Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is on fire! She is young, open, honest, attractive, ethnically diverse, a woman and she speaks from her gut. Alex is the exact opposite of what the Congressional representative has become: old, out of touch, biased, polarized, mostly old white men, and… let’s admit it… not looking so good on a big screen TV. The conservatives hate her. Her fellow Democrats will hate her when she jumps the queue and the media focuses on Alex rather than her more experienced colleagues. She has lots of haters waiting for her to make a mistake. And she made a BIG mistake.

Alex is only 29 years old. Unlike more traditional junior congressional representatives, she did not intern at the White House or at a well connected lobbying firm. She was a bartender. One of the people. That’s why we all love her. However, she is an idiot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of her supporters. I LIKE her! But she is an idiot.

But don’t get defensive! I’m pretty sure an uncomfortably large number of my readers are also idiots. You see, being an idiot not necessarily meant to be a lifetime occupation. We all start out as idiots. Our purpose in life should be to work our way up the intellectual ladder, filling our minds with correct and verifiable ideas. Some will move past the idiot stage quickly, others will linger here, while still others like the neighborhood and decide to settle down there.

But maybe you just don’t like the term idiot. Fair enough. How about fool, clod, or dullard? Still no good? OK. How about student. When you start as a student you may know nothing of a subject, or worse, you learn over time that what you thought was knowledge was just a collection of poorly convinced ideas, prejudices, and you shouting louder than anyone else in the room. A Professional idiot… sorry… student, makes a career of their ignorance. Many of these professionals can be found on the nightly news, and often ply their trade somewhere in Washington.

But let’s return to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is young, and she doesn’t have a background in politics. Therefore, Alex is a student and needs to learn about a lot of issues to even form an opinion about which actions need to be taken by Congress. Like other passionate students who raise their hand and have something to say in front of the classroom, she needs to check her facts before she speaks. Especially if she is a freshman and she’s taking a class with seniors. Typical freshman mistake!

Just what did Alex say? She said that most Americans hold down two jobs and work a lot of hours. Specifically, “Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family.” Alex, our bright shiny Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez… was wrong. Sort of. Well, mostly. But not really. Maybe.

Let’s unpack this as two statements. First, we have the statement that parents can barely feed their families. This one is hard to understand and harder to answer. America’s biggest health problem is that we all are or will be… fat. Not exactly the signs of starvation. That’s not to say that we’re getting the right food. America’s definitely don’t eat enough vegetables. But that’s not the same as not having food. The broad statement is that many Americas are poor (or not rich?) and an even broader statement is that there is growing economic disparity in America.

I’m OK with the “growing disparity” idea. This is true. Wealth is being concentrated in America. Fewer people own more of the world than ever before. But that is a barely recognizable echo of what Alex said. Still, I think this is where she was headed. She just needs to be more precice.

Which leaves the other statement… two jobs, 60-80 hours. Also wrong. Here she makes an even graver error she uses numbers that are wrong. Of course, conservatives tore her apart on this. Because, of course, conservatives get REALLY angry when politicians just pull numbers out of the thin air. I mean, that really ticks them off. They just couldn’t stand it if a major, conservative political figure became known for making up facts when he needed them. But I digress.

Officially, only 5% of Americans have two, full-time jobs. Not “everyone”. However, there are many part-time jobs that are not “on the books”, and not counted by the Department of Labor. For millennials like Alex, that number rises to 35%.

In the past families were supported by a single income, usually the husband/father. Today, 69% of families have two incomes. The younger you are, the more likely that the female in the household works. For millennials, 79% of women who live with a partner have a full-time job. Also people ar working longer. Not 80 hours, but on average American’s are working 47 hours in their primary job, and the long term trend is longer work hours. Compare this to the 1950s, when the 40-hour work week was king (with an hour for lunch).

While Alex has the wrong statistics, she does have the right idea. Americans are working harder. It used to take one person, working just 35 actual work hours to support a family. Today, the most common family arrangement is for both parents to work… 47 hours each. And quite a few have a second job of some sort. Of course, if you’re the female in the relationship, and you have children, chances are you have ANOTHER full-time job taking care of the kids and the home.

Remember, we can all be idiots. We all WILL be idiots. But when you’re a national celebrity you do need to be sure of your facts when there are reporters around. After all, we can always use another student of politics, but we’re already got enough political idiots in Washington!