During the third Democratic debate, a Republican PAC ran an ad condemning socialism and urging young people of color to join the Republicans. As one may imagine, the left went into a meltdown.

 The ad featured Ocasio-Cortez's official portrait as socialism's sunny face, and then attempted to compare that nice smiling face to socialism's real record, which includes Pol Pot's killing fields of Cambodia, where about a third of the nation was slaughtered in the socialist nightmare following the Vietnam War. After that, the ad featured a terrific segment by Elizabeth Heng, a Cambodian-American Republican, whose family just barely escaped those killing fields, explaining why she was a Republican.

Power Line's Scott Johnson had the best snap analysis:

The highlight of the Dems’ debate this week must have been the 30-second advertisement run by Elizabeth Heng’s New Faces GOP PAC (video below). In the ad Ms. Heng explains the true meaning of socialism to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her followers. Gary Saul Morson gives a longer account of the phenomenon in “How the truth dawned.” Glenn Reynolds offers this characteristically concise and optimistic take on the ad and AOC’s predictably stupid reaction to it: “LEFTISTS ARE STILL TRYING TO COPE WITH THE LOSS OF THEIR ACCUSTOMED IMPUNITY.”

Heng, recall, was a Fresno candidate for Congress in the last ballot-harvested California midterm whose ads were censored by Facebook over her trying to tell her personal truth about the killing fields of socialism. She's now being blasted for trying to tell it again. 

Its only problem was its graphic special effects. In the transition from Ocasio-Cortez to the killing fields, a fire image was used to burn through the photo of Ocasio-Cortez and reveal the reality of socialism, in this case Pol Pot's Cambodia. 

That was all the left needed to evade having to address the issue of socialism's record.

Sigh. Did the maker of the video really need to do that? The only thing being zeroed in on is the symbolic fire image, the left is curiously silent about all the other stuff.

The problem with the fire image is that it allowed Ocasio-Cortez and all of her allies to completely change the subject from socialism's verifiable record. They ought to be explaining why their socialism will be a really good socialism despite the record of Cambodia, Russia, Cuba, China, North Korea, Venezuela...not all of which attained power through the barrel of a gun. In Venezuela's case, the country became a hellhole through exactly the kind of rhetoric Ocasio-Cortez espouses now. Rather than address that, the fire-focus has enabled Ocasio-Cortez to do what her fellow squadster Rep. Ilhan Omar does, which is play the victim. Which is supremely ironic, given that Heng was an actual victim of socialism.

It hasn't stopped them.

Leftists are now calling for boycotts of ABC News.

The New York Times is making absurd linkages like this:

The televised commercial came weeks after the shooting in El Paso, where a white nationalist killed 22 people in the deadliest massacre targeting Latinos in modern American history. Since El Paso, many Latinos have said they fear for their safety, worried about future attacks by white supremacists.

Omar is tweeting dreck like this:

This is horrifying to watch.

When will the Republicans learn how to offer ideas and solutions without stroking fear and inciting violence?

Enough is enough. They need to pull this garbage off the air and issue an apology to @AOC. https://t.co/pxSW0iUgSR

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 13, 2019

Fredo Cuomo is treating Elizabeth Heng like this:

.@ElizabethHeng: "I was merely making the point –"@ChrisCuomo: "You set her face on fire."

Heng: "Do you want to know what incites violence? That's socialism."

Cuomo: "I think ads like that incite violence." pic.twitter.com/eVxsH4T5dJ

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) September 14, 2019

All of them are seizing on that one little metaphoric transition in the fire image to try to sweep under the rug the extremely important message of the ad, which is that socialism has a murderous record and anyone espousing it ought to be embarrassed and answering a few questions about their rather sick will to power over others. 

It's just a shame to see Heng having to try to explain herself over this instead of forcing Ocasio-Cortez to answer questions about the murderous ideology she's trying to sell like snake oil to the public.

I can't tell from her various media appearances whether she made or approved the ad, but it's impressive that she's taking ownership of it - and snapping back to Ocasio-Cortez for calling her a 'white supremacist.'

Still, I rue that fire transition as detracting from the topic. I made a couple gif markups that show how it might have went, which might have put Ocasio-Cortez on her backfoot, unable to ignore the socialist record.

Sigh. If only. Ocasio-Cortez is the one who should be on the defensive over socialism, not Elizabeth Heng.

Image credit: YouTube screen shot, photo gif illustrations by Monica Showalter from public domain sources.