Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Ben Stein Just Compared Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Hitler and Stalin, and He Has a Bonkers Warning of What Will Come From AOC's Proposals

Ben Stein Just Compared Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Hitler and Stalin, and He Has a Bonkers Warning of What Will Come From AOC's Proposals
Ben Stein appears on Fox Business, January 22, 2019. (MMFA video)

And...there it is.

Since she first won her primary against 10-term incumbent Joseph Crowley, New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has became a favored target of the right-wing. In their latest attempt to discredit her, Fox Business guest Ben Stein compared Representative Ocasio-Cortez to several genocidal dictators.

For those who only know Stein as a game show host or actor, he was also President Richard Nixon's speech writer.


In his remarks to Fox News, Stein said:

"We have a society in which there are an awful lot of people who have no idea that Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung (Mao Zedong) all came to power promising the same kinds of things that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is promising. And it led to mass murder, it led to dictatorship, it led to genocide."

"These promises are old promises and they invariably lead to bad things. The promise of just saying to the people do what you can within the law to make your life better and your family's life better — that system works extremely well."

"Capitalism is a system that allows people to make something of themselves instead of oppressing other people. It's an incredibly good system."

"Making money is one of the most of harmless things there is to do in the whole world. And that's what our society is about."

"It's not about ordering people around, putting them concentration camps. What do you do if there is a richer or poorer person?"

"What do you do? Do you take him away? Do you shoot him?"

"Well that's what the Communists tried, it didn't work out very well for them. And at the end of the day we ended up with Russia with one of the most of unequal societies there's ever been in the world."

"In Vietnam, which promised all these things, and we wind up with one of the most of corrupt countries in the world. In Venezuela, I don't know how corrupt it is but people say it's one of the most corrupt countries in the world."

"We don't wind up with the promises people made."

Media Matters For America (MMFA) shared Stein's remarks on social media. Watch it here.

MMFA monitors print and online media and at least 150 hours of television and radio each week, providing fact checking as well as the lowlights and highlights. Comparing the New York Representative to genocidal dictators because of her conservative tax proposal—which would have far less impact than the tax brackets of the 1950s-1980s—was a lowlight.

People thought perhaps an adviser to President Nixon was not the best person to preach morality in the first place.

Ben Stein's own past featured in many of the reactions to his comments.

People also shared the tax rates of different Presidents, including Stein's boss. Did he also tell Nixon, he was just like Hitler, Stalin and Mao?

Many questioned Stein's knowledge of history.

While some merely questioned Stein's relevance now that he traded in spokesman for a president who resigned in disgrace for game show host of Win Ben Stein's Money.

Others refuted Stein's words.

While many noted how scared conservatives appear to be of Ocasio-Cortez.

Ocasio-Cortez suggested a higher tax rate, a throwback to the tax rates President Ronald Reagan eliminated in the 1980s, but only for those earning over $10 million.

More from People/alexandria-ocasio-cortez

Screenshot of Molly Ringwald; Donald Trump
@mollyringwald/Instagram; Win McNamee/Getty Images

Molly Ringwald Urges Fans To Speak Out Against ICE And 'Fascist' Trump In Powerful Video

Actor Molly Ringwald—best known for her roles as a member of the "Brat Pack" in films like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club—denounced President Donald Trump and ICE, telling fans she "can’t stay silent and neither should you."

Ringwald, speaking out mere days after ICE agents murdered ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, told her followers in a post on Instagram that she had previously "been so proud to be an American but right now this is a fascist government.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots of Liam Conejo Ramos receiving pilot wings
@johnquinones/Instagram

5-Year-Old Boy Abducted By ICE Gets Wings From Pilot On Flight Home To Minneapolis In Sweet Viral Video

5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was taken to an ICE detention facility in Texas along with his father, finally returned home to Minneapolis on Sunday and received his pilot wings thanks to Delta Air Lines pilots on the flight from San Antonio.

Ramos and his father were abducted by ICE agents on their way home from preschool in the Minneapolis area last month; Ramos is the fourth student from the Columbia Heights School District to be swept up in the Trump administration's nationwide immigration crackdown.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Carlson in pink jacket and Carlson from interview
MPR News

Woman In Pink Jacket Who Filmed Alex Pretti's Murder Speaks Out In Emotional Interview

Stella Carlson, better known online as the "woman in the pink jacket" who recorded the murder of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis, is urging Americans not to let ICE "intimidate" them.

Calls for an investigation have intensified from across the political spectrum after analysis of multiple videos showed ICE officers removing a handgun from Pretti—a weapon that authorities said Pretti was permitted to carry but was not handling at the time—before fatally shooting him.

Keep ReadingShow less
A photo of purse with "See you later" and a waving hand
Photo by Junseong Lee on Unsplash

People Break Down The Real Reason They Stopped Liking Someone But Never Told Them

Not every relationship is a forever deal.

Sometimes it's best to just let people go.

Keep ReadingShow less
Jordin Sparks; Halle Berry
Gary Gershoff/Getty Images; Kate Green/Amazon MGM Studios/Sony Pictures Entertainment/Getty Images

Fans Defend Jordin Sparks After She Publicly Asks Halle Berry To Read Her Screenplay About Menopause

You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take, and singer Jordin Sparks put that philosophy into action at the end of January.

Halle Berry has been a household name in Hollywood for the last few decades, and now in the middle of her life, she's loudly advocating for increased representation and awareness around women's health and women's experiences, especially what happens to a woman's body during perimenopause and menopause.

Keep ReadingShow less