When the Met Gala Met the Left Bank

Hating the rich, as political satirist P J O’Rourke reminds us in his 1988 book, Eat the Rich, is a booming cottage industry the world over. And nowhere does it take on its most showbiz form than in the heart of the capitalist beast: New York. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrat politician-activist with more Left Bank than Left credentials, in her latest act of class war wore a dress with the words, ‘Tax the Rich’, splashed across a white Brother Vellies gown. If irony had a voice, it would have let out a high-pitched squeal at the fact that AOC wore her agitprop at the Met Gala, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art annual dinner, on Monday. After all, this is not your regular Shaheen Bagh-style sit-in or local jaagran, but an event with $35,000 tickets and tables that go up to $300,000. So, yes, a hall full of highly taxable people, who are already highly taxed.

The venue of AOC’s stunt may be considered apt — extolling veganism in a swamp full of crocs. But effective? Would ‘Quit India’ have worked if it was launched in a grand soirée at the Taj Mahal Hotel attended by the crème de la crème of British India and attendant brown sahebs? Who knows? O’Rourke may have the last word on this, ‘Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.’ Right on, brother.