incomes of
over $5 million, “will barely dent America’s long slide
from progressive taxation.”
Ocasio-Cortez
herself has continued the conversation, explaining in her Twitter
post
about
the dress that the increased tax revenues are necessary for funding
bread-and-butter progressive policies. She wrote, “The time is
now for childcare, healthcare, and climate action for all. Tax the
Rich.”
This article was produced by Economy
for All,
a project of the Independent Media
Institute.
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